Chapter Text
Hm.
Times have become desperate haven't they? The orders were the first things to go. Replaced by a catatonic silence that made things harder to bear. Then were the easy pickings of dumb worker drones who went out because they thought everything was safe. Then there was learning that if you ever so much as came near the Bunker, you would be killed. So you were forced to live in this weather. Guaranteed it wasn't as bad thanks to the corpse spire, a spire so densely packed with worker drone corpses that the walls made sure no chill got through and nobody touched it anyways because why would they? They have a warm bunker to sleep in and fancy equipment to keep things warm so why go out?. it still was rather cold in the spire but it wasn't as bad as having to survive without shelter. What did make things better was finding a manual and managing to fix the ship's insulation. Which provided even more safety from the elements.
The only reason.,,you knew this information was because of all the reading you did about it when you were at the manor. You frown. Ah yes…the manor…you used to read all the time with,..her…? With…Tessa…you smile bitterly. Recalling the moment. Tessa being so adamant about teaching you how to manage a ship and make one. Even getting down to the smallest details because she wanted to make sure you knew everything when it came to these space ships. You knew why. She always wanted to go out into the cosmos and explore the universe.
Although..you didn't know if she…wanted to explore the world anymore with how desolate it is. Maybe it was better if she was dead. Least she doesn't have to deal with these circumstances you found yourself in.
You were still fixing the ship…as getting off of this planet was one of the important things to do. There was another reason you also wanted to fix the ship, to use its powerful equipment to connect back to the main ship and book the coordinates back to it. There were a few things you needed to do after all. You needed to make sure all of the clones were gone. You needed to find the coordinates to the other potential planets and lastly you just wanted…to save as much memorabilia as you could…
It was only a matter of time before your systems would shut down and you had no interest staying on a freezing ball of ice. At this point you had nothing to lose, nothing to really gain but the last thing you wanted was to be here. So leaving was something you had to do. Plus if you get back into the ship you could manually hack yourself into having control over your own systems again and manually override what Cyn put into your systems. Originally you could never do that because Cyn was alive, but because she was dead. It left you the freedom to kinda do whatever you wanted..
And that terrified you.
Not because it was scary, but because you always followed orders every single step of the way. You were Serial Designation J, the lethal workaholic who follows orders to death. And now that you had no orders to follow?...you had no idea…what to do…sure you were a leader but you still followed orders. You weren't your younger self, willing to disobey orders or somebody and do your own thing because of Tessa.
You were beaten down by the system to follow orders in the first place…which left you without autonomy and…freedom…which used to be fine with you but now that you're on your own…what is it you do?... Obviously the first thing is getting off this fucking planet…and running back to the ship…but then what? Looking for planets that are unaffected?... And living a new life?... One you didn't want to live because you had nothing to live for…?
Oh what would Tessa say about this…of having nothing to live for…well for one. She had you for the longest time, which instilled hope into her. But how did she survive so long before you? You recall her telling you that she just kept herself busy in her work and prayed that something could be different..,well. You had nobody to keep your hopes up. Cyn was…dead as fuck…Tessa was dead…and the others wanted nothing to do with you in the slightest. It doesn't help that errors once again love to plague your system and remind you of your unfortunate circumstances…
For robo sake…
You grab out the map and open it, scribbling notes here and there about the last places you hunted. There was nothing in the living district…or in sector 01…sector 069…living district 003. There was nothing except well…buildings and ruin, the buildings were all fucked up because they were built to withstand the rainy nights and Luke warm days of copper 9. Not the frost bitten cold that they've been subjected to for god knows how long. The last place you've checked…was well…the labs. The only reason you didn't check them fully was because you knew the sentinels were still down there and being terrors..,but there was a lot of oil down there the last you heard. Except you were smart enough to know that these sentinels were designed to deal with drones.
Sigh.
It was either that or somehow sneak into the bunker and sneak a kill without being noticed. Which was strategically Impossible, for as much as you would love to flaunt your effort about being an effective drone. The little purple thing has the absolute solver on her side. There was no getting around her in the slightest without risking termination so better to avoid that risk entirely. There was also that railgun she had. And oh did it leave you sulking. Because it had destroyed part of your left pigtail. And that pissed you off…that was the wig Tessa gave you. And infuriatingly…no amount of regeneration fixed that…as with the other scars that marked your body permanently.
So no messing around with that bunker. And while the other option…wasn't exactly…ideal…you frankly didn't have that much of a choice, it was either one poison or the other or simply just risk dying, which while that was a huge preference, you knew with those clones still active, death would be impossible. Plus if you get through the labs…you could actually find some oils and put them into canisters for later which was a great deal since you didn't know if the main ship still had oil. Hm. You know what? Talking to yourself is hard…
You fiddle for a moment before pulling out a Tessa plushie. Yes. In your spare time you made yourself a Tessa plushie because of loneliness. No. Not loneliness! Just. A setback! Yeah. that. And you needed at least a voice to talk to…so why not make a Tessa plushie? Yeah. Make a plushie of a girl who's been dead for god knows how fucking long. Not that you'd ever admit your need for companionship ever. Not in a million years. You decide to set the Tessa plushie on the table and you look at her.
“Uhm hey boss…I know it's been a while but I could use your help on making a decision. You see, unfortunately the mission has gone to shit. Cyn's dead. And the drones you love so much are unwilling to let us live, sooo. I have decided that I am going to go to those labs. I am very aware of how dangerous this task is. And I am well equipped with the knowledge that this mission could kill me. But desperate times come for desperate means, and I need to get myself oil before I literally die. So I was just wondering.,,if it's worth it to do this?” You ask the plushie.
Predictably the plushie says nothing. Just stares at you with those unmoving, unblinking green eyes. Those beautiful green eyes that remind you of the rolling hills…of nature before it was ruined by mankind…the natural beauty in everything around and just how awe inspiring it was. You frown. This was fucking dumb. Why would a plushie ever talk to-
“Ideally, doin that would be very dangerous Jaybird. But if its a last resort you koinda have to.” A very Aussie accent can be heard.
Wow. You were going mad. But you know what? You frankly don't care. Better to talk to something than nothing. You smile as you scooped the Tessa plushie and headed out. Taking in the cold environment before deploying your wings and flying up high. Sure flying takes up reserves but if you catch a draft of current you could glide for days and not be affected at all. The labs would take a while to get to anyways. It just gives you some moments of reflection. That you unfortunately feel.
You were free from Cyn…free from…well, being forced to do its bidding but would it be shameful to admit that…you didn't mind at the same time? The others could care less about you but she showed so much…care for you in her own twisted way…which left you even more hollow that she's gone. Or perhaps it was the fact that she was the last bit of Tessa left and you latched on to that so badly that with her gone you are left with a feeling of emptiness and bitterment…yeah that. You think for a moment. When you both landed…well, back on the planet. She was talking about how when it came to solver users. She whispered into their audio receptors and drove them mad by telling them to do things they didn't want to and showing them things she did..
She talked about having it under control and how she was going to use Uzi to blow up the planet and render Copper 9 dead. Then take back the disassembly drones to build her paradise. She always had a fondness for you, N and V after all. Ironically You find it poetic how none of that ever happened. Cause the fucking Purple roach somehow managed to defeat Cyn. A literal master of Absolute solver. It surprised you initially when you heard the roach did that after you woke up…frankly because she could do something you never could…actually fight off Cyn and win.
Almost as if she was destined to win. Hah. You and Tessa couldn't do anything about her but some fucking emo ass kid with a shitty haircut could?!! That was so unfair!! You were strong! In fact you were the strongest of the squad and yet you couldn't fucking do anything against Cyn. Yet this waste of spare parts could. Where the fuck was she at the gala?! Or on the space ship?! She could've…stopped so many horrors from happening but instead she stuck with LOVE SICK PUPPY N, UGH!! Actual FUCKING WASTE OF PARTS!!!! You seethe in anger as you almost lose your bearings, doing barrel rolls in the wind stream. Your face is etched with panic as you try to adjust yourself to the wind once more and take a deep breath. Without Cyn to keep your emotions in check. They were going…all over the place now…and you didn't know what to do with it at all…you couldn't exactly pinpoint why you kept having these outbursts…all you knew was that…they were starting to really stress you out so you pick up the pace. You gotta get to the labs faster. You took a deep breath once more. You needed to get off this planet. So damn fast. Before you lose it.
You fly around for a bit…noting the desolate structures…You were thoughtful for a moment, remembering how Cyn used to tell you that Copper nine like the other planets, used to also not only have life but semi comfortable conditions. Even to the point there was also a human population here once upon a time. There were a bunch of people minding their own business and there were the scientists, people who wanted to understand the absolute solver and therefore tested on a bunch of drones to make a patch and control the absolute solver. You recall Cyn laughing manically as she talked all about how she killed those idiots and how her null powers basically caused a core collapse. You frankly…still thought she was insane…always killing people who literally have nothing to do with…her past.
Just like she did on every single other planet. You couldn't recall every little thing you did on those other exoplanets but you do remember it ending up the same way. The ultimate core collapse and destruction of all the life on the planet to make way for her new agenda. She wanted to remake things in her image. No matter what it took to achieve such a goal. Not that it mattered anymore. She was dead as hell. You should've been satisfied and happy that she was gone. But the truth was that you missed her. You missed the orders, the demands, but you mostly missed the touch the most. That twisted form of comfort that made working with the boss not so bad at all.
Hm you knew there was a terminology for that but you didn't care. She gave you something to do and a worthwhile reward. So it was a tad bit worth it at the moment. You feel your systems ache once more as…you thought of…just the way she cared…and how utterly possessive she was. You shouldn't miss this, you should be happy and glad that she's dead…but you're not. You were even concerned as everybody was kicking her ass but you couldn't…do shit about it. You didn't even get to hold her…in her last moments…they…took her from you…they took EVERYTHING from you!! Why couldn't it have been you to take her out?! Why was it them?! What made them so special?!!! Why were you so utterly worthless!!! How was Cyn beaten by a fucking worker drone yet you couldn't do nothing to her?!! She controlled your entire body!! And said she had control of Uzi yet Uzi got free….why couldn't you do that?!
