Rewritten Script

by SpeedytheKitty

Summary:

Throw out the old script, let's take it from the top.

Serial Designation A (she prefers Ava) has lost a lot in her time on Copper-9. Namely, the drone she loved more than anything, though she never got the chance to tell her how she felt.

When she meets J, they really couldn't be more different, right? That's all Ava sees on the surface, really.

Turns out, they may be more alike than either of them think.

Notes:

Thanks to my polycule for being so nice about this fic :D! And for encouraging me to post it.

This has been a bit of a passion project for a few months now, and I finally got the courage to let it into the wild.

So please enjoy! I literally haven't posted my stuff onto ao3 in like three years omfg

Chapter 1: Start a New Page

Static churned through Ava’s chassis as she scaled the dilapidated building. It was her favorite spot to stargaze, and the sky hadn’t been this clear in months. Maybe the planet almost exploding…again…had its perks.

Just as Ava hauled herself onto the roof of the building, a ping flashed onto her HUD. Uriel, of course. Any time someone wandered away from the squad, they would ping every ten minutes. Ava responded, as did Yuri. He must’ve gone on his own as well. Everyone else was together, since no one else relayed their own ping.

Ava tilted her head to the sky, finding the twin moons immediately. With how bright they were, it almost made her forget she wasn’t standing in the sun. Almost.

Ava settled down onto the rooftop, leaning against the frozen shell of what was probably an air conditioning unit once upon a time. After a great internal debate, she finally settled on what book to listen to, some old biography about the first trip humans took to the moon. It was a miracle, she thought, that they made it at all. From one small step, to colonizing all these outer planets, to…well, regardless of what happened to the other planets, it was quite obvious what happened to the humans on this one.

Uriel pinged again. Ava responded, then Yuri did the same a minute later.

She lifted a hand and used it to find the constellations she had drawn out herself. The skull, the bird, the pouncing drone. While she wasn’t under the same stars as Earth, she could still make her own bit of fun.

That was until she noticed clouds rolling in.

Ava groaned, letting her arm drop to her side. Well, there went her plans for the night. Still, she wanted to stay there a bit longer. Maybe the clouds would move on and she could continue.

Likely not, but she still didn’t get up yet. Her tail swayed slowly beside her as she watched the sky. Her viewing angle for the stars got smaller and smaller the longer she sat there, the rolling clouds steadily moving to coat the sky once again. Robo-god, of course her perfect night had to be ruined by the fickle weather. But she’d be damned if she went back before the sky was completely covered, even as it began to snow.

Another ping from Uriel, followed almost instantly by a second one. They weren’t just checking in, that was a signal that Ava needed to return. A double ping from Yuri signalled he was heading back. Reluctantly, Ava got to her feet as she sent her own double ping. I’ll be back soon.

As she paused the book playing in her head, she glanced toward the sky one last time. Only the twin moons and a tiny patch around them could be seen now. A flash of light in the clouds caused her to flinch. She understood Uriel’s urgency now.

With a running start, Ava leapt off the building and deployed her wings. Being a scavenger drone, she wasn’t exactly a strong flyer, but she could glide just fine. It was a straight shot back to where her squad was, it should have been a five minute flight.

Should have.

The snow was coming down stronger now, pelting her with heavy flakes. She sent out a ping to make sure they hadn’t moved without her.

But she only got her own echo in return.

A bolt of lighting struck nearby, the thunder booming so loud it made her core rattle. 

Ava tried sending out another ping but still received no response. The frightened whirring of her core was loud in her audials. Another lightning strike next to her didn’t help matters, causing her to startle and throwing her off balance.

As she tried desperately to right herself, the wind picked up with a sudden gust that slammed into her side. Ava was sent tumbling through the air, her limbs flailing and she tried to correct her course. Desperately, she sent out an S.O.S. that only came right back to her.

The wind died down enough that Ava could glide straight again, but it wasn’t much help. The snow was near blinding now, it was impossible to make out anything in front of shem.

“Shit, shit, shit!” She yelled, though the noise was swallowed by a shrieking gust of wind that blasted her from behind.

At least she was prepared for it this time. She was able to use it to push her faster forward, but she had no idea if she was still heading in the right direction.

She was swiftly informed that she was not.

A structure seemed to burst through the snow ahead of her, and with the wind at her back, Ava had no time to change course.

She slammed head first into the structure, letting out a yell as she felt her visor crack upon impact.

It took her a few moments to regain her bearings. She’d hit…a spire? Even in the heavy snow with her blurred vision, she could make out the blinking “FATAL ERROR” on nearby heads. She shuddered, but it was better than nothing.

Ava forced her limbs to move until she found the edge of an entrance. She put all of her strength into pulling herself forward, just barely managing to get her center of gravity through the opening in the wall.

Of course, that meant she sent her body tumbling through with the help of another gust of wind. She had no time to try and cling to the wall, so she was sent into a freefall.

This second impact was at least marginally softer than the first since she landed on snow, but her entire body ached all the same. 

She couldn’t move. Everything hurt. Her vision was blinking in and out.

Was this what it felt like to die? Was this how Irene felt when she-?

 

Ava didn’t remember passing out. After a quick reboot cycle, her eyes blinked on once again. Once they adjusted, she was relieved that there was no lasting damage to her vision. Praise Robo-God for her healing nanites.

Her relief went out the window when she realized there was someone in front of her.

Ava tried to scramble backwards, but stopped in her tracks when a dizzy spell slapped her in the face hard enough that she almost fell again. How much oil did she use up healing?

“Oh, good. You aren’t dead. That means I can sue you for trespassing.” The other disassembly drone hissed.

Ava’s eyes hollowed. This wasn’t just any disassembly drone staring down at her. The yellow eyes…this was a paragon . The best of the best.

She quickly averted her gaze. Making eye contact with a paragon had to be rude, right? She’d never been so close to one.

“S-s-s-” Her voice box must have been damaged in the fall. Ava gave it a quick reset before she tried again. “Sorry, ma’am.”

Ava could see the paragon raise an eyebrow at her from the corner of her eye.

“I suppose I should sue you anyway for copyright infringement. I didn’t believe anyone was idiotic enough to try and copy a clearly trademarked design.”

