Deep Inside your Systems

by Uzi_Doorman_Fiction-Kin (LunarCrystalWrites)

Summary:

If you’d told Uzi even two months ago that she’d be a hero to her home, have her mother back, and be rebuilding her relationship with her father, she wouldn’t believe you.

But that’s exactly what her current situation is! Her mother is back, her dad is actually trying, and she even has a boyfriend now, N!

Now if only her tail parasite known as Cyn would shut up……

Her situation takes a nose dive without warning, with sudden headaches, language malfunctions, and more.

Apparently Uzi Doorman cannot go for longer than a month without issues.

[the struggle it took to not write this in First Person POV TwT]

Chapter 1: Chapter 1, Uzi Doorman

{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}
Uzi
{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}

If you’d told Uzi even two months ago that she’d be a hero to her home, have her mother back, and be rebuilding her relationship with her father, she wouldn’t believe you.

But that’s exactly what her current situation was, her mother was back, her dad was actually trying, and she even had a boyfriend now, N!

All of this she kept going over mentally, trying to figure out where the trick was, where the other shoe was waiting at before it dropped.

She was used to that kind of song and dance, of being happy only to be hurt later.

The stunted purple drone had been dealing with that song and dance since her mother died.

Uzi was roused from her thoughts, and from her sleep, by an inexplicable feeling of loneliness.

“Bite me…..” Uzi grumbled into her pillow, burying her face into it.

She was not keening like a sad animal, she was not!

It was just, her stupid systems seemed to have turned against her, with various “Instinct” protocols having made themselves apparent.

Uzi bet it was due to her whole Absolute Solver powers mess that she’d gotten herself into.

“Poke. Poke. Are You Awake?”

Oh yeah! That was another fucking issue!

Uzi lifted her head up and glared at the head on her tail, which was doing its best to give her a cheeky look with its stupid toothy mouth.

“I am trying to sleep!” Uzi spat, bristling in anger, before she ran a hand through her hair to flatten it, in an effort to keep her hair from bristling like a cat’s hackles.

“Oh, But You Will Be Late For School If You Sleep Longer” Cyn said, tilting her head.

“Bite Me! School is useless, friends are useless, everything is useless!” Uzi snapped, flipping onto her back and flopping her arms to either side as she stared at the ceiling.

Cyn’s little head invaded her vision, staring down at her, multiple yellow eyes unblinking.

“But You Will Not Be Able To See Big Brother N, Or The Rest Of Your Pack If You Skip School”

Uzi bristled again at Cyn’s words.

“I don’t have a pack! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Uzi snapped, eye twitching as she debated over whether strangling Cyn would be worth the pain.

“Then Why Do You Keen For Them?”

Uzi snarled, the low rumble thrumming from her chest suddenly, and actually startling the poor drone, who flinched, eyes wide as she looked around for the source of the threat, only to freeze with an embarrassed purple blush spreading across her visor as she realized the noise had been her.

“Amused Giggle. Were You Not Aware You Can Growl Like A Kitty?” Cyn asked, the little head practically vibrating with the force of her giggling.

“Shut up, and stop possessing my tail before my mom or dad comes in here and sees you!” Uzi snapped, and sighed in relief when Cyn thankfully obeyed, the tails eyes turning back to purple as it went limp.

Uzi then quickly forced the tail to retract, before she got off her bed, stretching out, feeling the minor, unusual armor plating she bore click as it set into place.

She quickly shrugged on her usual jacket and boots, she didn’t have to worry about her beanie since she wore that to bed, but she still did adjust it.

She paused and stared at herself in the shattered mirror, her hands gripping the counter with surprising strength as she stared at the alien sight of the color of the top of her visor display being her yellow, something she hadn’t gotten used to, and doubted she ever would.

Uzi sighed softly, running a hand through her tangled hair, before she straightened up and turned away from the mirror, and the wrongness of the face staring back at her from her shattered reflection.

She could deal with her conflicting thoughts later, for now it was probably best that she actually y’know, get out of her room and attempt to survive her day.

Uzi paused as she felt a slight ache in her head, but she brushed it off as Cyn being an idiot and messing with Uzi because she could, either that or Cyn was currently violently rearranging the mental space because she still couldn’t decide being it looking like the Elliot Manor or Copper-9’s snowy wastelands.