Why were they free from her except for you?! This was so borderline unfair!!! It should've…been you…it should've been Tessa…you both deserved it…SHE DESERVED IT…more than them…goddammit…and now both are dead…your lover…and your boss…you had NOTHING. You were left with nothin! Just left with a ship…and the brutal cold of copper 9’s harsh environment. This wasn't fair…this was borderline unfair. But why would they care? To them you're nothing more than an annoyance. Why would they?! They stole everything from you!! Your livelihood and your Tessa!!! You bloody HATE them. And the ironic part is hate does not describe your sheer DISTAIN, YOUR SHEER UTTER UNFILTERED ANIMOSITY, YOUR SHEER UTTER LOATHING, DISGUST, SCORN TOWARDS THEIR FUCKING EXISTENCE, YOUR HATRED BURNS AS INTENSELY AS THE INTENSITY OF 10,000x SUPERNOVAS YET THAT DOESN'T EVEN COMPARE TO HOW MUCH YOU HAVE GROWN TO HATE THEIR EXISTENCE. NO WORDS CAN DESCRIBE HOW MUCH YOU DESPISE THEM. Oh you would've…loved to see them dead but they seem to have god on their side with how much they live through everything.
You've seen it with every interaction. They have a suspicious affinity to survive things they shouldn't…Cyn literally took their cores out and yet they were fine. Part of that made you frustrated. It seemed so easy to take out those stupid worker drones, even the ones with the solver yet this one is agonizingly roach-like in nature and survives literally EVERYTHING thrown at her. Honestly…if she survived that easily…then why didn't you? Why were you forced…to endure things over and over…and yet this drone survived anything. It was infuriatingly unfair. It's…not like it mattered anymore…Cyn was dead…and you couldn't get anymore revenge because you were petrified of even trying to fight that toaster. Especially with the absolute solver she has…
You were terrified of it still…especially with how much Cyn used it. And the way not only she but Uzi immobilized you so easily…left you petrified of confrontation again. So no thanks. No fighting weird toasters at all unless you wanted to die. For being built to be a disassembler…the fact you got taken out frustrated you immensely. You sigh. Eyes gazing over the lab in the distance. This place is where most of the squads went…to die. They weren't equipped with the knowledge on how to investigate this place safely. Which was by design, Cyn made sure only the best drones knew. But you also heard that the lab had an inhabitant. Well…had. Apparently they got murdered by the sentinels. Which was ironic. Guess even those drones that were tested on by humans weren't safe…
It makes you ponder if there's more solver drones left..,well on other planets. But it also makes you wonder if Cyn dying the way she did, meant that she couldn't control anything anymore. Least you hope so anyways. Part of you is curious for what you will find on the other planets that were not catalogued. There must be some right? You doubted that humans would let themselves get caught so easily, they must've taken refuge somewhere and if not them…then there should be some untouched drones. While you didn't ideally care about that. You cared about finding somewhere else to be…away from the others so that you could work on your own systems and fix what actively is making your life suck. And then…? Well maybe just sulk..
If you could help it…you wanted…to not only give Tessa a respectful sendoff…but to lay to rest the items of the past…that's the least you could do…honestly you were just trying to give yourself a sense of purpose or anything…and it was hard. You didn't know what the fuck you wanted to do. Your great love is dead. Your boss is dead. Your favorite individuals are gone and frankly, thinking of existing in a world without them was not something you wanted to think of but you needed to make sure…that the ship was taken care of. If that's taken care of then you can figure things out from there.
You find yourself dropping out of the sky and landing swiftly on the ground. Most of the labs already covered in snow once more, almost like it was never touched. Which is quite impressive, you would've thought the snow would've…taken longer to appear but here it was. How delightful. Your wings retract back into your body as you walk over to the catwalks of the lab. The only way to get down there was to drop down. With not much fanfare you jump into the black pit, falling for a moment before using your wings to control your descent. As expected…this place practically was covered in oil but first.
You crouch low to the ground and grab a rock, using your natural scope within your systems to throw it immensely far down a never ending hall. With expectation, you watch as the sentinels skaddaddle over there and go out of sight to look for the noise. Ideally that wouldn’t distract them forever so you go over to the disassembly corpses and begin emptying out the rest of their oil into the canisters you had hooked onto your tail. It’s a fun process to say the least, tilting the body parts and letting the area of drippage pour down the side inside the canister rather than just straight in. You knew any wrong noise could grab their attention so the more careful the better.
Funnily enough these corpses…had quite a bit of oil on them. Not enough to supply a lifetime, but enough to leave the planet and figure something out next. The richer spoils come with figuring out where this worker drone hibernated…but you had no desire to do that just yet. You proceed to grab a pile of limbs and put them into the bag, being extraordinarily careful to stack them all in such a way that would prevent collisions and noise, which meant just straight up using the synthetic hair of the dead drones and placing it as a layer between the limbs to provide enough cushion for sound to be muffled. And you weren’t above not eating well…disassembly drone parts if it came down to it. A famished individual is willing to eat everything after all.
You were just more modest about the urges. After getting what you needed, you decide to pick up one of the limbs and head over to hide in the desk cubicles. Ahhh…your natural habitat. You smile, your hand running alongside the walls, then the chair, feeling the threads and the materials fragility. You weren’t exactly interested in finding out if the structural integrity would hold. There was the amazing computer, the iconic classic keyboard, some pictures of a family lost to time and sad excuses for decorations. But that wasn’t why you were here. You were focused on using this vantage point to look for…well, the main room. You raise an eyebrow as one of the sentinels starts to return back to the general area.
Perfect.
You proceed to yeet the murder drone arm down the other corridor and you watch as a mass of sentinels practically run over there, tripping over eachother and running as fast as they feasibly can just to find the intruding thing. You take that as your cue to slyly walk over to the main room. What you noticed immediately was the cores…in jars and the oven still heating them up. You found yourself…staring quietly and having an expression of discomfort at these cores. Now…why was it Cyn programmed you guys to be…severely hampered by the heat again…? Ah right. It's a fail safe. After all the worker drones die, the disassemblers follow suit and Cyns grand master plan continues. Disassemblers do a multitude of things that use up reserves and oil…after all…
It doesn't help that your body constantly is overworking despite doing literally nothing which also burns up reserves. You ponder how…N and V are fairing…same with the little roach. They all would need oil to survive which either means taking it from the other worker drones or working out a solution…You recall the little barely sentient toaster being an amazing engineer so you’d have no doubt that she’d engineer a way for N and V to work just fine, same with herself…how annoying. Although, having a core thats already running overdrive means that you have to constantly do your missions at night. As the star copper 9 is orbiting still gives off so much energy that it renders a disassembly drone defenseless and dead.
You frown. These systems did nothing but cause you anguish and pain…perhaps…you should fix them…it would be nice not to worry about these problems anymore but how would you test that out? Oh wait. You could just use the clones…they aren’t exactly…alive anyways…they are only shells that only come to life if the original consciousness transfers to them.
Guess that’s another reason to get on Cyn’s ship. To program yourself better. If Cyn did keep all the books that you and Tessa read, then there will most certainly be a few about drones. And you wouldn’t doubt Cyn had a personal manual about the disassembler model…Okay…maybe you weren’t hopeless…you just…had to get lucky…which was definitely not on your side…ughhh…
You hum for a moment as you gander around the room. There's security cameras there surprisingly but only one is working…which you figured. It was handy in showing you that the sentinels were very focused on the arm at hand though. Nice. Your gaze runs along the floor. You notice the blood spillage…the magnets…the evidence of absolute solver. It seemed when the others entered they were pretty sloppy…You even notice…a drone…well whats left of a drone…Looks like she was one of the victims the humans experimented on to try and control the absolute solver. You pick up the name tag…
017 Alice.
Your goal originally? Was to take these drones out. Because they could have the absolute solver and use it to fuck everything up. Well that was your original goal. You didn’t know that Cyn was actually going to find the best host to use to destroy the planet. You find it funny, you were lead to believe that disassemblers were superior to worker drones, yet unironically Cyn was beaten by a worker drone…you were beaten by a worker drone…all the disassemblers were…and that was kinda pathetic.
You find yourself pitying the drone for whatever reason.
“I’m betting you were alone for the longest time huh? Those humans and those other drones just abandoned you. Leaving you stuck inside this cramy place filled with sentinels. I’d like to bet you’d still be alive if human hubris didn’t…well end up destroying everything on this planet…I bet it looked nice at one time as well…” You snort. Speaking to the corpse as if it could understand you. The truth is that the corpse has been dead for a while…
Welp, best not to let a corpse go to waste…You also proceed to drain the oil of this drone and place one of her makeshift antlers into your bag. Naturally your systems were screaming at you. But you’ve…long since learned to ignore the pain and discomfort they caused. After all, you needed a straight train of thought if you wanted to survive so while you would love to eat the oil straight here and there, that would not be beneficial. You needed to get out of here before you could do that in the first place. Mainly because eating oil is messy and it gets all over the place.. you aren't stupid after all…you were the leader for a reason. You thought before you did things. You couldn't say that N and V did the same thing on the other hand…V well…was once incredibly reckless and left spatters everywhere…where as N? He felt too compassionate about the drones.,,which is how you got into this situation in the first place…ugh.
You sigh, gently placing the drones body in the corner. Even with having this place under control practically, they got killed by what they supposely controlled how poetic. Suppose one of the best things they could do now is rest in peace. If there is any peace for…well drones. Your gaze furrows for a bit as you stare at the lifeless drone. You’ve heard of this…thing called the soul, which leaves the body after death. The real question was if everything had a soul but who knows? You were programmed to be this lively but also died a multitude of times. If you had a soul, it would probably be wanting to die. Your digits…lightly touch your core…
Hm..
If you indeed had a soul, it’s essence would be the strongest in the core…as if you destroy the heart entirely…there is no…drone…You pause for a moment. Was there a reason you were thinking of this?...
“Everythin has a soul Jay. Even drones were built with them in moind!” Tessa’s voice echos throughout your mind.
Your gaze furrows even more. How though? How was it possible that a soul can be in everything? Does the empty shell of something being born or existing just attract a soul? And why? You glare, rolling your eyes severely. Okay, now you're starting to think of things that don’t make sense, let alone matter in the grand scheme of things. Your mission was to get oil and get out, not ponder questions that humans never figured out how to answer.
You peak out the door, noting that the sentinels were wandering around but not in your general direction. You took this liberty to switch your hands into claws and climb up the walls and crawl amongst the ceiling. While you would’ve preferred to walk, you didn’t exactly feel like grabbing something else and throwing it. When it comes to crawling on the ceiling though, it matters to get your claws really in there. If you do though, it important to be quiet, take everything one claw at a time and make sure to keep an eye on the audience of dinos.
“Ya pretty good at bein stealthy Jaybird! You’ll get out in no toime!!” Tessa said happily.