Ava realized with a start that the paragon didn’t know she was a scavenger.

“I’m a disassembly drone too-!” She snapped her mouth shut when she realized she had raised her voice, forcing herself to stare at the ground. “Sorry, ma’am…”

She watched the other drone’s tail lash, acid sloshing around inside the canister. “What’s your designation, then?”

“Av-” Ava cut herself off. Wrong name, stupid. “Serial Designation A, ma’am.” There was no way that saying her name would go over well. She sent out another S.O.S. just in case her squad could hear her.

No answer.

The other drone narrowed her eyes at Ava. “Serial Designation A, where is your squad?”

“I was separated in the storm, ma’am. We scavengers aren’t good flyers.” Ava hazarded a glance toward the other drone’s face.

She had turned her head to look out the ground entrance of the spire. Ava’s eyes trailed down as she spotted the other drone’s armband. Serial Designation J…

J began to turn toward her again, causing Ava to drop her gaze near instantly.

“On your feet, Serial Designation A.”

Ava popped up, or at least tried to. She was halfway up when another dizzy spell hit her, causing her to stumble forward into J. The taller drone shoved her away, sending Ava back onto her rear in the snow.

J scoffed. “Can’t follow a simple order…unbelievable.”

Ava shrunk in on herself. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I must’ve been more hurt in the crash than I realized.”

J glared down at her for a moment before turning away. “At least you know how to speak to authority.” She mumbled to herself. There was a pause before she spoke up again, “It would be a waste of resources to force you out now, therefore you may stay until the storm passes. You are not allowed in the landing pod.” With that, she deployed her wings and flew back to the ship in the center of the spire. Ava hadn’t even noticed it was there until now.

She sighed, letting herself relax for the first time since she had face-planted into the snow. Staying here was less ideal, but she couldn’t exactly leave in this storm.

A convenient clap of thunder reminded her exactly why.

One last time, Ava attempted to send an S.O.S. to her squad. She waited, staring at her internal clock as she did.

Five minutes.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Twenty.

“You aren’t going to get a response through in this weather.”

Ava looked up and saw J watching her from where she was perched atop the ship. She realized then that J must’ve been receiving the distress signals she had sent out.

“Sorry, ma’am.” Ava mumbled out.

The half-assed reply must’ve satisfied her, as she disappeared into the ship without responding.

Well, Ava was stuck here for the foreseeable future. She shivered, though she didn’t exactly feel cold. It was going to be difficult to sleep all by herself, and she wasn’t doing it out in the open (or as open as she can be inside the spire). She tried to stand again, but pain shot up her spine like lightning and forced her back to the ground.

Guess I’m staying over here. On the ground. Ava surveyed the area. She was lucky she hadn’t fallen onto any of the piled up corpses nearby, or else she might’ve been even more severely hurt. By now, her healing should’ve been done, but she still felt pain radiating up her back.

A quick self-scan left her staring at her HUD in shock.

No injuries found.

When Ava tried to stand again, it was still painful, but she could be upright. Only briefly, though, as when she tried to walk, her legs buckled.

“No injuries found, my ass!” She hissed.

But getting angry didn’t stop her pain. So, she decided to do something useful instead.

The snow was thick enough, and a quick test showed that it could hold its shape well enough. Ava hadn’t needed to make one of these in a while, but once she started, the movements became second nature to her.

No more than fifteen minutes later, she had sculpted a basic but sturdy enough little den for herself out of snow. Her personal best was only five minutes, but she could stand and move a lot better then as well.

An internal warning let her know she was being watched. A moment later, she heard footsteps approaching her from behind. Ava turned just enough that she could see J walking toward her.

“What are you doing?” Her voice wasn’t as stern as before. She sounded…tired.

“Making a place to sleep, ma’am.”

“There are plenty of places to hang.”

Right, paragons and recons slept hanging by their tail.

“Scavengers don’t hang to sleep.” Ava mentioned. “I needed somewhere I’d feel safe.”

J was silent for a moment, probably considering what she’d said.

“Why haven’t you tried to stand?”

She had tried but only briefly. “I am in pain, ma’am. I can’t walk right now.”

J went quiet again. Part of Ava expected her to demand she stand up again or perhaps insinuate she was lying about being in pain.

“My scanner says you aren’t damaged.”

Alright, looks like she’d take the latter route.

“Mine did as well. But I’m telling you, ma’am, I wouldn’t be dragging myself on the ground if I didn’t have to.” Ava turned back to the snow den she had made, giving it a once over. Structurally sound. “And, for the record, copyright and trademark infringement are different things.”

She could hear J’s processors stutter and reveled in the indignant noise she let out.

Score one for Ava. Good job me.

Whatever pride she had felt at the comeback was swiftly knocked out of her as she felt something connect with her side, sending her sprawling into the snow. She curled in on herself, both from the agony of the hit and to protect her core. Claws dug into the snow beneath her, ready to swipe if need be.

“I thought you knew how to speak to your superiors, scavenger. Learn your place before you become a corporate liability.” J hissed. “I don’t tolerate insubordination.”

The scavenger felt more than heard J take off again, leaving her laying there. Stray flurries of snow drifted down around her after being kicked up by J’s abrupt departure. Ava sheathed her claws again and pushed herself upright.

Oh, Robo-God, why did I say that?  

Ava felt her tail begin to lash, reaching around behind her head to grab the frayed ends of her hair. As she stuck the synthetic fibers in her mouth and began to chew, she cringed internally.

Oh, Irene… Ava let out a sigh. I was doing so well.

She forced herself to stop as soon as she could, despite how much the loss of her main comfort made her stress levels spike again. Her hair was already in rough shape. Chewing was only making it worse.

Ava pushed herself upright again and glanced around the immediate area of her little den. An arm from a nearby corpse would satisfy her needs, hopefully. The only problem was, “nearby” still meant about twenty feet away.

Internally, she wondered what was more humiliating, using her hair and ruining it further or dragging herself on the ground like an injured animal to get something else?

Ava did a scan of the area, finding J’s heat signature inside the ship. That decided for her. The only (living) drone in the area wouldn’t see, so she pushed down her pride and used her arms and her stiff, frost-covered wings to drag herself to the nearest corpse.