Uzi opened her door and stepped out, ignoring the second, fiercer ache in her head.

Chapter 2: Chapter 2, normal day, not normal headache

Notes:

Thad uses any pronouns, so I will refer to him as She/Her, He/Him and They/Them, I hope this doesn’t confuse y’all to much!

{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}
Uzi
{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}

Uzi trudged out of her bedroom, quickly heading down the short hall, before pausing at the entrance to the living room/kitchen.

Her dad, Khan, was standing by one of the kitchen counters, a mug of battery acid infused factory oil gripping in his hands like it was a lifeline.

Sitting on Khan’s shoulder was a small crab like core, Nori, Uzi’s mother, Nori was gently rubbing one claw against Khan’s cheek, like she was trying to comfort him.

Uzi cleared her throat, and her dad’s head whipped around, before he smiled slightly upon spotting Uzi.

“Mornin’ K-Uzi” Khan said, briefly stumbling over Uzi’s name, like he was about to call her a nickname but aborted it last minute.

“Morning dad” Uzi mumbled, rubbing her visor briefly, before she actually stumbled over to her dad and leaned against him, head pressed against his chest.

She simply stood there, relaxed, utterly comfortable, but the instant her dad went to pull her into a proper hug she backed up a little, before returning to her spot once Khan lowered his arms.

“Alright, I get it, no hugs allowed today” Khan said, a bit of the teasing tone only dads could achieve hidden in his tone.

“Shut up……” Uzi muttered, but she did snicker softly, before stopping as her head ached again, fierce enough to be a minor headache this time.

‘Yзи…..’
[Uzi…..]

Uzi paused, the distant word, hidden in the depths of her mind, reminded her of something, but she brushed it off.

“Remember to pack extra cans of oil for school, we don’t want a repeat of last week!” Nori said scoldingly, clearly trying to be intimidating, but Uzi would’ve been more intimidated if her mother wasn’t a living core.

“Yes mother” Uzi said sarcastically, quickly getting out of range of any objects Nori might playfully throw at her with her solver.

“Quit it Missy” Nori snarked, but Uzi thought she could hear the tiniest bit of laughter in her mother’s voice, so she considered that a win.

Uzi quickly grabbed her bag, checked inside to make sure she had everything she needed, before she headed out of her home for the dreaded soul sucking torture known as school and disguised as a learning experience.

She spotted Thad and Lizzy walking along the same road, the two drones walking close together, to the point where Lizzy was basically leaning on Thad as she walked.

“You miss Doll too, huh?” Thad whispered right as Uzi came close enough for her audio receptors to pick up the words.

“She was our girlfriend, Thad…… of course I miss that Russian idiot” Lizzy whispered right back, and Uzi blinked a couple times, because while she knew Thad and Lizzy were dating, she didn’t know that Doll had also been involved.

“Hello!” Thad called as he spotted Uzi, and Lizzy immediately straightened up so she wasn’t leaning on her partner anymore.

“Hello, or whatever” Uzi grumbled, but she did offer Thad a small, awkward smile, feeling guilty over what happened to Doll, even if it wasn’t technically her fault.

‘Это не было’
[it wasn’t]

Uzi flinched as Russian words sounded in her head again, before she shook herself off, ignoring the stab of pain in her head.

“So, greeting each other is nice and all that, but we should like, probably get to school and all that” Lizzy snarked, already having started walking again.

“Oh! Yeah, right, we probably should-“ Thad said, immediately going to follow their girlfriend.

Uzi rolled her eyes, but quickly followed after them, matching their pace, and actually finding herself relaxing in the presence of the two, since Thad had really really been awful to Uzi, and Lizzy had genuinely been trying to be better recently.

“Do you have any idea what your dad had planned for this lesson?” Thad asked Lizzy as they walked, his head tilted a little.

“Nope! He didn’t tell me anything, but like, I’m guessing it’s another essay or something like that” Lizzy answered, waving a hand nonchalantly as she spoke.

“Do you think you could convince him to go easy on me and Uzi test scores wise? Essays are not my strong suit, and Uzi will most likely somehow end up with a railgun blueprint or something like that instead of an actual essay” Thad asked, wicking slightly as she mentioned how essays weren’t her strong suit at all.