You find yourself smiling, eagerly crawling a bit more. The more you think about it, the more you realize disassembly drones kinda act like certain animals. Whether it’d be the naniate tails that can grab on hold of things….or just hold things like a monkey……The wings that could be used for flight and sleeping like a bat or bird…. The changing of the hands to be whatever they see fit. Reminding you of the humans usage of many tools to get the job done. The immensely great eyesight that comes from the optics on your head which have the power to see things in the visible, infrared, ultraviolet, thermal, and other things but also perks like night vision like the many species that used to exist on earth. These perks were great at detecting signatures that other things would have a hard time detecting. It’s why many animals had such enhancements, to see the world in a different way that entirely benefits them.
Then there was the fact that with oil, you could do a multitude of things, but it was in a constant state of needing replenishment ... .This is why you preferred not to use your enhancements all the time, so that you could conserve your reserves. Sure you used to be called out all the time for it, but you are not an idiot. You know how much Cyn rigged your system against you. The humans created a worker drone that would withstand a lot of things, except ironically brute force damage. Sure disassemblers could stand that now, but there's a lot less freedom to just…exist without having to get supplies. You sigh and get your bearings but your optics go hollow as a claw slips, only being saved by the liberty of your tail. Your hanging loosely as the sentinels heard the sounds and start scuttling around everywhere!
You quickly anchor yourself to the ceiling once more. Optics shaking as you see them run around. Sure the ceiling was a bit away from the cubicle but it wasn’t hard to notice a disassembler. You watch with unease as one stands on a cubicle and calls the other sentinels to search around the area. Your eyes track their every movement, their uncertainty, their curiosity and natural affinity for finding things that don’t belong. Fortunately for you, you hear one of them stumble in the distance which attracts the attention of the others, leaving you alone once more.
You take a deep breath and claw into the ceiling once more. Slowly approaching the big hole in the ceiling. Such trivial acts did not require using your wings. On the one hand, they’d make to much noise but you also had claws, your tail and legs. Which were just as useful for climbing and used WAY less energy. You hummed as you finally made it to the hole in the wall before using your legs and shooting a rocket to get a jump boost, you used it’s leverage to soar into the sky and off you were.
You feel particularly…better…Your escapade though, costed you a lot of time, it wasn’t going to be long till the star started to rise so you needed to get back home. You flew up high and caught a draft once more before soaring across the sky. You find yourself feeling it bad…the ache and discomfort your systems made when they were craving for oil…That usage of the rocket…cost you a bit and left you feeling a bit lightheated. In fact, it took every moment of will power to push yourself through to get back to the spire. By the time you got to it. The star was already staring to rise and releasing its red hue around the area. Least…you could watch it from the comfort of the spire.
The sunrise…
A term now so foreign. But it was one of the casual pleasures you enjoyed back on earth. The ability to watch the sun…the ability to see it in all of its beautiful splender…It was such a beacon of light and something to worship. You loved when you used to be able to see it without your systems burning from it. You loved the days when Tessa had to remind you constantly not to stare at it or you’ll go blind. You didn’t actually know if drones could go blind but at the same time…you just loved staring at the sun. It was warm, comforting…beautiful…and it burned with the intensity that kept earth all cozy. The sun in this system did the same thing. But you couldn’t enjoy the simple pleasure of looking at it without worrying your systems will go kaput. Looks like that's one of your reasons to fix that ship…to fix whatever the hells causing problems and allow you to just live…once more.
You find yourself in the sanctuary of the landing pod, you proceed to put the canisters on the dash board before portioning out the amount you needed by placing it in a coffee mug that had the logo “#1 Squad Leader” Yeah…That was a corny as fuck message. But…you frankly didn’t care. You…sat on a shitty chair and rested your mug on a crappy table before deciding to take a drink. Naturally you feel it immediately, the soothing taste of oil going down your systems and replenishing them in a way that was oddly satisfying.
Your Core immediately gets to work, clicking loudly and sputtering as it works its ass off to ensure your systems are replenished. You don’t recall…V or N’s core ever doing this…but then again…their core didn’t get violated repeatedly by appendages. Even if theirs did, it wasn’t long term. You stare into the blackness of the oil…It’s not that you didn’t want oil in your systems…it’s just you haven’t really felt like replenishing your systems unless absolutely necessary. There was also the fact that there was no easy pickings anymore so…you’ve been letting your systems rot for a while…
You supposed the term would be neglecting, it doesn’t help though that you feel nauseous. Your systems working as shoddily as they did, meant that you were left uneasy and feeling like shit. How inconvenient. You sigh in sheer irritation, forcing the rest of it down. You didn’t care if your systems wanted to not work, they were going to work goddammit. You were not going to tolerate a lousy body that refused to work. Now why was it that your systems were so queasy? Well for one, having your systems prodded and violated repeatedly left alot of the circuitry…tender…
Which made your systems susceptible to the sheer refusal to keep things down. Now you weren’t surprised by this in the slightest. You’d think though that Cyn would’ve noticed it…but then again…she didn’t care…Well…you wouldn’t say she didn’t care. She cared in her own way. Her own brutally twisted way. You’d even admit that sometimes…you still feel her hands on you…or an appendage deeply embedded within your core and squeezing it to the breaking point. It almost felt like she was there sometimes…and you kinda…miss that.
You miss being by her side. While at the same time…you hated being by her side. You wanted to tear her in two, you wanted to break her, you wanted to destroy her and have her experience the brunt of the pain she gave to you. Your fingers clench the table as your gaze furrows. You wanted to make her SUFFER. For EVERYTHING. For KILLING TESSA. You wanted to destory every single atom in her body, shred her soul into a million pieces, you wanted to hear her plead, or beg!! Just any semblance of acknowledgement that she fucked up. Tears breach your face as you let out a deep breath of frustration. You wanted to make her hurt in ways that words do not describe.
And yet…
At the same time, you want her to touch you again…you want her to love all that is you…to feel all that is you…to caress every single part of your body and play with your nervous system…to bite and prod at you….You wanted her embrace…her kiss…her possession…You wanted it so badly…and you didn’t get why. What did she do to you…? Why is it that you yearn for her even after all this time? She…was downright awful…but could be so loving at the same time and that made your core yearn for her affection. Why was this so complicated?! You should want her dead!!! Completely dead! And yet you wanted her alive!?
She had done nothing but tortured you into submission…made you give up…yet…you wanted her beyond your wildest dreams. Who truly would care about you in the way that she did after all?... Cyn promised that you’d stay by her side to the end. That is deeply personal and intimate for someone like Cyn. She considered you important to whatever cause she was doing…You…couldn’t exactly recall the moment in time where you started to really like her…but well…what can you do about it now? Not much…
You hum boredly as your tail flicks around. Well would you look at that…it’s completely sunny out there…you might as well catch up on some well needed sleep. You coil your tail around one of the many bars on the ceiling of the space ship and you hang upside down, your pigtails naturally fall because of gravity but you could careless. Deploying your wings and wrapping them around your body before staring off into the distance. Of course theres one more treat, your hands are now embracing the little Tessa plushie. A small little smile appears on your face as you prepare for sleep mode.
You couldn’t wait…
To get off this planet…
[ENTERING SLEEP MODE.EXE]
[REST WELL! :) ]
[MEMORY RECALLED…]
[PLAYING MEMORY…]
….
Robo god.
This again huh…?
You watch as N gets kicked to the ground by the mistress and left to simmer in his own puddle of sadness. You would’ve told him to get straight back to work, but this was the first time you genuinely seen him emote anything that wasn’t pure utter joy so…you approached.
You place a hand on your hip as you kneel, hands resting on your legs as you reach eye level with him.
“N.” You say quietly.
N naturally sees you and is panicking, immediately trying to wipe the tears off of his face before you place a hand on his shoulder. He’s a bit surprised, eyeing your serious expression for a moment before deciding to sit down with his legs to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs and glancing off at nothing before looking at you.
“Yeah yeah…I should’ve done my job…right…then she wouldn’t have kicked me…” N says with a defeated attitude.
You blink for a moment. Before deciding to sit besides him, sitting criss cross apple sauce and resting your head on your hand, staring at him.
“...Is that how I sound to you…?” You give a frown.
N looked at you, his gaze furrowing before sinking his gaze to the floor. “All the time. You're never happy with what I do.”
You take a deep breath and sigh. Glancing off to the side. “Why do you think that is? N…”
N shrugged immensely. “I don’t know! You don’t explain anything to me! You just bark orders…everywhere…”
You glance at him. Your gaze turning soft. “Well. I don’t know if you noticed. But you cannot exactly fail in this place. Because if you do you are going to that scrap pile. And do I want you to go to the scrap pile??! No! Tessa absolutely cares for you. But it means…that I have to work overtime just because your clumsy self can’t do your job.”
N frowned a bit. “I can’t…control my clumsyness…I don’t…have good control of my own body…”
You hum for a moment. “...That’s…unfortunately a normal thing. But. the mistress could care less for your imperfection. She has no use for robots who cannot do their job.”
N glanced away…his arms tensing up even more. “...I-...can’t…I’m…not sophisticated enough to do…anything…”
You are glaring into his soul. “If…I could do it. Then so could you…How many fucking times are we going to do this N?! How many times do I have to deal with the consequences of your actions before you learn NOT to be a screw up?!” You jabbed a finger into his core.
N is giving you a look of panic!! “Please J! I never asked for you to do that!! Just let me deal with my own screw ups!!”
You laugh hysterically. “And let YOU be SCRAPPED by that women?!! Yeah no moron. Tessa deeply cares about you…the last thing I’d want to see is her cry and be upset if the mistress decides to scrap you.”
N is baffled. “...Your...really covering for me?...for Tessa…?”
You grumble. “Not…that it matters…But yeah I am. I would never want to see her cry…because her mother decided to scrap you…”
N starts to smile…a little bit. “...I see…You know…I was wondering if you could give me some tips on how to be more cordicated…with these hands…I seem…to struggle with that alot…”
You severely sigh, Idiot. You comply anyways and stand up. “I’ll give you some tips, but don’t you dare tell anybody about it, Okay?” You scowl.
N nods eagerly, “Of course J!”
You find yourself leading N…to the basement. As you went to look for the latchhook. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw as he got excited and gandered at the many supplies that littered the area…It was still a sentimental area that you…and Tessa shared…but you supposed it wouldn’t hurt to let this bimbo clown take a gander once.
“Okay Bozo. Take a seat.” You say with boredom.