The drone had been split down the middle, and only the left half lay in front of her. Robo-God knew where the rest of them was. While checking the body, Ava spotted part of the drone’s core peeking out and felt herself begin to salivate.

How much oil had she used while healing? Is that why she was still in pain?

No, that wouldn’t be the case. Maybe.

Ava sighed. Having a snack wouldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been built explicitly to clean up leftovers. So, she picked up the broken core and took a better look at it. No signs of any leftover acid, not that she didn’t have the neutralizer in her saliva. It had been chewed on a little, but that didn’t bother her. She took a bite, then another, and before she fully processed it, the core was gone and the scavenger was licking oil off of her hands.

Near instantly, Ava could feel energy surging back into her. Emboldened, she tried to get to her feet…only to bite back a shriek as the pain flared up once again.

Another desperate scan, another declaration on her HUD stating that nothing was damaged. She let out a low growl, her tail lashing furiously. What was the point of having healing capabilities if they didn’t work?

She was still upright at least, but it was a small consolation. An experimental step let her know rather quickly that her legs still were not functioning properly. Her left leg was certainly weaker than her right (distantly, Ava wondered if she had landed on her left side), but she was able to walk by putting most of her weight on the stronger leg.

A few hobbling steps later, and she was back at the little den she had made herself. It was tricky, trying to go inside without collapsing, but she succeeded with a little patience.

Ava pressed herself against the far wall of her little den and curled into a ball. Despite her near constant overheating, she shivered. It was going to be a lonely night without her squad. The den was too big without them, even though Ava had done her best to make it only big enough for her.

She wondered what they were doing right then. Were they trying to contact her but not getting anything through in the weather? How far off course had the wind blown her?

Ava sighed. She’d try contacting them again when the storm died down. For now, she began to search through her memory files, looking for something with everyone in it. Something that might make her feel less lonely.

“First_night” was vague, but it would do for now. She tugged off Irene’s armband, held it tightly in her hand, and let the memory play.

Her eyes were closed tightly, but she still knew exactly what was happening around her. Eleanor was in front of her, arms wrapped tightly around Ava’s body and letting out a stuttering purr. They were practically on the verge of tears, Ava knew. At her back was Ophelia, face pressed between where her wings would be. With the grip she had on Ava’s shirt, she was likely crying as well.

One of her hands was clasped in a tight grip by Uriel. They weren’t the most affectionate of the group, but this was a special circumstance. The only one missing from the pile was Yuri, but she knew that he had gone elsewhere. His idea of coping was isolation, and Ava couldn’t blame him.

Well, there were technically two missing from the group.

Ava knew very well what memory this was.

“S-s-s-s-she’s gone…” Ava stumbled out, her voice box glitching and hoarse.

Ophelia’s grip on her shirt tightened. Eleanor inhaled sharply.

“We know, Ava.” Uriel’s gentle voice sounded from somewhere off to the side. They squeezed her hand, trying to comfort her. “We know.”

“She did it for us.” Eleanor reminded her.

Ava shook her head. “She’s still-” she tried and failed to force down a sob. “She’s still gone !” She wailed into Eleanor’s chest.

Maybe this wasn’t the best memory to choose. Ava could feel the tears building up.

“It…it’s okay, Ava.” Despite Eleanor’s attempts at reassurance, it only made her cry more.

She shook her head. It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t going to be okay for a long time.

Ava tightened her grip on Irene’s armband. The reason why Yuri was gone then was to look for whatever was left of Irene’s body. She remembered Uriel chewing him out for almost an hour when he got back, and she definitely remembered how Yuri, usually the most defiant of them, stayed silent the entire time.

When Uriel finally calmed down, he had presented Ava with the armband, torn and stained with oil. It was the least he could do, he’d said. There hadn’t been much left.

She closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling of the fabric in her hand, the snow pressing around her, and the quiet whirring of her core.

When the storm passed, she’d go find them. One way or another.

A lone scavenger is a dead scavenger.

 

Ava was forced out of sleep mode by the feeling of snow piling on top of her in a sudden pomph .

She popped upright, bursting through the now collapsed den she had made herself, to find that J was standing before her, arms crossed.

“Get up, you waste of oil. I’m going to be generous and not let you be late on your first day.”

Ava felt her claws unsheath, her fingers splitting open to accommodate them. A hiss built up in her throat, but it died in an instant when J turned away and swung her deadly tail mere inches from Ava’s face. She wasn’t suicidal enough to mouth off when a simple flick of the paragon’s tail could drive that needle straight through her core.

Not a chance she wanted to take.

She checked for Irene’s armband, finding it buried under the snow next to her. After tying it back onto her arm, Ava finally got to her feet. Without bothering to step away, she shook her entire body out like a wet dog, flinging off the snow that still clung to her hair and chassis.

“Undignified…” she heard J grumble as she took a few steps away from her.

Ava flashed a glare in the paragon’s direction, her tail flicking. I can show you something really undignified if you want, bitch.

But she knew better than to say that. She half turned away from J to fix her hair. Sticking the ribbon tie into her mouth for safekeeping, she carefully undid the horribly messy braid. Without her hairbrush–keeping those supplies was usually Eleanor’s job–she couldn’t work out the knots in her unkempt hair. Ava knew it made her look like a wreck, but there wasn’t much she could do to fix it other than putting it in a ponytail and calling it a day.

“What is it you need me to do?” Ava asked finally.

J turned back around to look at her. “You staying here has conditions, and one of those conditions is going to be employment under me. Today is your probationary period.” Ava opened her mouth to protest this arrangement, but J only narrowed her eyes and continued before she said a word. “You said you were a scavenger, correct?”

“…Yes, ma’am.” Ava mumbled in response.

“Good. Prove it. Your first task is to scavenge up as much oil as you can find in the spire.”

Ava blinked, surprised. A quick once over of the immediate area with her scanner revealed plenty of leftovers–oil pooling in still intact limbs and uneaten cores–but that didn’t answer her main issue with this.

“Why?”

J crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at her. “Questioning authority on your first day? I’m shocked you’re-”

“Save me the spiel and humor me. What do you get out of me doing this?” Ava questioned.