‘нет, это не так’
[no they aren’t]

Uzi winced as the strange, alien words caused her head to hurt even worse, causing her to stumble.

“Uzi? Uzi are you like, okay?” Lizzy questioned, having spotted Uzi’s stumble.

“I’m fine! Totally fine, you can all Bite Me! I’m just fine!” Uzi snapped, but stumbled again as her vision swam, her head pounding even worse.

“What’s going on now Lizzy?” Came a soft grumble, and Uzi blinked to clear her vision, and she realized Lizzy’s father, Teacher, was standing there, arms crossed as he studied the scene.

“I don’t know! She was standing there like that for ten minutes before I called you!” Lizzy yelped, turning her head and locking eyes with Teacher.

Uzi gasped softly as a bolt of pure savage pain split through her head, making her vision swim and her thoughts go slightly fuzzy.

Uzi heard a strangled sound almost like a pathetic whimper, but she wasn’t sure where it came from.

She stumbled, her vision glitching out as several warning popups appeared on her HUD, along with a notification reading ‘Admin_Callback_Ping_Detected! User Id:-ProudAussieGirlT0’

Uzi’s legs gave out, and the last thing she heard before she passed out was the panicked shouting of Thad, Lizzy’s yelp, and Teacher’s tired sigh.

Chapter 3: Chapter 3, mighty hunter, loyal friend

{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}
N
{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}

N was overjoyed as of late, the Absolute Solver had been defeated, he was no longer feared by most of the drones of Outpost three, he had a girlfriend, and everything was peaceful.

Plus today was so cloudy that the sun didn’t even peek out of the thick snow clouds, meaning N could fly out in the daytime, even if it was only for the blizzard.

He should’ve been completely happy and content, but instead a small hurt echoed inside of him, reminding him of what he’d lost.

His pack, his family, his sisters V and J, and Cyn to, and his sisters mate Tessa.

Cyn was dead, he didn’t know where J was plus she was hostile, Tessa was dead, killed by Cyn, or at least N thought, and V refused to stay with the colony for reasons of her own, and spent her days and nights alone in the wilderness, avoiding N like the plague, possibly out of guilt.

Disassembly Drones were not meant to be solitary, this N knew, his instincts screamed it.

They were meant to be pack creatures, living and hunting in at least groups of three, and it didn’t even have to be family, it could be close friends to!

But N was alone now, and while Uzi and Thad and even Lizzy were kinda pack, Thad and Lizzy were Worker Drones, and Uzi refused to accept her instincts at all.

A low, long, mourning keen escaped him, the sound strengthening into an almost chirp like sound, but the times louder, and sounding almost like ‘ping’.

A ping call, meant to locate lost pack members and help them find their way home, or to call for help from pack members when alone and hurt.

N ping called again after a couple minutes of hurtful silence, but there was no answer, and the distressed disassembler didn’t really expect one.

N swooped down low to one of the huge ice lakes, trailing a claw along the surface of the frozen water as he flew, causing small shards to fly up as he carved a thin slice into the surface of the lake.

He then flew higher, flapping his wings hard to gain height, even if it was the ion thrusters at his wings elbows that really did the work, providing lift via powerful thrust, kinda like the thrusters of that one human comic superhero, Iron Man.

N wasn’t really hunting today, he was good on oil for now, and he was feeling a little to sleepy, so he was definitely not okay to hunt, he shouldn’t have even been flying, but he’d been restless and the weather was absolutely perfect today.

N yawned loudly, and an internal alert went off as his vision dimmed slightly, warning him that he needed to get into the ground before he fell asleep while flying and crashed.

N drifted down, and landed in a tree, quickly wrapping his tail around the branch he landed on, and folding his wings around himself, yawning again.

N sat down and brought his knees up to his chest, he then brought it his arms up onto his knees, and rested his head on his elbows.

N yawned once more as he drifted into a sort of half asleep half awake state, his headband optics remaining on to watch for danger while his main optics shut off so he could recharge briefly and get the sleep he needed.

N paused and blearily lifted his head up as a notification pinged in his systems, he wiped some frost off his visor before checking the notification.