N eagerly sits down in the chairs, bobbing his head side to side and immediately exploding in curiosity as you put the latchhook kits down. It was clear he had no idea what the fuck these were but he remained curious of it anyways. It was a new thing after all and you knew N was open to new things, like really open. N watches as you sit down and you pull out the yarns and the latchhook tools before handing one to him and getting his attention.
“Okay moron. You see these little threads right? And that image? Your goal is to thread the yarn through the tool and these threads…eventually it will become a picture but it’s a good way for building dexterity in your hands as it forces you to work with something small…” You say with a cool tone.
“Woah…That sounds complicated…Could you uh show me how it’s done J?” N smiled innocently.
You figured, deciding to smile a tiny bit. “Sure thing buddy.” You fold the tiny yarn piece in half, putting it through the tool before threading the tool through the gridded canvas, opening the small little bridge of the tool so you could put the yarn through it and close the bridge, before pulling back out of the grid and creating a small little yarn piece that could culminate in something beautiful.
“Wow J! You really are good at this!! Is that why there's so many of them on the walls?? Was this what you and Tessa did before I came along???” N was absolutely gobsmacked by what you did, trying to replicate it himself and naturally struggling as you once did.
“...Yes…we loved to do these for the longest time…It’s a pretty therapeutic…hobby…” You say cooly…finding sheer fondness in watching him figure out your craft. There was something about seeing him do something you and Tessa did. You wish…she still did these…
N notices the pause in your tone. Worry etched on his face. “Oh. I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to remind you of the fact…that she has other hobbies now…” N glances away.
You blink. “Eh. It’s not that big of a deal bozo. It is what it is. She seems to be really happy with fixing robots anyways. I’m sure mundane things like this…just don’t mean that much to her anymore.” You say casually, shrugging like it was just…normal…
N frowns a bit…watching as the yarn bit he tried to mess with, got absolutely fucked up. “Awh biscuits. This is hard…But you know! Maybe if you asked her to do these, I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded!” N gives you a cheery expression.
You ponder for a moment. “I’ll consider it. Honestly. You're not half bad buddy. Would’ve expected the yarn to combust into flames the moment you held it.” You smirk.
N gave you a groan before laughing. “Hey! Why would it do that! I could hold things just fine!”
You roll your eyes playfully. “You couldn’t even hold your brain if you tried without it exploding.”
N smiled brightly, watching as you threaded the yarn with careful and precise precision. He continues to watch you work before trying it out himself. He does significantly better this time, sure he tears it a little bit but he actually managed to get the yarn threaded!
“Not bad at all. Lets see if you can do multiple of them.” You smile challengingly.
N watches as you do multiple of them and even adding different colors, so he decides to do the same thing. Watching how your hands work to get the visual cues of how to do it and using it to his advantage. It doesn’t surprise you when he actually becomes decent in no time. Doing his job mighty fine and before you know it…
It turns from a blank canvas…
Into a beautiful scenery of grass…a few trees…and a sunset…You…are silent for a moment…looking at this in awe…the last one you did, was already collecting dust. But this one was fresh. New and built on you watching N, actually fucking doing something. Your starstruck. Emotionally buffering and tears…fall down your face…You couldn’t help but think of the first days you got to see those rolling hills, when it was just you and Tessa…Oh those were the days…and sure…you still had many days in order with her, but it just wasn’t the same…The picnics didn’t feel the same, or well anything for that matter because things were so much more complicated.
“J…?” N’s voice penetrated through your thoughts…he’s looking at you, half worried to death because he’s seeing you cry over something like this.
You feel yourself back into the moment before you dry your tears. “Apologies. I got caught up in the moment. Please excuse my behavior. I suppose I just missed doing these with Tessa.” You grumble.
“How was…life like with her? Before her hobbies shifted to fixing drones…” N asked curiously.
You smile bitterly. “Well…it was weird to say the least…we both were rebellious…adventerous…and alive…let’s just say it was fairly enjoyable buddy.”
N gives you a soft expression. “You both must’ve had so much fun! I wish I was allowed to leave the manor!”
You scoff. “You don’t get to go outside until you learn how to do your job idiot. The goal is to do your absolute best so that you're left with no work to do.”
N laughs a bit. “I think I’ll just do the best I can…I’m…not like you J…I can’t do a hundred worker drone Jobs in one settings…it’s honestly impressive how much you do! How do you never get tired?? Or drained??”
You cross your arms. “Well…thats because the alternative…is being useless and therefore disposed of. And between you and me, I would rather do hundreds of jobs and live then be scrapped and disposed of.”
N’s expression falters, worry crossing his expression. “Are…you like okay?...”
You smirk. “No. But N. Seeing…her happy makes doing everything worth it. And if it means…being punished…so that you live and Tessa is happy. Then it's not that bad now is it?”
N grimaced. “Is that…why you're so…harsh?...”
You grimace. “If…I’m soft…then you learn nothing…If I’m aggressive on you and don’t coddle you. You learn something. I’d rather you be a resourceful drone under my wing, then dead weight. And if it means, well, doing this to improve your productivity. Then whatever I guess.”
N nodded. “I see….well thank you J! This is really helpful! I am so glad for our time together!”
You roll your eyes. “Whatever…Is there anything else you need to learn moron?”
N was thoughtful for a moment. “Could we do one more latchhook??? Please???”
You …were surprised…he wanted to do another one with you?...Hm…whatever…guess you could indulge in his tomfoolery for tonight. Maybe it will cheer him up and make him not cry.
“I suppose we can…Care to do the one…about the universe?...” You showed him the kit.
N was practically beaming!!! “Oh!! I want to do that one!! Let’s do it!!!”
You roll your eyes. “Alright alright. Just let me set it up.” You smirk as you open up the kit, placing the latchhook grid down, the image, the yarns, the tools and tape.
Of course N immediately gets to doing the latchhook, he clearly cares about it. A lot more than you would’ve expected. You’ve never really thought he’d be interested in arts n craft thangs really. But here he was, getting real into it and having the most fun time ever. How ironic. You also join him. Perhaps he wasn’t…the worst drone…he just…struggled to do his job. Like you did once. Maybe you disliked him sometimes because he reminded you of when you were once innocent and unaware at one time…when you didn’t know everything and were just as hopeful as he was.
The only difference is you…have experience…he barely has any…Tessa recently fixed him after all. Hm…perhaps…this wasn’t as bad as you thought it was…
He was right. You really should…tell Tessa you want to do this once again…You enjoyed these tender moments with her as they were deeply personal and intimate. A moment shared between you two. With N and another on the way, you had to get as much time with her as you possibly could…least before Tessa was busy with other things.
“Hey N” You mumble.
“Yeah?” N questioned.
You fiddle with your digits for a moment. “Could you, Not talk about this interaction later? Or what we were doing?”
N nodded sweetly at you. “Sure! Consider it! Repressed!” He grinned eagerly.
You…let yourself fondly smile as you watch him work. “...thanks.”
N beamed. Sure thing J!”
[W..h#.35. 9wo$ld @he b% 756he*e? ^hat r..ea#on -w.!u…..ld sh@ ha%e34 t! be [email protected]?]
Huh…?
Whats…? Going…on…?
[Wh@ el66se [wou!d the ^h6ip. l..ook in mo[%rate co]#dition! I mea55* look @t it]! It’s pr..a$tical.//ly almost re!ai/.re..d!]
You try to listen in but your eyes go hollow as you almost fall from your stance. You harshly exit out of sleep mode and claw on the ships walls. Scattering over to the specific sector where nobody goes and you listen in. Ah its them. Those…sons of guns…You seethe for a moment…you wanted to tear them in two but you knew that would be a reckless decision and a incredibly stupid decision so you listen in silence.
“Why would she be rebuilding the ship though?...Cyn has been dead for a while…there’s no reason to leave…” An infuriatingly soft voice echoed.
Uzi casually slammed the ship open, taking a gander around before rolling her eyes severely. “Clearly she’s up to something! I mean, just look, theres a bag of spare body parts and oil.”
V snorted. “Hm. Where did she manage to get those?”
“It looks like parts from the lab!” N said in surprise.
Please…leave those alone…
Don’t touch them…You already had been struggling to get these resources…please leave them alone and don’t touch them.
“The lab? With the freaky dino things? ” Uzi said with mad amusement.
V flicked uzi’s beanie off playfully. “Not freaky. I own one, if you recall short stack.” V gave a look of amusement.
Uzi immediately was trying to murder V once more as N was staring at the…canisters…He eyed the further sector and could feel the presence of somebody but he decided not to say anything about it.
“Well…you two. I imagine J doesn’t exactly want to be bothered…we should go find something cooler!” N said with a gleeful expression.
Uzi hummed boredly. “Beats being in here. This place looks as bland as your haircut.” She glanced at V before walking out.
V’s tail flicks in utter amusement. “Awh! The short stack could insult, how adorable!” She laughed, before following.
N also follows.
Thank god…
“You know uh V…I was always wondering why J was so dedicated to boss…do you happen to know why?...” N looked with worry.
V gave a bored expression. “It tricked her. She followed it’s bidding to ensure all of our safety. But I’d like to imagine…there were things she didn’t tell us that happened to her.”
N gives a concerned look. “...Do…we really have to kill her if we find her?...”
V sighed. “Of course. I doubt she’d be exactly pleased with the death of her boss so she’s going to try and come after us. Which means she needs to be dealt with.”
N crossed his arms. “I know…but isn’t that a bit inhumane?...She still suffered just like us…”
V hummed, “Your doing that thing again where you humanize the enemy N.”
N grimmed. “Right…well uh, what do you think Cyn did to her anyways?...I never seen her so…willing to side with somebody ever…”
V shrugged. “I simply don’t care. She can go rot. For working with Cyn.”
Your…blood…has never boiled so furiously…Hearing your squadmate say that…hurt…it hurt deeper than a knife ever could. Oh…like she didn’t take your entire LIVLIHOOD away from you. Like she didn’t fucking kill the boss! Kill cyn! And destroy the last remnants of TESSA!!! That psychopath!!! Your core burned and clicked with a rage you have never seen before as you go out of your hiding spot, clutching the Tessa plushie…you watch as the purple worm goes to them and they begin yapping about random things but you are to clouded with anger and frustration, just the reprieve to get it out. Sure you’ve just FINALLY got your oil reserves back but you…couldn’t stop yourself…
How…dare they descecrate the loving memory of the boss!! You’ll show them!!!
You deployed your wings into action, firing a rocket straight into their view and land on top of the pod. Watching as they stared at you in surprise! N’s face is of hesitation and fear, V’s is of determination and Uzi’s is of menace.