J looked as though she was ready to snap again but took a breath and didn’t bring it up.

“Show me how efficient you truly are. JCJenson wouldn’t make a useless model, so this is to prove your worth to me.” Her tone was measured, each word calculated in their delivery, but the agitated twitching of her tail gave her away.

“Limiting me to the spire seems inherently inefficient.” Ava pointed out.

The twitching of J’s tail upgraded to proper lashing now.

“If you wish to throw yourself out into the sun, be my guest.”

Ava’s eyes hollowed as her vision darted to the nearest entrance to the spire. Bright, beautiful, burning sunlight poured into the morbid structure.

Well, damn.

Her internal clock read 1 p.m. Ava didn’t realize she had slept that long.

With a flick of her tail, she shifted her attention back to J, who was staring her down with a thoroughly unimpressed look.

“Moron.” She heard J mumble.

Should’ve killed me when you had the chance then.

As soon as the thought entered her mind, Ava shook her head and turned away from J. “Can I get started now?”

“Why haven’t you already?” J asked in response.

Ava bit down her reply and instead approached the spire wall. There was a surprising amount of leftover oil in the bodies that made up the structure. If she was going to be asked to do this more than once, Ava figured she should gather from higher up while she wasn’t in pain.

The familiar burn of static building in her hands caused the red paw pads to glow faintly. Ava found a perfect spot to start, fitting her hands carefully into the gaps between bodies. With a soft “hup!” she hauled herself up enough for her feet to catch.

She took a few experimental steps, making sure everything was in working order, but the fact that she didn’t go tumbling into the snow was a good enough indication that everything worked just fine. Ava took a steadying breath and began to climb.

Once she was about halfway up, she began gathering oil. Most of the effort in breaking open the corpses was done with her tail’s scalpel-like stinger and small, carefully portioned amounts of acid. Compared to the vial on the end of J’s tail, Ava’s capacity was pitiful. Not that she ever really had to use it for anything other than corpses.

Her work was steady, methodical. This wasn’t the first time she had to scavenge in a spire. Most bodies only had morsels to offer, but even morsels add up eventually.

She’d barely made it to the ceiling when she noticed that her reserves were at max capacity.

“I’m full now, can I come back down?” She called to the paragon watching her from the ground.

“Keep going.” was the response she got.

“Keep-?! I just told you I was full!” Ava yowled back down.

What happened next was too fast to keep track of. One moment, J was on the ground below her. The next, she was inches from Ava’s face. Her hair was yanked so harshly that the scavenger’s neck was nearly at a ninety degree angle, joints and servos creaking and popping in protest.

“I was trying to be polite, but if this is the attitude you want, then so be it.” She felt J hiss in her audials.

Ava hardly had any time to process what she meant before searing pain overtook her processor.

Overlapping warnings flooded her HUD, impossible for her to read. She realized with a start that J was feeding from her, fangs buried into the exposed point where her neck met her shoulder.

The paragon had a voracious appetite (though Ava assumed they all did to an extent). She watched in horror as her oil reserves trickled down to about a third in seconds, but J wouldn’t let up. If she didn’t stop, Ava would be drained directly into a meltdown.

Desperate times, they say.

Ava pulled her hands away from the wall, electricity building, sparking between her fingers, and slammed them against J’s head.

There was a shriek, and her neck was released. Ava swore she could hear J’s core stutter.

Then J began to fall.

Before she fully realized it, Ava was falling too. Maybe she’d overdone it. She wasn’t sure.

Oh well.

Ava tried to deploy her wings to stop her fall, but it proved to be too little too late.

She wasn’t even sure what she landed on. All she knew was feeling her chassis shatter a second time, then sliding down to land, finally, in the snow.

Even after the dust settled, Ava could barely see around the clutter overwhelming her HUD. If she strained–which she only tried briefly–she could somewhat make out J collapsed on the snow nearby.

Some part of her hoped J wouldn’t get up.

Another wondered if she would get up.

 

Despite the “LOW POWER” warning flashing in her face, Ava never lost consciousness, despite her vision shutting itself off. She stayed where she had fallen as the healing nanites spread through her system at a crawl .

It made her want to scream, but her voice box was in the middle of resetting.

One by one, warnings began to disappear from her HUD until the only one that remained was alerting her to low oil levels. Between J feeding from her and all the power she used up while healing, her tank was practically empty. At least the bodies on the ground had plenty still to give.

A low groan pulled her out of her own head. It wasn’t any noise she made, so it must’ve come from J.

Ava attempted to get her vision back online but found that her operating system wouldn’t cooperate. Hopefully a hard reset would fix that.

As that worked in the background, the scavenger listened in to the sounds of J finally stirring.

There was rustling, then a pause. She could just barely make out the sound of J’s core whirring louder and louder.

“You absolutely idiotic fucking waste of-!”

There was a pause in her tirade, then Ava choked as she felt something collide with her torso. The jolt forced her optics back online just to see J glaring down at her.

“I should kill you. I should rip your chassis apart and leave your core to burn in the sunlight.” J hissed, her stinger hovering inches from Ava’s face. She could’ve impaled the scavenger through the visor with a simple flick of her tail.

“And if you really wanted to, you wouldn’t be talking to me about it.” Ava pointed out, using the back of her hand to bat J’s tail out of her face. “Trust me, I’ve done that tactic before.”

Finally, her body decided to cooperate, allowing Ava to push herself upright. She leaned against what she realized now was one of the spider-like legs of the landing pod. That was likely what she’d landed on before. Every inch of her wiring burned with the pain of effort, but she only let it show in a glare she leveled at J.

“I should report you to HR for insubordination!”

The threat didn’t exactly land. “And I can report you for assaulting me. Either finish the job or leave me alone so I can finish healing.”

“I’d say you’re as bad as N, but at least moron bot never had the guts to fight back.” There was a pause, and J muttered, more to herself, “At least until that defective purple toaster came along.”

A worker? How could a worker have changed a paragon so drastically?

J had continued to rant, pacing back and forth in front of her, but Ava tuned her out.

It would be dangerous, but part of Ava wanted to try her luck with going to find her squad on her own. If she ran into trouble, she’d be dead, but she wasn’t sure she exactly felt safe with J either. At least if she stayed, she’d have a steady source of oil with all these corpses strewn about.