‘Message from ‘Super normal Group Chat!:

‘Pronouns?!I’llTakeAny!: N? N, dude are you awake?’

N huffed softly before responding.

‘Message to ‘Super normal Group Chat:

‘Biscuits_X_Dog18: I am now….. what do you want?’’

N could have probably avoided being so rude, but he was tired, and now that he had been woken from his nap he was certain his narcolepsy would strike at a more inconvenient time.

‘Message from ‘Super normal Group Chat:

‘Pronouns?!I’llTakeAny!: Uzi passed out, like out of nowhere! She was acting like her head hurt real bad, and then, bam! Her visor would’ve met the floor but Teacher managed to catch her, though why he did so when he’s so…… Teacher, I have no idea’

N’s core froze, and he immediately spread his wings wide, all traces of sleepiness gone, for now.

‘Message to ‘Super normal Group Chat:

‘Biscuits_X_Dog18: I’m on my way! She’s not hurt right?!’

‘Pronouns?!I’llTakeAny!: No external injuries, but she hasn’t woken up yet, and Teacher’s about to call her parents if she doesn’t wake up soon.’

‘Biscuits_X_Dog18: alright, I’ll be there soon!’

With that N closed out the group chat, and flapped his wings hard, putting the ion thrusters at full power as he surged upwards.

He adjusted his feathers once aloft, before he angled himself in the direction of Outpost Three, and soared off, flapping quickly.

As N flew he could only pray and hope, his core consumed with worry for Uzi.

‘Please be okay Uzi, please be okay, I don’t want to lose you to!’

Notes:

Usernames:

Pronouns?!I’llTakeAny!: Thad

Biscuits_X_Dog18: N

Chapter 4: Chapter 4, held captive, in a nest

{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}
Uzi
{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}

Uzi groaned, coming back to full wakefulness with her splitting headache unfortunately still there, although it was a bit better now.

“Uzi!”

She blinked at the loud, enthusiastic voice, before grunting softly as N threw himself at her, quickly wrapping his arms around her, his whole chest vibrating as he simultaneously purred and made weird chirping and trilling noises.

‘Scared! Mate Hurt! Scared!’

Noises that Uzi could unfortunately translate the meaning of, much to her dismay, since she was trying to ignore the animalistic traits the Absolute Solver had given her.

‘невыполнимая задача’
[an impossible task]

“It’s okay you big idiot, I’m fine” Uzi whispered, gently patting N’s back as she spoke.

“But you were out for two hours!” N protested, before he devolved right back into his chirping and trilling, this time adding little fussing noises to.

“And that’s a big deal why?- I sleep for longer each night” Uzi said, trying for a joking tone in order to lighten the mood.

“It’s like, no joke Uzi, you were out for two hours, and the couple scans my dad did showed that your systems like, overloaded” Lizzy said from her position by the wall, and Uzi startled slightly, having been unaware that Lizzy was in the room.

“Yeah…… are you alright? I dont think your systems would normally be running at such high power, or were even capable of overloading without outside help” Thad chimed in, before she leaned against Lizzy, resting her head on her girlfriends shoulder.

“……their not supposed to be” Uzi mumbled, staring down at her hands as she remembered some of the things she’d learned from her uncle, Mikall, about how a drones system was incapable of overloading by itself for no reason.

So why was hers?

N seemed to sense her discomfort, and nuzzled into her, purring softly and actually gently kneading at her, like a giant cat.

“N?” Uzi asked, noticing how he almost seemed out of it.

N lifted his head up, and Uzi blinked, realizing that his visor display showed ‘Get instinct hazed Idiot, lol’ on it, instead of his usual eyes.

Oh shit-

Uzi actually yelped as N picked her up, lifting her up into a bridal carry like it was nothing, before he padded out the room, darted down the hall as quickly as he could, and exited the bunker.

Uzi shivered a little as N swiftly took off, wishing that he would fly a little slower so the wind didn’t rip through her coat as much.

N landed in the old spire of corpses the Disassembly Drones had used as a home in the past, and quickly walked over to a small pile of blankets and oil drained Worker Drone body parts arranged in an oval of sorts.

N dropped Uzi into the nest, and walked away, leaving Uzi free to access the groupchat for a moment while N did whatever he was doing.