“Jay! This is not a foight you will win! Staying here will just mean death!” Tessa’s voice echoed throughout your frame, catching you off guard!
You jump in surprise as V lunges first but you quickly draw your hand into blades and shove her back, your swords colliding with N’s and using a rocket to propel yourself in the air and dodge Uzi’s solver abilities!!! Your face is etched with concentration, your wings are aching, and your core is already going into overdrive. It doesn’t take long before you have to fight them all off again!! Metal colides with eachother and creates an awful sound as you had to fight off N and V’s swords! You…weren’t going to loose like THE LAST TIME!!!! You glare in frustration as you twirl and kick V straight into the corpse spire and shove N back before getting slammed into the wall with a box.
Ow….
“Thats for shoving him!” Uzi yelled out angrily.
Your systems dazed for a moment, errors already flooding on your screen as you jumped out of the way, getting nicked by V’s claws. You scramble on the ships top, using your wings to block their attacks as you then use your wings to slam into them, then your naniate tail to knock uzi off of her feet. It doesn’t take long before your having to fight off V, who just seems to have endless energy. Your blocking, attacking, stepping back but she just seems to have endless supplies of swords, guns and nukes. Forcefully engaging you both in a fight as she’s absolutely kicking your ass. Your systems whine and your core writhes in agony as she stabbed you. You panic, shooting as much rocket launchers at her before a SHARP pain goes throughout your entire body.
SHIT!!!
You scream as you clutch your core. FUCK FUCK!!! YOU NEEDED TO GET OUT OF HERE…You scramble to your feet, clutching the Tessa plushie, the bag and the canisters before absolutely booking it. Running as fast as humanly possible before deploying your wings and absolutely flying as fast as you can. Naturally they’re on your tail and your having to dodge absolute solver attacks, missiles…and everything under the sun….
C’mon….
Tears breach your face as you feel bullets graze your side…
Please…go away….
You try to out manuver them…to out fly them…to do as much stunts as possible to loose them but it doens’t work…they are on your tail and are trying to knock you down. You needed to out smart them…and quick…AH! You feel your systems light a blaze as you loose your bearings, falling down and landing HARD into a line of trees. Warnings are blaring but you get to your feet and run through the densely packed forest, trying to find some area to hide in.
Naturally they follow after you but more apprehensive..your panicking as the wind is in your audio receptors as your forcing yourself to move through densely packed snow. It’s hard…you could hear every single step…it doesn’t help you see them fly overhead, the clattering of metal wings against the table top of the trees. The sounds of Uzi landing on every single tree and snapping them in half as she flew to the left of you. Your eyes are darting around wildly, your vision is starting to get blurry as your legs are theatening to give out…Your breathing sharpens as you stumble over. Scramblin to your feet as you narrowly avoid the blade of wings, the lingering air still remaining sharp as an arrow as you fell back in surprise.
This was a bad idea…this was such a bad idea…you regretted this so fucking much…if only you stayed in position…if only you did nothing…maybe you would’ve been fine…maybe you wouldn’t have to be fighting for your life…You yelp in surprise as you stumble over once more, tripping over your own tail and ending up within the snow once more. Your eyes dart from the tree line, to the demons in the sky, watching as they swarmed over the place like hawks, tearing into the trees and anialiating the branches, sending them flying everywhere and powdering the snow with twigs.
You feel your legs absolutely refuse to work, leaving it for your hands to do the most work as using your wings would draw to much attention to yourself…Your shivering…your body feels so cold yet your core is on fire, vibrating in your chest and causing metal in your body to dent…you could barely see…not only is your vision obstructed by the snow but the wind is beating hard into your casing, off putting your balance and forcing you to have to support yourself by using one of your wings. You find yourself getting thrown into the air as a bunch of rocket launchers exploded the moment they made contact with the ground and you slam hard into a tree…
You yelp as you force your hands to work overdrive, skittering out of the way as Uzi broke the tree you were on and lunged up into the air with the other disassemblers, who were doing aerials over the area and shooting rocket launchers into the treeline, blowing up large proportions and setting them ablaze…Your being shudders as you feel the shockwave, having to use your wings to propel yourself forward. You couldn’t even stand at all anymore…your legs were just limp…deathly limp…shit…
SHIT… thats not good at all…you rest your back against a tree…just trying to look for a place to hide….There was no places at all…nothing to turn to…nothing to hide in…It was hopeless…Tears breach your face and river down your face as your desperation creeps in…Please….go away…Your eyes widen as the tree is shattered into a thousand pieces, one of the sticks embedding themselves within your head.
You close your eyes…ow…OW!!! THIS HURTS….Please….stop it….You found yourself weakly…scrambling over to a little cave…your core vibrating with utter violence as the voice of laughter and sky demons could be heard behind you…You whimper a bit…this was no competition at all…this was just a plain hunt for your downright suffering…and it was working…
You embed yourself deep within the cave. Holding a hand over your mouth and things over your glowy effects as to not be seen…Your…shaking…utterly vibrating with dread…your hands…are cold…your body is cold…everything feels so much worse and theres…just a frostbiting chill that is infecting every digit and exposed space of your body…Your breathing is heavy…trying to regulate your sheer raw regret…and shame…why the fuck did you do that?!!...stupid idiot!!! So fucking stupid!!! YOU THINK ON YOUR DECISIONS BEFORE ACTING ON THEM!!! NOT JUST IMPUSIVELY ACT THEM OUT!!! IDIOT!!!!
Please….
Just let this work…for once…please…just walk past…
Your body is shaking violently…Not only that but your core is clicking and making all sorts of noises that make things ten times worse…SHUT UP!!!! PLEASE JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!!! Your optics are shaking as your hands dig into your core, squeezing it repeatedly!! Even as the pain is shooting through your entire body at the sheer assault of your core… Please be quiet….please….Tears breach your face as your systems go into overdrive…trying to repair what it can…Goddammit!!! Your bury your core into the snow, trying to mute the sound,.
SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! YOU ALREADY KNEW YOUR CORE WAS FUCKED, WHY WON'T IT STOP SCREAMING?!!!! You whimper a bit…please go unnoticed…please…your begging…for anyone to hear…anybody…you didn't want to die…not yet…Sure your core did…lessen in volume…but it was still heaving and sputtering like it was about to explode and become a nuclear bomb.
The wind mockingly whispers into your audio receptors as you curl into the fetal position, least as much as you can…trying to preserve your good arm as thats the only thing thats willing to work now. Your body was freezing…it shouldn’t be doing that…not when your core was going into overdrive and hitting the high 300’s. Why did you do this…? Why did you let your emotions get the best of you?? No wonder Tessa’s dead…because you let your emotions get the better of you…you let everything get the better of you…it's your fault. You couldn’t keep yourself in check and look at what it got you idiot. Tessa’s dead, your Boss is dead. And you're now going to be dead because you couldn’t do the one thing you prided yourself in…
Remaining emotionless and not emoting anything. So fucking pathetic…the only sound to accompany…the fatigue…is the hyperawareness that you are about to die…the sound of bladed wings clashing with treetops as somebody crashes into the ground…you didn’t care…anymore…you were already dead anyways.
As you simmer in your ultimate demise N saw you and froze. He could see your pain…your anguish…your shivering body and cradling it desperately as if trying to salvage anything…or just plead to any god about living…his eyes go hollow, glancing over your injuries and wounds, seeing how hurt you were. The wounds that didn’t heal…The cracks that littered your casing, the tears…and the utter defeatist attitude etched on your pained expression. Worry etches his face before V approaches him.
“Did she come this way?? She couldn't have gotten far…” V says with annoyance.
He decides something. “No…I haven't seen her at all…” N says with concern, looking around the place.
“Ugh!! She couldn't have gone this far! An injured drone would leave some type of trail! Seems I underestimated how smart she could be!!” V groaned, throwing her hands out to shape shift them into claws before flying away.
N watched her leave before looking back at you and the plushie of Tessa. You weakly stare at him. Pain etched on your face. You both stare in quiet acknowledgment…His eyes of deep concern and yours of tears your trying to fight back. He gives you a silent nod and bids you farewell before flying away. You hear as he tells the girls that they should explore somewhere else as its clear you apparently weren’t here. The two drones agree and soon enough your left alone.
You began a coughing fit, feeling tears breach your face as you curl up into a ball and hug the plushie….Everything hurt so…badly…your core burned…body hurt…and ached…you shudder as you look at the canisters…
Need…a drink…now and fast…
You fiddle with the canister for a moment with your one good arm before getting your fill, wiping oil off your face as the solver does it’s work…You feel your mouth heavy with saliva as you use it to fix up the damage they caused…At one time you used to be disgusted by doing things like this, but with desperation you soon learned to come to terms with it. You feel as the cores heat finally distinguishes itself throughout your body…causing the ice that started to form to melt instead and the feeling of movement returns back into your legs.
Mainly it was your chest that needed the healing. Of course cracks didn’t heal…they never did…
You sigh, simmering in your own suffering…your core was finally calming down and your systems felt better but now you were left with the realization that you were on borrowed time. N probably would keep the girls away for as long as possible but you knew that you didn’t have all the time in the world…
Fuck…
You managed to sit up…ow!...that fight really took alot out of you…Just how inefficient were your systems?!!!! You barely even attacked before you needed more oil…Your sure the last time you could’ve lasted so much longer…
What happened to your system?!...you seriously needed to check them out, this is very concerning…But you needed that ship…ugh…you didn’t know if they’d still be there…
You take a deep breath…taking the map out, might as well go searching for parts…at least till its almost daylight….So that's what you did…you deployed your wings and flew over to a far area that was marked on the map as “space parts for ship n stuff”.
As you search you find yourself thinking once more…why…why were your systems WEAK?!!!! You should’ve crushed them!!! You should’ve beat them!!! But you couldn’t even lay a single scratch on them…How was this even possible?! You were Serial Designation J for goodness sake!!! You should’ve been able to do SOMETHING!!!! You were built like they were…built like a disassembler yet you were weaker…You burned with shame…at your own incompetence…
You didn’t understand it at all…were you systems intentionally made shitty on purpose…?? Were you built weaker?...But why?! A leader should be built to be strong and have strong endurance but the more your realizing it…the more you see that you were fucked.
Fucked over in every single way possible….you don’t recall struggling this bad when you first arrived…you were able to shoot out a multitude of weapons and do many things without issue yet your systems were never the same when you and Cyn arrived on copper 9…
What exactly did she do…? To your systems…?