Paragons really were inefficient when it came to feeding.

“J?”

A new voice pulled her from her thoughts.

Standing in the entrance of the spire was another paragon, wearing a long coat and a pilot’s hat.

When did he show up? Ava watched him closely as he stepped further into the spire.

His face lit up, and his tail began to wag excitedly as he broke into a run with his arms outstretched.

“You’re alive!”

J took a few steps back before swapping one hand for a sword that she leveled at his core, stopping the other paragon in his tracks.

“Don’t touch me.”

He raised his hands in surrender, his excitement dwindling but not dissipating entirely.

“Wipe that stupid grin off your face. You lost the right to be happy to see me when you got us both laid off.”

The other paragon deflated, his tail drooping. “We didn’t have to fight, you know.”

J crossed her arms and looked away. The two fell into an awkward silence until the other paragon locked eyes with Ava. All of his excitement returned in an instant, and before she realized it, he had lifted her up underneath her arms.

While Ava could see him speaking, could watch his mouth move, the words were lost under a tidal wave of agony that crashed through her body the moment she was moved. It must’ve shown on her face because the other drone’s eyes widened in shock.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry, are you okay?” He asked all at once.

She tried to clear her CPU enough to answer, but the scavenger must’ve taken too long trying to form words, as the next thing she heard was, “Put her down , N!”

There was another hurried “sorry!” before Ava was set back down on the ground. N–the other paragon, apparently–had settled in front of her, watching with worry etched all over his face.

“Sorry” was the first thing out of her voice box when everything had calmed down enough for her to speak.

“No, no, it’s okay!” N reassured her. “Biscuits, I’m the only one who should be sorry. I shouldn’t have picked you up like that without warning.”

There was a pause, before N spoke again. “I, uh, had asked if you remember me, but I’m realizing now that that was a…different…drone.” His entire body seemed to droop like a scolded puppy. “You might still know him though! He had red lights, like you, but with curly hair and a red streak in it.” As he spoke, N mimed a big puff of hair on one side of his head.

Ava knew instantly who he’d met. “Oh, that was Y. He mentioned encountering a paragon before, I guess that was you.”

Her answer seemed to spark his memory. “Y! That’s right! He was out looking for something. I helped him out, and he told me about you guys.” His tail began wagging once again.

Ava noticed out of the corner of her vision how shocked J looked as N mentioned meeting Yuri. Had she really not known that scavengers existed?

“I’m Serial Designation N! It’s nice to meet you, uh…” He trailed off.

“Serial Designation A.” Ava filled in.

“A! Nice to meet you, A.” N beamed at her with a smile that could rival the sun.

“Likewise, N.” Ava managed a smile of her own.

“Where’s the rest of your squad? Are they nearby?” N glanced around as if he could spot them hiding somewhere within the spire.

Ava shook her head. “Just me. I got separated from them in the storm yesterday.”

“Oh…” His smile fell, but he just as quickly tried to steer the conversation in a more positive direction. “Well, uh, at least they can’t miss the giant corpse spire?”

“That would require them to know that I’m here. Our comms haven’t been working properly because of the storm.” Though part of Ava wondered if her downed communication system was just another casualty of her faulty healing software. Only time would tell.

N gave an almost absent nod, his attention having very clearly drifted elsewhere.

Ava lifted a hand and brushed it against her neck, holding in a hiss as her pain sensors were once again set alight. Clearly it hadn’t finished healing.

N obviously wanted to ask about it but had enough sense to stay quiet. Ava glanced to J, who was pacing across the spire, then back to N, a silent answer to his unasked question.

He blinked, then suddenly understood. “…Why?”

“Too good for old oil, I’d guess.” Ava rolled her eyes. “You guys are horribly inefficient, by the way. The amount of leftover oil in this spire alone could sustain my entire squad for a month.”

J whipped around so fast that Ava might’ve flinched if she hadn’t been expecting it (hadn’t said it for the exact purpose of angering the paragon).

“How dare you!” J began stomping her way back over to the two of them. “I’ll have you know, scavenger , my team always made top quarter out of the entire company. Considering I’d never even heard of you or your squad until yesterday, that isn’t a good look on your productivity.”

As J neared them, N rushed to his feet and placed himself between her and Ava, arms outstretched to block the paragon from getting closer.

“Hey, hey, let’s calm down a little.” He tried to pacify her, though he looked as if he knew it wouldn’t work.

J didn’t try to shove past him. Instead, she stayed where she was and stared Ava down with a look that could kill a worker drone before she even touched them.

Luckily for Ava, she was not a worker drone.

“And of the two squads, which one is still together?” Ava asked. “Considering N didn’t even know you were alive, sounds like you aren’t on the best terms.”

“As if I need my squad! I alone can do more in a day than your entire squad could accomplish in a month. Meanwhile you”–J gave Ava a very pointed once over–“you look as though a determined toaster could take you down.”

Ava bristled, but she had to admit that J was right. A lone scavenger is a dead one.

So she chose a different response.

“Hey, at least I didn’t have to get someone else to feed me because your delicate little tongue can’t handle old oil.”

J’s face lit up in fury in an instant. Her hand shifted into an assault rifle that she aimed at Ava’s head.

“J, no! ”

The air exploded with the sound of gunfire. Ava covered herself with her wings, bracing for the sting of bullets biting into her chassis.

When the pain never came and the noise died down into an echo, she cautiously parted her wings to peer at the scene before her.

N had J pinned, a panicked look on his face as he struggled to keep her down. From her angle, Ava couldn’t tell where exactly the bullets had struck, but she didn’t entirely care because they weren’t in her (and because she couldn’t smell fresh oil, they weren’t in N either).

N glanced up then and met Ava’s gaze. He gave a sheepish smile and said, “Sorry about J. She’s a bit…uh…excitable?”

While he was distracted, J freed an arm and, before she could blink, severed one of N’s from his body. He recoiled with a yelp, and that was the opening she needed.

J twisted around onto her front and deployed her wings. The force of their release knocked N away from her, and she took off in a blur. Ava braced, expecting to be attacked again, but J instead disappeared into the haze of the snowstorm outside of the spire.