‘Message to ‘Super normal Group Chat:

‘DarkXWolf17: help, N has kidnapped me’

Uzi sent, and within seconds she got a response.

‘Message from ‘Super normal Group Chat!:

‘Pronouns?!I’llTakeAny!: are you okay?! He hasn’t gone into an oil-lust mode has he? I don’t think he was out hunting earlier, but he could’ve been and my message could’ve interrupted his hunt, so he may be murdery right now-‘

‘Live-Fashion-AndLike,Love: Chill babe, I don’t think he’s murderous, otherwise we’d be scraps of metal, ripped to shreds by his claws’

‘Pronouns?!I’llTakeAny!: oh- man, I wish I had claws and wings like them! It would be awesome to fly in the sky with wings like theirs, and imagine all the things you could do with those claws!’

‘Live-Fashion-AndLike,Love: a lot of things, I’m sure the weapon arms are very versatile. But, Uzi, are you like, okay?

‘DarkXWolf17: currently, yes. He dropped me into this next thingy, and I think he’s getting one of the corpse from the spire- oh there he is-‘

After sending her last message Uzi exited out of the group chat, since she could see N walking towards her, part of the torso of a Worker Drone corpse gripped in his hands.

He dropped it by her head, before he then carefully settled into the nest beside her, curling around her and ignoring how squished the nest actually was.

“You are so out of it right now, and I will never let that go” Uzi snarked, flashing N a teasing smile, and snorting softly when he stared back at her blankly, or so she assumed, his visor display still had the message on it so she couldn’t see his eyes.

N huffed after a minute when Uzi didn’t touch the oily piece of dead body he’d put in front of her, and after a second he gently poked it with a claw, glancing at her like ‘please eat, I got it just for you!’.

Uzi sighed softly, and sat up slightly, ignoring how N grumbled softly as she dared to move from lying down.

Uzi lifted up the metal chunk and took a bite out of it, actually breathing a sigh of relief as her temperatures returned to normal, she hadn’t even realized she was overheating, thanks to her splitting headache.

“Thanks N…..” Uzi whispered, looking at N, surprised that he’d actually noticed her overheating, and decided to bring her the oil himself even if she was in his nest and the oil from the dead scraps of body was dripping down onto the ragged coats and towels that helped to make up the nest.

N simply started purring, and reached out an arm and pulled Uzi down into a cuddle when she finished the oily dead body part.

Uzi turned off her optics, breathing a sigh of relief as her headache eased slightly.

She nuzzled against N, relaxing for the moment, even though she knew that they would have to return to the colony soon, to figure out what caused the headache if nothing else.

‘два сентиментальных идиота…]
[two sappy idiots….]

Notes:

Chat usernames!:

Pronouns?!I’llTakeAny!: Thad

Live-Fashion-AndLike,Love: Lizzy

DarkXWolf17: Uzi

Chapter 5: Chapter 5, it’s getting worse Uzi……

{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}
Uzi
{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}

“Sneaky Giggle. Big Brother N Is Asleep. Sneaky Sneak. Get Snuck Up On Lol”

Uzi startled awake at Cyn’s words, and quickly grabbed her tail, yanking Cyn backwards before the little shit could dare to bite N.

“Quit it! You’ll wake him up!” Uzi whispered hissed, keeping her voice low both to avoid waking N and to avoid making her throbbing headache worse.

Which was concerning, because drones didn’t get headaches out of nowhere, and since Uzi hadn’t suffered any blows to the head, her headache had to be internally caused.

‘ Вау, Шерлок’
[no shit Sherlock]

“Big Brother N Sleeps Like A Rock, One Bite Will Not Wake Him. Giggle” Cyn shot back, managing an almost cheeky look despite the limitations of what facial expressions the toothy mouthed head at the end of Uzi’s tail could pull off.

“Yes it would! He’s a predator, Cyn, like you made him to be! If you bite him, he will bite back! And today I really don’t feel like feeling you get torn off my tail only to regenerate later” Uzi snapped, before sighing softly, lowering her head, turning off her optics in an effort to make the stabbing ache in her processor’s cease.

N stirred in his sleep, and his tail reached over and gently curled around her wrist, the needle kept carefully pointed away from her casing.