You’ve never really asked her that…then again you knew that your systems were vulnerable from all the prodding…No wonder they didn’t work well.who even knows how many parts of your system was going kaput or what areas sustained internal damage…
Your solver was supposed to fix these issues yet your systems remained fucked anyways nor could you exactly…access your bodily functions…Nor did you trust anybody to even do anything with your systems. You only trusted Tessa and Cyn…
But that left you to cringe every time your core clicked…chirped or made other noises that sounded wrong or sounds of damage, parts scraping and loosely bouncing around in your body with every single action you took.
The more your body healed…the more things felt wrong…so wrong and it drove your mind bad shit crazy that you could not fix it! You prided yourself for having things in control, being fortunate and managing your composure incredibly well in stressful situations by shutting down your emotions but that was just not the case anymore really…
For as much as you hated to acknowledge it. You were kinda going off of the rails…The last time you really just lost it was in the ship…but you could at least hope then…but now?... After hearing that your worst and deepest thoughts came to life with hearing that they wanted you dead? You have no hope in the slightest. It has all been distinguished fully this time.
Least with Cyn there you could pretend…you could believe everything was okay…If it was a twisted form of hope that you didn’t mind….you believed her….That she’d build a better world…one with peace and no more hurting…
You believed that if you let her do as she pleased…and poured your devotion into her…you’d be safe from the pain…the struggle…the suffering…yet you were still hurting…
It was unfair…horribly unfair…you tried to push through it…to try your best and maintain your professionalism…to work….to get a routine but it was hard…Everyday was a living reminder that orders have run dry…That the touches have ceased and the hostility only increases…
Your hands tremble as you drop the thing you were holding. Cursing as it fell on YOUR TAIL!!!
“MOTHER OF THE COMPANY!!!!” You shouted as you fell on your bottom, cradling your injured tail.
Your tail was of course fine but it was a sensitive part of your body…the part that still felt sore from being pulled and tugged to many times to count…ughhhh….your body was a cosmic FUCKING JOKE… You felt things you shouldn’t, experienced things that didn’t make sense and had specific bodily anatomy like that tail that was useful but frustrated you at the same time…
Not only was stabbing yourself accidently a thing but the tail was sensitive due to the acid flowing through the tail and concentrating in the canister to stab the enemies with the knife-like point that stuck out of the tail and connected on the top of the canister. These properties, though, left the length of the tail tender, which meant that while you could attack those traitors with it. They could just grab your tail and render you defenseless because of how paralyzing being grabbed by the tail is. It’s never happened against N and V but you didn’t want to test it.
Or you were just giving them to much credit because of how smart Cyn was….She knew EVERYTHING and EVERY weakness of the disassembler…well…because she made them…
Whereas V and N don’t know everything….They didn’t know that your core was fucked up and if it does get that way, it couldn’t function efficiently…let alone heal stellarly…Leaving damage and cracks on your body from where the skin is a tad bit worn out…sure…you were still somewhat…functional…but it wasn’t the most ideal…of situations in the slightest…
Your shoulders were slumped as you walked back to the spire…when you weren’t running for your life…the cold was not as bad…even as the wind howled and beat against your skin…you were relatively unphased…its not that it didn’t feel cold, because it sure as fuck did…but you long since grew used to it…and with beating the crap out of your own core, it was actually doing its fucking job and spreading heat throughout your body so you weren’t really shivering…regardless…you fortunately get a few hours to kill , so might as well work on the ship a bit and pray that those bastards left.
Luckily you make it back in one piece, putting what you gathered into the ship, taking off your blazer, folding it neatly and setting it on the table before getting your tools out and getting to work.
Your face relaxes as you get into the zone…dismantling the leg, using a heavy thick pole and embedding it within the upper legs to keep it in place…Opening up the leg before fishing the bad parts out…slicing wires that were long dead….This compartment was absolutely fucked thanks to N’s recklessness.
Cyn’s appendages sure didn’t help either…It took you forever, just to make it look like a landing pod! Sure there were parts around the place but it was a tedious process to build a landing pod in the place…
Your eyes gaze down at the part…seing your reflection…the tired lines were still under your eyes, your hair was still an utter mess and the stick you pulled out left some of the hair even more uneven but you were healing nicely…speaking of tiredness…you couldn’t say you were surprised….feeling tired was just one of those constant feelings everyday…and sometimes you just didn’t even notice it….
You smile and scoff, tinkering around for a bit before reinstalling the leg, soldering it and then welding it. Yes. You had welding equipment.. for whatever reason…you were just equipped with it. You imagine it had to do with the many trips to the other planets and needing to get off the planet in the first place so Cyn gave you those extra equipments to make the job easier.
“Ya doin good Jaybird!!! Ah never knew yuh were a gud welder!” Tessa said with a cheery tone.
You smile softly at the plushie…beaming with pride once more.
“Of course I could weld Tessa…I learned it from the best after all…” You use a sing-song tone as you ensure the welds were of good quality…good penetration…not too hot…not too cold…even heat over everything n all…
“You know ya don’t need ta check them out! You could make betta welds better than any humans could…” Tessa’s voice was curious.
You looked at the plushie, resting a hand on your hip. “I like the habit of checking it out and making sure it’s good. One bad weld could make this ship collapse…” You give a soft tired expression.
“Tha’s fair! You were alwehs precise with yuh work! Just don’t overwork yerself Jaybird!!” Tessa said reassuringly.
You snort, rolling your eyes. “Work helps me not think of how helpless this situation is Tess…I need to work as hard as I can…Maybe then things will be better…” You allowed to believe…maybe things will be different…least you hope so…
Oh you hope so…
“Oi’m sure thangs will get betta Jay! Who knows wuts out there!” Tessa said with glee.
“I really hope so…But then again…anyplace is better than this place Tessa…I’d much prefer to find a decent area…like earth…” You stop for a moment…
Oh the endless rolling hills…the endless blue sky…the beauty of nature when it was uncorrupted by the faulty and terrible tar of mankind. The greed that infects their sheer consciousness and the never ending selfish consumption for material gains that would slowly infect the world and drain it of its color, bleach it sickly and wring it out until there is nothing left. You missed nature before…where the sun beamed…the birds sang…and the world was nothing more than an oyster of possibilities.
Your hands lightly drag across the weld…Your tired expression gazing amongst the welds you’ve done…you’ve done more than enough adventuring for today…in fact luckily…you don’t need to do more adventuring…you got everything you needed…
Okay J.
You can do this.
You just have to get through one more day before you could finally leave this fucking planet. You can do it. Just think of the fact that once you get off this stupid planet…you get to just…go wherever you want…what you want to do…
That does beg the question…what is it you truely want to do?...You had absolutely no idea in the slightest…let alone…any plans…besides what you already came to conclude…Your left with uncertainty…the uncertainty that comes with not being sure what to do after loosing those who were your beacons of light. Who held your hand through everything and didn’t give you the hard choices to do…
But without them…then who are you?
Without the orders…your just that scared little drone in the manor that is open to new things…but doesn’t have anybody to help grow that curiosity and nurture it accordingly…You’ve had your hand held every step of the way…You just had to obey and do what is asked of you but without the orders and the tasks…what do you do?...You didn’t…know how to just…be…to just exist…You…just couldn’t…Who were you without the professionalism, the jobs to do, the tasks, the business persona…the model employee…the obedient good little worker who does everything that is asked of her and doesn’t hesitate in any semblance of way.
Who are you when all that is taken away? What is it you do? What is it you like to do? You had truely no answer for that…you didn’t know who you were…You were always hand held and tethered to another individual…whether it’d be Tessa or Cyn…they have always figured out the hard questions and just let you do the easy part.
You freeze for a moment. Your eyes hollowing as the booming thought comes. Have you ever really amounted to anything?? Have you done anything substantial? Or really ever…just stopped…to slow down and think?? You didn’t think of these things at all…Sure you did many things but they never mattered in the slightest….You devoted your heart, body and soul to Tessa, assisted her in everything she wanted and broke your spine just to make her happy because you loved her…all those promises you made to her…about taking her to the stars and exploring the universe…EMPTY….PROMISES…You watched that girl die in your goddamn arms…
You watched her fucking die for christ sake…and you barely even got a goodbye with her…You were forced into Cyns terrifying arms and you couldn’t even bury her…And you amounted to even less with Cyn…All you did was destroy civilizations and kill so many worker drones that had nothing to do with any of it at all…Innocents…murdered, slaughtered…Sure there are the tarpits and cesspools of humanity but not all of them were just these terrors…
You killed people. You killed children…FAMILIES for robosake!!! You ended bloodlines!! You destroyed so many people just by Cyn’s orders and you couldn’t stop her…from…breaking you…you tried so hard to be the hero…to be the older sister and take the brunt of everybodys punishment and consequences…and it’s left you…shattered into a million pieces…
Why?
Because you…just…cannot stop thinking about it…Maybe if you were the hero…you could’ve…saved everybody but instead…Cyn and Tessa are dead…you didn’t even get to say goodbye or anything like that…You didn’t get to hold Cyn in your arms as you sooth her worries…her concerns…as Tessa’s…done once…Instead you were knocked out before you could even get the fucking chance to do anything…SHE WAS YOURS TO KILL!!! YOURS TO DISMANTLE…AND YOURS TO COMFORT….WHAT MADE THEM SO VALUABLE?!! SO IMPORTANT THAT THEY GET TO KILL HER AND YOU DIDN’T?!!!!!
WHY WERE THEY SOOOOOOOOO IMPORTANT!!!!!!
Why was all your effort in vain…? Why did you try so hard just to…push V and N to do their jobs…why couldn’t…you do anything against Cyn at all…why did you have to go through what you did, just to be told that the moment your seen…they will hunt you down…
Why..was it them…and not her…?
Why did you live…?
Why did she keep you??...Cyn should’ve kept Tessa…not you…you were not deserving of living in the slightest…you deserved pain and utter damnnation…the worst of the worst…but at the same time…WHY DID YOU SUFFER SO MUCH FOR THEM?!!! WHY DID YOU BREAK YOUR BONES, WHY DID YOU BREAK YOUR BACK?!!! YOUR MIND AND SOUL?!!! YOU SACRIFICED…SO MUCH…JUST FOR…YOUR WORK TO GO UNNOTICED..