The moment she was gone, Ava rushed to her feet only to have her legs buckle under her when she put weight on them. She cursed and hissed as she forced herself upright again to limp over to where N sat staring after J.

“Are you–” Ava cut herself off as she noticed his arm already regenerating. She sighed, relieved. “Sorry, not used to being around other drones with…efficient healing.”

N gave her a big smile, a little out of place considering the oil on his face and his still-regenerating arm. “Oh, don’t worry about it, buddy! I’ve been through worse, it’s not a big deal.”

It really wasn’t, as he quickly proved with his freshly healed hand giving her a wave. Even still, her tail lashed in concern.

After a pause, Ava asked, “What is… wrong with her?”

“You mean aside from you purposefully ticking her off?”

Despite herself, Ava flinched. She didn’t exactly feel bad, considering how J had treated her, but the accusatory way N was looking at her might’ve made her feel a twinge of regret. Might’ve.

“For the record, she nearly killed me just before you showed up.”

N seemed unfazed. “Ah, that’s just how J is. A lot of stuff’s happened.”

“So I should just let her attack me?” Ava didn’t like this idea.

“Not…exactly. Just be patient with her!” He clarified.

Ava had to suppress a groan. She was the last drone that should be told to be patient. That was a quality more suited for Uriel or Eleanor or…Irene. She shook her head to dispel the thought.

At the very least, she could try to placate J until the rest of her squad showed up. Maybe then, at least she wouldn’t try to hurt them. She could do that much to keep her friends safe. Ava could feel her core twist at the thought of them being in danger.

“I’ll try. But only if you answer a couple of questions for me.” It wasn’t a serious demand, but Ava knew she couldn’t pass up an opportunity to finally understand a few things. And besides, it gave her an excuse to keep N there longer.

“Sure thing, buddy! Anything for a fellow disassembly drone!” N gave her a salute and a giant beaming smile. One that Ava couldn’t help but return.

Chapter 2: Unresolved Tension

Notes:

Made it to the halfway point of chapter 3, so I'm posting chapter 2! Enjoy :3

This chapter gave me. So much shit while I was writing it oh my god. I had to have my partners look over pieces of it repeatedly just for some reassurance. Longer fics are not my strong suit, just look at everything else on my profile! All one-shots!

Hail pelted the fabric membrane of Ava’s wings and pinged off their metal frame as she trudged along behind J. Despite not being able to truly fly, her wings still had some uses. Besides, she’d rather have the frames dented than leave her eyes exposed to being struck.

It wasn’t fun the first time, and she wasn’t keen on repeating the experience.

A few steps ahead of her, J seemed entirely unbothered by the hail. Even as it battered against her head, she did not flinch. Ava wondered whether it was a paragon thing or just a J thing.

Her musing came to an abrupt end when she felt her leg seize up. Ava stumbled, then collapsed into the snow as her leg decided it didn’t want to hold her weight anymore.

Alerts from her pain sensors flashed in her face as she pushed herself upright. When she was able to force close them, Ava found that J had stopped and turned to glare at her.

“Get up, you’re on the clock.”

Ava bit down a hiss. “Fuck off, I’m working on it.”

J’s mouth twisted into a snarl, but surprisingly, she said nothing more as Ava forced herself back to her feet.

After making sure she was stable this time, Ava caught up to where J was waiting on her. “Where are we going anyway?”

J didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she turned away and continued on.

“Wh- hey!” Ava hurried after the paragon, even as her leg threatened to lock up again.

“We’re almost there.” J finally responded. “Your job today will be to find something for me.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “Very descriptive, thank you.”

J visibly tensed, her hands clenched into fists. “If you would give me a Robo-god damned second, I’d give you more details.” She hissed out through gritted teeth.

Ava blinked, then hid a smirk behind her hand. Oh, this was fun .

After a pause for J to compose herself, she began to speak again. “I have been searching for a few components for a…personal project.”

As Ava opened her mouth to complain again, she was interrupted by a new message appearing on her HUD. She was about to ask when their messengers had been linked, but a closer inspection at the notification revealed it had gone through a short ranged connection, temporary and without having J in her systems. That much she was grateful for.

The list wasn’t long, nor was it complicated, it wouldn’t take her all that long to find everything according to a cursory glance.

“Serial Designation A!”

J’s voice snapped Ava out of her musings.

“ Yeeeeees? ” She responded with all of the faux niceties she could muster, tilting her head ever so slightly toward J.

The paragon’s eye gave the slightest twitch, subtle enough to be excused as a glitch, but she only gave a heavy, annoyed sigh. “We’re here .”

That got Ava to tap back into her surroundings. They’d stopped in front of a half-collapsed parking garage, covered in ice and snow just as the rest of the buildings on the planet’s surface.

Her tail flicked. “Cool, can I get started then?”

“I…yes.” J turned away. “The sooner you finish, the better.”

Finally. Ava started into the cavernous opening in the side of the parking garage as she pulled the list up again, pinning it to the side of her HUD. It was likely that not everything could be found here, but the vast majority of things would.

Taking a glance backwards, she realized that J wasn’t following. Some part of her twinged at the thought of being alone in such a large area (a lone scavenger is a dead one) but having some time away from the largest thorn in her side overrode the fear. She increased her speed until she rounded a corner, and J disappeared from sight.

Ava was alone with only the cars and skeletons around her as company, and neither would provide the social interaction she might’ve wanted. The sooner she finished this, the better.

She flipped through her audiobook library, looking for something to help pass the time. At the bottom of her list, which she hadn’t listened to in at least a few months, was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland . Not her favorite story, but it was better than wearing out those she did like more.

Ava let the audiobook play and set out looking for the first thing on her list.

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do…

 

It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something…

As she found parts, Ava transported them back to the entrance that she had left J at. Sometimes the paragon was there and made some comment about the state of whatever she’d brought, sometimes the only evidence that she had been there recently was the patch of disturbed snow where J had taken to the sky.

After dropping off the second to last part, Ava happened to notice that J was gone again, and the usual impression of her having been there was surprisingly faint. She had to have been gone for quite a while.

It gave her an idea.

Ava headed toward the back of the parking garage as quickly as her shaking legs would take her, tail waving wildly.