“You Know. Deliberate Pause. The Cabin Fevers Could Have Answers” Cyn said, tilting her head as she slowly crept closer to Uzi, until the toothy heads nose was nearly touching Uzi’s own.

‘В ужасе Eldritch есть смысл’
[the eldritch horror has a point]

[authors note: it doesn’t translate to that, but that’s what I got in the google translate for English to Russian T-T, if somebody knows the proper Russian for ‘The Eldritch horror has a point’ please let me know-]

“You’re right…… okay, now shut up and fuck off, I need to wake N, because this headache is killing me and I need it to stop” Uzi grumbled, elbowing N sharply once the lights on Cyn’s little head turned from yellow to purple, signaling that the eldritch horror was back to wherever she stayed when she wasn’t haunting Uzi.

“Mmmmm….. Biscuit?” N mumbled softly, tilting his head slightly to look at Uzi, his tone sleepy and confused, and Uzi maybe died inside a little because of how cute and sweet his British accent sounded in the rare moments like this, where he let it slip out when his barriers weren’t up.

“Wake up, I was thinking, if something’s wrong with me, the Cabin Fever Labs might have answers, and if they don’t, at least we tried” Uzi explained, already shrugging off N’s arm and standing up.

“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense” N mumbled, before he literally stretched like a cat, spine arching and armor plates clicking into place, powerful wings extending and flexing, the ion thrusters briefly whirring faintly.

Uzi blinked, caught off guard by the animalistic stretch, even if she knew that N could be somewhat more like a giant cat than a drone sometimes.

“Alright! Let’s get going then!” N said cheerfully, grinning at Uzi as he took off into the night sky.

Uzi unfurled her own, leathery bat like wings, and took off after him, wincing as the almost half formed feeling appendages stung, the weak joints protesting the rapid movement.

Her halfway numb yet still pained wings combined with her headache would’ve enough to give her another headache on its own, this time a headache from sheer frustration.

Uzi spread her wings wide and glided, every single little finger of her wings outstretched, allowing the dark purple membrane in between to catch the air, meaning less work for her.

“Hey! No fair, I can’t glide!” N playfully protesting, still flapping as he flew, since his ion thrusters required the input of movement to keep running, meaning that without flapping the thrusters would shut off within three minutes, and since N’s feathers were more for extra weapons then flight due to the razor sharp edges, N could not glide, and thus was stuck flapping hard while Uzi glided.

“It’s not my fault those feathers are for show!” Uzi teased, grinning at N as he huffed in response, and feeling a warm feeling in her core when he smiled right back.

‘ Того, кто предпочел стиль вместо функциональности для этих крыльев, нужно расстрелять’
[Whoever chose style over function for those wings should be shot]

Uzi flinched as the invading Russian words made her headache spike, and she lost a bit of height as her wings halfway folded, before she managed to climb back up to her previous altitude.

“You okay Biscuit?” N asked, pulling a kicked puppy sort of face as he saw Uzi struggling.

“Я в порядке, Н.”
[I’m fine N]

Uzi blinked as she spoke in Russian, before she shook her head and forced a hard restart of her language protocols before she answered N properly, “I don’t know why I spoke Russian there, but what I said was I’m fine N”.

N nodded, but looked unconvinced, and for the rest of the flight he kept shooting her worried glances, like he was worried about her headache worsening enough to cause her to fall out of the sky.

Uzi tensed a little as they both landed by the Cabin Fever Labs and entered, remembering the incident with the Sentinels, and how V had been prepared to sacrifice herself for them.

“Uzi……. UZI!” N yelped, and Uzi froze, whipping around to stare at him, only to find him facing off with V, who was looking at him like ‘why are you here/why are you in my house’.

“I’ll tell Sparky to make sure the pack fucks off” V muttered, tail twitching back and forth as she subconsciously fiddled with the end of the long red scarf she now wore.

Aside from the scarf, and her glasses, V looked the same as when Uzi had seen her last, right after they reunited after Uzi stopped the Solver.

Uzi felt her core ache, because something inside her kept screaming that this was N’s sister, N’s pack, and so she was Uzi’s pack too, and pack should not be apart.