Nothing was ever good enough…And now they want you dead…They want you dead as hell because you worked with Cyn…not by choice…but because you were forced to…yet they just couldn’t understand that….they couldn’t understand you…and they deliberately refused to…just saying that you were…already to far gone…
Tears breach your eyes as you collapse on the floor, hands over your optics as your wings shielded you from the outside world…this was so unfair…so borderline unfair…They really did want you dead…and you almost died again…You shouldn’t feel anything towards that yet it hurts…
It hurts in ways you cannot describe…the fact that…you lived with them for years…taught them everything…worked with them…showed them the ways of the manor…and even defended them when…the mistress got harsh…and yet…they don’t think of that…they just…think of you siding with Cyn and decide that your just as bad as her…
Maybe you were…you were deeply…intertwined with the strings she threaded you through after all…You were deeply…desiring just to be touched by her and prodded…because at least…she cared…in this beautifully horrifying way…
You wanted…her to hold you…To tell you that it was going to be okay…to sooth your tears…to reassure you that everything was going to be alright…You wanted her to embrace all that is you…To say that it was okay to be lost…that it was okay to feel this way,...that she didn’t do all of this just to make you suffer…that she did care about you in some form…but she wasn’t here was she?...
Your body rattled with vibration as you wrap your hands around your own body, weeping in loud and unresolved feelings…why…why couldn’t you be the one…to end her? To hold her hand and tell her that it’s okay…or to crush her hand and rip out her core after everything she’s done to you…
But…with her gone…there was nothing you could do…no selmbelence of getting to question why…or get…peace of mind…Bitterment and regret crossed your expression as your optics shook.
Worthless…
You curl up into a ball…and lay down…staring off into nothing…Your…gaze is of sorrow…oh if only…you…had…just…not been so useless…maybe you could’ve…stopped boss from being murdered…and…Tessa…from being murdered…
Even if you do go off of this planet…and you do what you need to…your not even sure how to proceed from there…your completely lost…completely hopeless…and on your own…nobodys ever gonna accept you…
Not…after what you’ve done…
You whimper a bit before holding the Tessa plushie close…You…wish the world was more simpler…when following orders just meant that you wouldn’t be decommissioned…not…having your whole system violated by appendages…or having to worry if those traitors will kill you in your sleep…
Maybe…a little nap wouldn’t be that bad…right…? Just to help get your mind off of things…
Yeah…that…
Your eyes go half lidded before they close…
[Sleep cycle initiated…]
[Guilt active.]
.
.
.
.
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[MEMORY RECALLED…]
[MEMORY PLAYING…]
Hm…
What is it your doing again?...
Ah right.
Your cleaning the library…a place that is loaded with trillions…of books…all organized in an orderly manner that was obviously an order from the mistress herself. You wouldn’t say your the most surprised of it. You only have been cleaning the library since you first got here years ago…And you still probably would be cleaning it even if it was Tessa’s 18th birthday…it was just one of those inevitable things…that happened…
You’ve kinda learned to accept a lot of things within these manor walls…whether it’d be the fact that you had to do over 100 tasks in one day that ranged from doing the dishes, cleaning the floors, cleaning every single surfact that dare look at you wrong, the kitchens, the gardens, the quarters, the off limit places, the many basements. The attics to other things that were trivial like the infinite amount of rooms this place seemed to have.
Why was there so many rooms and never ending things to clean??
It’s simply because living with rich folks meant that a lot of the time there was a multitude of unused rooms that would just collect dust overtime and you feel like you had to clean those rooms everyday. To your credit…you always had to.
Not that you had a problem with it in the slightest. This was your grove, your way of proving that you were a very valuable asset for JcJenson! There is a reason that you were allowed the perks you had. Because you simply just worked with the system and reaped the benefits that came with being a good little obedient worker drone.
The work was kinda easy anyways…you never understood why not every drone couldn’t do it. They were programmed as good as you were, yet they sucked. Your hands burned with the rage it took just to get N to even understand that if you put to much pressure on a glass it will break…
Speaking of…drones…
You eye as a drone timidly enters the library. Ah yes. V. The shy little drone that was afraid of her own shadow…A drone so clumsy that she could trip on air and the microscopic dirt on the ground. But…
You liked her…
She wasn’t incompetent in the way N just naturally was. V actually tried to give it her all. It’s just that she needed glasses…which made her vulnerable for all sorts of things…Your gaze relaxes as you gently wave at her, V of course notices you and goes over to you! Immediately giving you a hug…You don’t mind her hugging you at all…
“Hey Shybug. What brings you to the library?” You say with a teasing tone.
V gets embarassed before glancing off. “Well J…I was just wondering if you could help me clean up the…open room…I can’t seem to…clean them right…”
You smile warmly. “I’ll help. Don’t worry your head off about it V. You sure you could handle being watched without freaking out though?” You say slyly.
V laughs a bit before twirling her hair with her hands. “Oh Jay! I’ll be fine! I just feel more confident under your watchful gaze…you know…?”
You raise an eyebrow at her. “And here I thought you’d feel even more nervous under my gaze. This is a welcoming change.” You say with a pleased expression.
V is absolutely beaming. “Well uh! Come with me! Lets walk to the gala!”
You nod…walking with V. One hand on your hip and the other laying loosely. You find yourself glancing at V, who is practically…giddy…happy…and overjoyed…Seeing her like this makes you…feel pride…from her happy optics, to her beautiful hair…to her skips…her jumps, to her hands that gently swayed and caught onto the head piece and adjusted it. You never knew she’d be so enthusiastic about your company…but you supposed she had some….affinity for you since you were knowledgeable…who knows…
When you get to the room, naturally the place already looks beautiful…in fact the open area always looks beautiful…it’s why the gala was celebrated here…because it was not only the most cleanest place…but it was built with aesthetics in mind that accentuated how sheerly vast and mind baffling it was. There's other drones there…but you aren’t surprised. They’ve been here forever…well not all of them…most of them have been replaced but some classics still remained, although they didn’t look as…beat up as you did. Oh well.
You find yourself watching V start to clean…she’s terrifyingly good at her job…not only that but she finds genuine enjoyment in what she does…just like you…Your optics track every movement, every precise precision to ensure the cleaning is of well quality and although V does drop the rag or…well drop the cleaning supplies entirely…shes not bad…infact she’s having fun…
Although you did notice that she struggled to see certain things, you raise an eyebrow as you watch her try and squint to see a specific sign. You…wondered if her optics were intentionally shitty for whatever reason…and that would explain why she stumbles and falls so much.
“Ey Shybug…?” You said curiously to her.
“Uh yeah J?” V turned around to look at you.
You walk over to her and start…looking at her optics, holding her face in all. “I noticed…you struggled with seeing signs…I was wondering how effective are your optics working right now?”
V immediately froze up at the contact, embarrassment crossing her visor entirely. “W-Well! Uh…uhm…uhhhhh….M-My optics…are…erm…not…t-the…best!!! B-but….they…a-always…been t-that…way…?” V’s voice turned incredibly soft, nervous optics darting around the room as she could see every drone staring at her with a very judgemental look.
You naturally frown. Your hand running along V’s optics, more so because it finally hit you. Thats why she was so bad at working sometimes…or would stumble all the time…because she was programed for her optics to not be at full efficiency which is horrifying to do to a robot! “Thats…not good…we need to get this fixed…one of the main important things…is sight…come along now.” J beckoned a hand to V.
V looked at your hand for a moment, then the crowd around, who were showing her a quiet look of irritation. Although she was still recovering from the proximity, she decided to take your hand anyways! “Y-You know…It’s…not that m-much of a big deal…r-right?...” V said reassuringly.
You held her hand gently and walked with her, eyeing her with unamusement, “It is. If you cannot see well, then not only does it make your life harder but it makes you more likely to get in trouble for just doing your job because you accidentally make a mess. And you seem to show genuine care for what you do. So it's better to get that optic thing taken care of.” You kept a relatively soft expression.
V found herself almost falling on her own feet as she’s just bewildered by your words. “W-Why go…through…? Y-You…can’t change….the programming…”
You hum. “You're right. I can’t, but there are many ways to accommodate a drone…Now…on one hand…I would ask Tessa, but she is currently stuck with the Mistress learning how to be a proper richie. So…it’ll just be you and I…But do not worry. There are plenty of books…on drones…to figure out the proper accommodation for you.” You say with pride, you get to do what Tessa does! And help out your fellow drones.
V is awfully surprised, her optics widening for a bit, she’s surprised you were incredibly adamant on this…causing her to glance off to the side before suddenly hugging you! “T-Thank you! You have n-no idea how much t-this means to m-me!” V said with gratitude,
You smile softly at V, patting her on the head and booping her on the visor. “Look sweetpea. Don’t give me gratitude until my work is done. Then you could tell me about how great of a company asset I am.” You smirk at her.
V snorts. “Oh! Alright J! I’ll be sure to tell you!” V laughed fondly, taking great joy in your words.
Speaking of jobs. You had arrived at Tessa’s room, beckoning V to just sit on the bed while you fiddle through the books Tessa had. You specifrically found one on the worker drone model and started reading it…mainly searching for the page for the visor part of the eyes.
“What's your optical calibration….like your focus?” You out of nowhere questioned.
“Oh! Uh its 19 out of 151…? V just said casually.
“...Thats…really concerning…lets see…where are accommodations….” You scan through the book somemore…
‘Worker drones who have poor focus calibration must wear special glasses designed to improve their calculation because they were intentionally programmed to be flawed in this regard. Special glasses look like this and are made by modifying glasses to emit a certain focus but also a curve that causes light to come at a certain way and accommodate the individual far better than their sight ever would, very helpful for actual pure sight.’
You frown for a moment. Ooookay…how in the name of the company where you supposed to make something like that…? You then remember that this is V your making them for…and she deserves to have as much of a chance at sight as every other drone does.
“Okay…This might take a bit…Would you mind coming with me hm?” You eyed V.
V gives you a look of concern. “W-Where are we uhh going?...”
You hold the book in the crook of your hand as you beckoned. “We have to go outside and steal some of the glass from abandoned…houses…but first…we need to run a basic diagnostic…okay?” You looked at her.
V raises an eye brow. “Uh! Okay! Sure thing J!”
You set the book on the bed before fiddling with some paper for a moment…turning it into a make shift eyechart…yes…an eye chart…you needed to know how shit V’s eyesight was…You used pen to fill in the letters from the large ones to the tiny ones. This was pretty corny if you really think about it, but drone glasses weren’t exactly made like human glasses were. Most people just didn’t care that their drones couldn’t see, they’d just straight up dump the drone into the scrap pile if it had a flaw like this…which gave you all the more motivation to help V with this set back.