“In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

Ava squeezed herself past the half collapsed roof by the exit tunnel and spotted her escape route around the corner, illuminated through the moonlight. If J was truly away from the parking garage, this would be her only chance to get away for the foreseeable future. It was dangerous, and there was no doubt in her mind that J would look for her, but damnit, she was going to try.

She peered out through the hole in the wall, scanning her surroundings carefully. No heat signature gave away whether J was nearby, and there were no visible tracks or disturbed snow.

So, Ava bolted. Diving between patches of shadow and keeping a close eye on her surroundings, she still saw neither hide nor hair of J as she went. It wasn’t a comfort, she knew that it would only be a matter of time before she was spotted, but it still gave some kind of comfort to keep watch.

“May it please your Majesty,” said Two, in a very humble tone, going down on one knee as he spoke, “we were trying–”

“I see!” said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. “Off with their heads!” and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.

A blur of movement in front of her caused Ava to stumble, then fall back onto her rear as a jolt of pain ran up her spine. Her eyes hollowed as she stared up at J’s furious gaze, one eye glitched into a golden X.

There was a beat where neither of them spoke. J’s chassis heaved with heavy vents, just barely restraining herself as she leveled the barrel of her assault rifle over the scavenger’s core.

Ava could feel her core skip a few beats. She knew she had to look terrified (and pathetic), staring up at the paragon without even trying to hide it. Fear had overtaken her systems so wholly that she couldn’t summon up even the barest amount of processing power to try and mask it with bravado. This was it. She’d done it now.

“You…you worthless fucking piece of SCRAP METAL! Did you really think you could escape like that? Really, you have to be dumber than those barely sentient toasters.” J’s arm was shaking, something that only scared Ava all the more. “I cannot believe I put up with your antics for this long when I should have you decommissioned, you corporate liability !”

The longer she yelled, the tighter Ava’s chest felt. Her vents came quick and shallow, to the point she was starting to become lightheaded. Static rang in her audials, overlaid by a desperate plea of Please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t-

Then everything shifted.

J’s stance relaxed, and her arm lowered. Not that Ava noticed right away, as it took longer than that for her systems to calm down.

When Ava finally returned to herself, she blinked a few times, flexing her fingers to make sure she was all still there.

Her head snapped up at the sound of snow crunching underfoot. J stopped a few steps away from Ava, any closer and she would’ve put more distance between them.

“Get up.”

Her processors were still lagging, overloaded with artificial adrenaline, but it didn’t take long for her to understand what J wanted. Actually getting up was a different story, though, because her legs shook like a newborn deer’s as she stood, and her arms didn’t fare much better in helping her up.

“You may be a corporate liability now , but I’m not laying you off yet. I’ll make a proper employee out of you eventually.” J sounded a lot…calmer than she had been before.

Ava had no idea why, but she wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. As long as she wasn’t riddled with bullets, that was fine with her.

There was a pause before J spoke again, “Sunrise is in two hours. We’re taking everything you gathered so far back to the spire. You will finish the list tomorrow.”

The scavenger couldn’t summon up any processing power to do anything other than nod blankly. J as she started back to the front of the parking garage where the parts had been piled.Tail wrapped tightly, fearfully, around her leg, Ava followed behind J with her head low.

 

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

The audiobook finished as they returned to the spire, though Ava was numb to the sudden lack of stimulation. J split off to bring the retrieved parts over to the landing pod, and so Ava trudged to her snow den. She had barely crawled inside before collapsing into the snow.

Her braid was pulled into her mouth almost subconsciously so she could chew on the ends. With the last of her strength, she curled into a protective ball, holding herself in a poor imitation of comfort.

She was alone.

It was cold.

Robo-god, Ava missed her squad, her friends . Her hands shook. When did she start crying?

She fully believed that J was going to finally kill her. She didn’t want to die.

Her systems had run ragged, a low battery warning flashing periodically in the corner of her vision, but sleep mode evaded her for now.

Unsure of what else to do, she opened her messages and scrolled through the contacts, hoping that one of them would be online and accessible. Eleanor was first on the list, then Yuri, then Ophelia, Uriel, and at the very bottom was…Irene. The chat window said that she hadn’t been online in two years, and the thought made it feel like Ava had been stabbed through her core.

Two years, huh? Robo-god, it didn’t feel like it.

Out of habit, Ava clicked onto Irene’s contact to go through the message history. The last ones that had been sent were a week after Irene’s death. In a wave of grief-induced desperation, Ava had sent about a dozen messages uselessly hoping that she’d pop online and respond and everything would go back to normal.

It hadn’t worked, obviously. Even two years later, the undelivered messages felt like a hole in her core. The error underneath each haphazardly typed message felt almost taunting.

The message could not be delivered because this user is offline. Try again when they reconnect!

Ava let out a low growl through the mouthful of her own hair that she still idly gnawed on, but she didn’t close the window. Not yet.

Instead, she began to scroll back up through the old messages. Past the messages sent after her death, very few stood out. Most of it were small inside jokes that the two of them would send back and forth, usually about something one of their squadmates did or some other old memory, but nothing serious. Nothing noteworthy.

Until she reached a section that wasn’t just text, but a few files that Ava had sent Irene. It took her a moment to realize what they were, and the memory that slammed its way to the forefront brought her suddenly and swiftly to tears.

Ava traced a few stars with her hand, then looked to Irene. “That one looks like a human skull, doesn’t it?”

Irene squinted, so Ava traced it again, slower this time. Realization dawned soon after. “Oh, yeah! It does, huh?”

Ava smiled. “Yeah. It does.” She saved the constellation’s location data and sent it over to Irene.

There was a pause before Irene started to trace another path between stars. “Looks like one of us pouncing on another drone, see the tail at the end?”

She saw it instantly and let out a laugh. “Reminds me of when Yuri was wrestling with Uriel the other day.”

Irene laughed along with her. “Oh, Robo-god, Uriel was furious! I’ve never seen them that upset.”

Ava could still see the look on Uriel’s face as they chased after Yuri to get him back for knocking Uriel down and spilling the oil they’d been carrying. It took a few hours for them to calm down after that, but Yuri bringing them more oil as an apology certainly helped.