But V had been choosing to stay away from the colony for her own reasons, and Uzi was not about to figuratively bash her head into a wall while trying to convince the female Disassembly Drone to stay at Outpost Three.

“V….. I- if- if I did something, anything, to make you avoid me, I’m sorry” N whispered, reaching out a hand, before pulling it back as V leaned away a little.

“It’s nothing you did N. I just…… need some time alone” V muttered, before she unfolded her wings and took off, leaving N and Uzi behind as V clearly ran from some sort of emotional issue.

“Well, that was unexpected, now shall we head deeper into this place?” Uzi asked, jerking her thumb over her shoulder as she spoke.

“I guess…..” N mumbled, a soft keen briefly escaping him as he looked up in the direction V had fled, before he followed Uzi into the Cabin Fever Labs.

Notes:

One thing I keep forgetting to mention but I will say now: I do not know Russian or claim to know it, any and all Russian is done with google translate, so there’s probably mistakes, and I’m sorry, I do not mean to offend anybody.

Chapter 6: Chapter 6, cabin fever labs, take two

{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}
N
{———————\{P.O.V}/————————}

N glanced back one more time as they entered the lab, hopping for a glimpse of V, but his adoptive sister was long gone, fleeing to who knows where for who knows why.

N sighed softly, before he turned the glow of his nanite syringe canister on, so it would function as a flashlight, he did it because he remembered J doing it for Tessa, back in the mansion, and the warm glow made him feel comfortable, because his systems associated the glow with J, his older sister, who’d protected and cared for him in her own way, once, before she lost Tessa.

“I didn’t know your tail could glow” Uzi commented, glancing back as the glow illuminated the walls.

“Oh, it’s just the nanites glowing, my headband glows too, pretty neat right?” N asked, smiling as he turned on the glow of his nanite headband to, showing Uzi how it glowed to.

“Yeah, that’s actually kinda neat. I guess Cyn did think of some things properly, unlike how badly she designed your wings” Uzi snarked, walking forward down the hall, keeping her eyes out for any trace of the Sentinels that roamed the building.

N huffed softly, but didn’t otherwise respond, instead opting to stay silent as he kept a careful eye on his surroundings using his headband optics.

Movement flickered in the corner of his vision, and he quickly looked behind him, only to tilt his head in confusion as he saw a vent cover by the floor shake a little as something retreated back inside it.

“You see something N?” Uzi asked, giving him a confused look, and N noticed that her tails heads maw was wide open, emitting light as the throat pouch it had, filled with a mysterious glowing liquid that Uzi said wasn’t nanite acid but wouldn’t say what it was, glowed, causing its throats inside to glow.

“I thought I did…… but it’s probably nothing, let’s just keep looking” N said, continuing to walk down the hallway, although he did keep his tails needle at the ready, the serrated edge of it gleaming in the light cast by his and Uzi’s tails.

N paused when he heard something, a low chitter, a sound he’d only heard Uzi make once before, a sound he’d guessed was unique to Solver Drones.

But when he looked at Uzi, she looked confused at the sound, like she hadn’t made it, which was kind of concerning since Uzi and her mother Nori were the only living Solver Drones the colony knew of, which made the noise they’d heard unusual and kinda creepy.

“I almost feel like somethings stalking us…..” Uzi muttered, opening a door as she spoke, the rusty hinges practically screaming at her as she did so.

N followed her into the room, and started to examine the walls as Uzi went right over to a desk and started looking through papers on it.

N lifted his tail up so he could see the papers on the wall better, and nearly choked.

All over the walls were research notes, taken by humans, the handwriting crazed and frenzied, multiple horrible quality drawings of strange drones with Sentinel features.

Blueprints of a core designed to withstand and give off extreme amounts of electricity that would be lethal to normal drones, blueprints of reflective visor glass to defend against a bootloop light flash.

Notes wondering if crossbreeding with Worker Drones and Solver Drones were possible, notes and crappy drawings about Disassembly Drones weapons forearms and how to manufacture them, and a high quality photo of two Worker Drones, with the assigned numbers 033# and 003#.