The pair had lapsed into a comfortable silence as they both watched the night sky and the stars twinkling above them. It was one of very few clear skies they saw on Copper-9, and Ava was so thankful to share it with the drone beside her. They were close, just close enough that if she leaned over just a little, then she could rest her shoulder against Irene’s.

But she didn’t. Always a coward, she was.

It wasn’t that Irene didn’t care for her. If Ava knew anything for sure, it was that she and Irene were closer to each other than anyone else in their entire squad. But she didn’t admit it. She didn’t admit that when she looked at Irene, it felt like Ava was looking at the moon, beautiful and perfect and just out of reach. Didn’t admit that before she would go into sleep mode, she’d pull up memories of Irene just to look at her smile for a little while longer. Didn’t admit that she always wanted to be right next to Irene in the squad cuddle pile for the same reason.

Robo-god, Ava loved her. If she had any semblance of a spine, she’d turn to her and say it right then. She’d grab her face and confess everything and kiss her right on her beautiful, perfect-

Ava whacked herself on the side of the head before that thought could finish, but regrettably, it got Irene’s attention.

“What was that?” Concern was written all over Irene’s face as she looked Ava over to make sure she wasn’t hurt.

“Oh, nothing, nothing, just my tail acting up again.” Ava handwaved, hoping that she wasn’t blushing.

If she was, Irene either didn’t notice or didn’t think to ask about it. Regardless, Ava was thankful when she turned away to look up at the twin moons above them.

After a beat of silence, Irene spoke again, “Do you ever think about what you want to do when we’re done here?”

Ava blinked. “You mean once the workers are gone? I mean, we’ll probably all overheat and die, so why should I?”

Irene scoffed, giving Ava a lighthearted shove. “I didn’t mean that! I meant more what will happen when we don’t have to hunt the workers. Pretend for me that we have a different way of getting oil without killing. If you had that freedom, what would you want to do with it?”

Ava hadn’t ever thought about it. Her tail lashed in irritation as she tried to come up with an answer, but her thoughts were blank. “I don’t know, really. Just trying to make it through to tomorrow, I suppose. No time to think about what I want after that.”

Irene looked disappointed in that answer, but she didn’t dwell on it for long. She got to her feet and moved closer to the edge of the roof they were sitting on.

“Well, I’ve thought about it. About what I’d want to do if we had the free time.” There was a brief pause. “I want to see the rest of the planet. Explore all the other old buildings here. The humans left so many cool things behind, and I want to find them!”

Irene hopped up onto the low wall lining the edge and turned to face Ava, spreading out her arms in a grand gesture.

“Who knows what’s out there? Hell, maybe we could work with the worker drones to make it happen! We’ve both seen the things they’re keeping to themselves in the bunkers, there has to be more!”

Ava raised an eyebrow. “Do you even hear yourself? There’s no way the workers will do anything for us.”

“But what if they did? We’re both drones, aren’t we? I bet we could work something out.” Irene gave her a grin, a mischievous one that Ava knew all too well.

Before Ava could speak, Irene mentioned, “I bet they might even have books down there in one of the bunkers. But you’ll only know if you can get the workers to let you in.”

“If you think I’ll do anything for the workers then-”

“Ava.” 

Irene’s tone was stern now. She didn’t use her “leader voice” too often, so hearing it now startled Ava. But all gravity of the tone was lost when Irene’s expression changed into one resembling a sad puppy.

“Oh, alright, alright!” Ava couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped her. “If it’ll make you happy, I can do that. But you’ll have to come up with a plan to get the workers to trust us.”

Irene hopped down from the ledge and pulled Ava to her feet and into a hug, beaming all the while. “I knew I could count on you!”

Ava could feel her face heat up at the sudden gesture. “Y-yeah…you can always count on me.” Seriously, that’s the best answer you can come up with, you useless lovebird?!

Irene pushed out of the hug just as quickly as it started, pointing behind her. “Ava, look !”

When Ava turned around, she was greeted by the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.

Countless shooting stars burned across the sky, lighting up the night like signal beams showing the way home. She’d read about them before but never expected to see a meteor shower for herself.

It was even more beautiful than a book could ever describe.

She made double sure that this memory was being captured before she focused in on the sight before her. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity! Who knows when this wasteland planet would see another?

Using her auxiliary eyes, Ava took a peek at how Irene was reacting to this and was met with a sight just as beautiful as the meteor shower above them.

The way Irene’s eyes shone with excitement and her face was lit against the light of the moon had her entranced. It was hard to choose what to focus on. Of all the drones to experience this with, Ava was glad to be there with Irene.

As the meteor shower came to an end, Ava realized she had stared at Irene more than the shooting stars. At least she could go and rewatch it later.

She still had the recording of the meteor shower.

Sure, Ava had sent it to Irene once it was over and had rewatched it repeatedly in the days following, but since then, it hadn’t been touched.

Now it stared her in the face through the messaging window.

Part of her wanted to open it, to relive the memory, the moment, from just months before it all fell apart.

But another part knew what would happen. She was already a mess from the incident with J, how close she had come to being an oil splatter in the snow. It’d only push her into another breakdown.

At least she’d be able to see Irene again.

Ava opened the video file and pressed play.

Notes:

Alice in Wonderland moment. woo. One of my beta readers (aka a polycule member) asked if choosing Alice in Wonderland specifically had some kind of meaning. I'll say what I told them here, the book itself wasn't chosen purposefully (other than being easily accessible bc it's in the public domain) but the sections of the book were.

Again, no chapter 3 until I'm halfway with chapter 4, but at least this time it isn't finished yet anyway. I loooove reading thoughts people leave in the comments so please feed the beast if you enjoyed :3

Notes:

Still think the ending's a little rocky, but it is what it is. What N told her was basically everything that happened over the course of the episodes, and since that'd probably be boring and this chapter dragged on enough, I left it out lol

Ava and J are endgame they just hate each other right now.

Chapter 2 is already written, but I will not be posting it until I'm mostly done with chapter 3!

For those who are curious, Ava's got a toyhouse where you can see her reference (and a fewwww spoilers maybe), link below!
https://toyhou.se/32342453.serial-designation-a