N peered closer at the photo of the two drones and stiffened, while 033#, who had his long blond tipped black hair tied up in a bun and had a teal visor display, wasn’t anybody he knew, he recognized 003#, the white visor display and small scar across the visor glass was distinct, even if he had short and scruffy blond tipped black hair and lacked his signature black mustache in the photo.

003# was Khan Doorman, Uzi’s father, and apparently he’d been used in this ‘Security Drone Protocol’ experiment, and if it succeeded and had gave Khan these traits, that made Uzi a very unique and rare hybrid, perhaps the only one of her kind.

It certainly explained how the spikes on the base of her tail, the base of her tails head, and her ankles had membrane inbetween them, and how she was able to jump so high and was able to resist high shocks after gaining her Solver full force, since those were not traits that a normal Solver Drone had.

N backed away, confused and maybe slightly scared, since it seemed the humans of Copper-9 had been attempting to play God again, by making code-engineered predators for Solvers, making living weapons, even though the humans probably hadn’t put any thought into how to control their bred and created monsters.

“N? N, I found something!” Uzi called, and N was immediately snapped out of his head.

“What is it?” N asked, forcing his attention away from the notes as he walked over to Uzi and peeked over her shoulder.

“Answers, these are all notes about the various tests done on drone systems, and there’s even a folder dedicated to causes for overloading, meaning that hopefully there’s answers in here” Uzi quickly said, bundling the papers and folders up and storing them in her jacket pocket.

“Find anything?” Uzi asked after a second, twisting her head to look at N.

N nearly froze, briefly wondering if he should tell Uzi about the notes on the ‘Security Drone Protocol’ project and how her father had been involved in it, but ultimately decided against it, “No, everything on the papers on the wall is gibberish, unintelligible”

“Alright, then let’s get going” Uzi said, she didn’t sound convinced, but thankfully she let it be as she exited the room, quickly heading down the hall.

N was about to follow when he heard a soft clatter, and he quickly whipped around, his eyes widening a little as he saw something with red glowing eyes peek out of the vent shaft by the floor.

A red visor displayed drone, although N couldn’t see their body so he didn’t know their appearance beyond their visor display color.

They stayed like that for a minute, staring at each other, but the second N went to call out a greeting, the drone quickly retreated back into the vent.

“C’mon N! The sun’ll be rising soon” Uzi called.

“Coming!” N yelped, and immediately turned around and darted out the door after her, quickly catching up.

“Let’s go home, this place gives me the creeps, feels haunted” Uzi said, spreading her wings and launching into the sky, and N followed, unable to agree more.

It felt like something inside the lab had been watching them, analyzing them, tracking their every movement, studying them, deciding if they were friend or foe.

And N really hoped they didn’t decide him and Uzi were foe, because whatever kind of creature managed to evade Uzi’s sensors was a creature N didn’t want to tango with.

Notes:

Y’all do not wanna know how long I struggled with sitting down to write this, only for the writing to be easy and not hard and tricky to figure out like I thought- TwT-

Sorry about this taking so long, oof over a month since the last chap, sorry guys!

I’m trying to get the rest down, but procrastination issues!

On a side note, and y’all don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but:

Have y’all heard of the ship LizzyXThadXDollXV? I genuinely cannot find it anywhere, and that’s making me sad since i genuinely ship it hardcore, and it’s always gonna be an endgame ship in my fics, so the fact that I can’t find other stuff of it anywhere is beginning to worry me, because as absolutely impossible as it surely is, I’m beginning to get worried I created the ship, even if I severely doubt it-

Chapter 13: BEING REWRITTEN!-

Hi, Author here!-

Here’s the news on this, and I am so sorry for the not updating since, like, May 9th- I hit multiple snags- MULTIPLE SNAGS-, so- here’s to say this: Deep Inside Your Systems is going to be technically rewritten- the intended points of the plotline will eventually come back around again, but this story as it is will not be continue-

Don’t worry! I’ll leave this up Y’all-, and I can even post the fragments of what I had of the next chapter if ya want-

For now though, while I work out the snags of my AU timeline and plotline, if you want more of the Copper-9 Chronicles AU, please consider checking out my Manor Prequel fic “My Drones, My Family”, or my Oneshot/random story idea storage fic thingy “”Tame” doesn’t mean “Domestic””-

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 5 of Copper-9 Chronicles