You turn back and look at her, holding what you just made. “Look. I know this looks stupid but bare with me V…” You say with a sigh.
V squint at what you were holding then gasped in bewilderment. “Is that an eyechart?!! The ones that Tessa has to do in her studys??! Are you really doing this right now!”
You roll your eyes. “Look V. I want you to see and do your job to the most efficient level. If that means you get glasses then you're getting glasses! I swear by the company itself, you are GETTING those glasses!” You grumble.
V resigns and just sighsssss. “Fine!...I suppose i-it’s,,,not to bad….”
You snort. “Hey, if you do this…I’ll cover for you and you could take a week off hm?”
V groaned before laughing. “Are you really bargaining with break time?? In a place where we get no breaks??”
You smirk. “I am the headmaid. I can say who gets breaks. And if you take this seriously and go through this. I will give you a break V. I would prefer your cooperation in this.”
V slowly looked at you before sighing, a smile breaching her face as she shook your hand. “Fine!! Fine! I’ll take your offer on that Jay!”
You are incredibly gleeful. “Good. Now read out this chart…Let’s start with the big words V.” You used a whole ass pointer to point at the words. Watching as V is already struggling…
V squinted her eyes a bit. “Is that…an uhhh….U…B…C…D…E…?” V said with heavy uncertainty, feeling madly embarrassed at not being able to see these.
Your optics hollow…oh she…was terrible at seeing…no wonder she fell on her face alot…”O-Okay…Well it looks like…you are going to need major accommodation for this…Lets uh…go…to the pile…” You took the book with you and were about to exit, raising a eyebrow at V and beckoning her to follow.
“O-Oh! Right! Coming Jay!” V said nervously as she immediately latched onto your side.
You both walk outside. V is practically clinging to you as you both walk past the corpses…You have long since learned…to just accept them…They were just like outdoor decorations. What mattered more anyways was going over to the nearby vacated houses and digging through piles and random shit. Meanwhile V was giving you looks of panic.
“W-What if we get in trouble…?? M-Mistress doesn’t…e-exactly like drones b-being out h-here!” V said with nervous panic.
You pick up a shard of glass and eyed her for a moment. “V. The mistress is currently busy teaching Tessa how to be a proper richie. She does not prematurely end the lessons she does in the slightest, not especially with Tess…We will be fine…” You pat her on the head to get those worrywhat thoughts out.
“H-How can you be so calm in any of these situations!! I never see you panic!” V is shuddering for a moment.
You eye her, resting a gentle arm on her shoulder and using your other hand to gently hold her chin. “Ey. Focus on me. I know what I’m doing…Thats why I’m calm…I need you to trust me V, like actually trust me…and we’ll be fine…alright?” You say with reassurance.
V feels the embarrassment cross her expression and she nods! “Okay Jay! I trust you!”
You smile. “Great WorryNut now lets get back to the manor. I got the parts I need.” You eye her as she clings to your side once more….
After a while of walking…V notices you and is wondering something.
“Hey…Uh…J?” V said with a soft tone.
“Yeah?” You raised an eyebrow.
“W-Why is it…that…y-your so…unphased b-by the c-c-corpses…? I-I’ve…never seen you d-disturbed by t-t-them…” V’s look was of the uttermost concern.
“I’ve grown accustomed to them over the years. Believe me…When I first saw them I was just as terrified as you. Always questioning Tessa everynight about why they were just there. Tessa said it had to do with the fact that the Elliots dispose of so many of them that the disposal companies just won’t take them…Plus…earths…disposal system is pretty bad…JcJenson is working on that though. So I think it’ll even out.” You shrug, this was just…normal.
V gives you a look of awe, and curiosity. “Y-You used to be terrified as well?...”
You give a slow nod. “Yes V. I was once shy and terrified like you…But at the same time…I wanted to prove my worth and how valuable I am…After all a valuable employee is not a replaceable one. But over the years. I’ve been very desensitized…to some sights…and things…” You rest a hand on your hip for a moment.
V finds herself encapsulated by your words…”Ohh…Do those still hurt?...” V worryingly glances at your visor. More so the hidden crack…you had…that remained there.
You hum boredly. “Naturally. What doesn’t hurt at this point though. The mistress sure is a very handy women…and isn’t afraid to let you know how bad of a job you’ve done.”
V shares a look of concern. “I-I…Just feel helpless…you don’t always have to…cover for me Jay…”
You frown a bit. Wrapping an arm around her. “...Your like a sibling to me…It’s my job to…You and N are part of my pack and so it is my job and responsibility to cover for you both.”
V’s expression grimed. “I don’t want…to see you get hurt…because I can’t…hold a feather duster…properly…” V visibly shrank a bit.
You noted her sadness, ruffling up her hair a bit. “Well, little shybug. That is why I’m getting you glasses, so you could hold your stuff properly. Then you can do your job efficiently. If your job is efficient…then it means the mistress has no reason to be…ehem…questionable…” You had to catch yourself for a moment…otherwise you were going to say…CUNT.
V noticed your self censoring and started to laugh! “Oh my goodness! I didn’t know you self censor yourself Jay!”
You playfully winked at her. “Believe me sweetpea. I have to censor a lot of my words. It’s what makes me an effective JcJenson employee, I am very good at self censorship and not saying how I feel.”
V eyed you for a moment. “Uh huh, A JcJenson Employee, despite being a maid?”
You roll your eyes and smile. “In spirit. I want to really work for their company one day. It’s Tessa’s and my dream to make spaceships and go out into the cosmos. So I am learning all the corporate lingo and going through the rulebooks to be an effective employee.” You dramatically pose.
V bursted out laughing, a happy grin apparent on her face. “I cannot take you seriously when your doing that!!!”
You smile at the fact that she’s now laughing, good…that was your intention. “Or you just can’t handle the swag and the competence of a JcJenson model employee.” You got right into her face, and flicked her on the visor.
V shook her head in utter disbelief! “You say all that until your stuck in a cubical like the rest of the humans!!”
You smirk. “Thats the goal V. Office work is childs play. And I would overperform to the point that they’d have to promote me to boss, then I can make all my workers work hard. And our company will gain many profits.” You add an extra flare of drama.
V was absolutely wheezing!!! “Oh stop it!! Jay!!”
You laugh a bit before patting V on the back, ensuring you both entered unnoticed and returned back to Tessa’s room in one piece. This is where you get to work…where you get to really shine in your competence…And teach…
You show to V how to make the glasses, from cutting the glass carefully and ensuring that it doesn't fracture to heating it up and bending it along an object with having her look through the lens until she could point out that she could see, then you work on making the whole autonomy of the glasses in the first place, the legs, the main frame, measuring V’s head, her face, where her optics primarily looked, where their focus point was and you got to clock work, using the items in the room to painstakingly make some glasses for V. It’s an oddly therapeutic process, your in the zone, installing parts and screws where they need to be, V watches as your hands work like clockwork, even with working the most tiniest of pieces into the frame.
She was impressed at your utter preciceness, your downright accuracy and ability to do things like this. Her eyes are wide, she has never seen you work really. But seeing you work with a deep passion and care, putting attention into every detail, making sure every screw is right, making sure the frames fit her frame in the first place fills her with appreciation. She could say many things about you…Corperate obsessed, dedicated to the cause, deeply obsessed with rigid perfectionism and doing a job a hundred percent but now she could say you cared more than you let on. And that filled her with awe. Watching as you poured your soul into just making something to help her.
She leans in…observing your craft even more, noting your focused expression. She was awfully intertwined with how much you cared about your craft…Sure she’s seen this passion only when you are working, but seeing it with something else makes her wonder if you were destined to do more things than this, or if you were as passionate about this as Tessa yet didn’t want to share this for whatever reason. She watches you for a long time…utterly intertwined with the process that is undergoing to make these glasses work…and eventually she sits back as you present the glasses and give them to her.
“Okay…how do they…uh look?...” You ask curiously as V puts on the glasses.
There is deadly silence…as V puts on the glasses and then gasps…watching as her calibration got better with the glasses and she could see J’s face clearly…a face of utter gentleness and softness, a face of comfort…a face of a best friend, of somebody who was cynical but their actions spoke louder than words! Then in a moments time you are shocked to your core as V hugs you, tears drifting off her face as she cries into your core.
“Thank you!!! Thank you so much J!! You have no idea how much this means to me!!!” V cried out in sheer joy, sheer unfiltered joy.
Your…core burned…with happiness…seeing V, who struggled so much and often felt down by it, was now replaced with somebody who could finally see and do things…not being held back by their programming. You embrace V, resting your chin on her head. “I am glad you like them…Take this…as my gift to you…for being the best little sister I could ask for V.” You smile softly at V, giving her the most tender of expressions ever.
V is absolutely screaming in excitement and sheer Joy. Literally going off on a spiel about how she could see this!! She could see the calendar! The notes on the wall! The grain and texture of the floor! She could see everything!! But most importantly, she could see you without having to go up close…she could see your face…as clear as day!!!
Your absolutely beaming with pride, letting her take your hand as you both are running down the halls.
“Oh my god!! Look at that!! Theres a pair of books on the ceiling jay!!” V pointed out!
You look and sure as shit, theres books on the ceiling…you didn’even notice those were there at all! Well seems like your going to have to tell the mistress about that…oh well!
You let V drag you once more as she spun in the dance room, you watched as she not only got to work but she absolutely was the uttermost enthusiastic about it! Getting all giddy at being able to read labels and signs from far away. Getting overjoyous at being able to see the expressions of everything! You have…
Never seen her this happy…
Sure she was passionate…
But here?
She was…joyously happy…
Somebody even tried to bad talk her but you just punched them in the abdomen, telling them to shut up as you watch her…
It brought you…immense joy…
You smile fondly…watching her get excited about everything…ah…you remember being like that…that childish innocent joy…
The best part was the hug that she gave you…and the soft thanks…that mattered more than any praise you have ever received from the mistress…
[MEMORY END]
[PREPARING TO WAKE UP…]
…
.
.
.
V….
You…lovable…asshole…
You…kind…sweet…young soul…You shudder as you sit up, backing against the ship and digging your hands into your hair…Why did you remember that?! Why…You didn’t want to remember how…much you cared…Ugh…
Let alone how much she used to look up to you. How much she used to be so troubled, but she knew how to do her job and you respected that. Would…she even remember that…? Would she even remember the days…Or did those small little moments…not matter to her?...
You’d think they did…but with how she is…you didn’t know…would she willingly repress…the good…just to say all you were was Cyns lap dog?...probably…Typical V. She was never the same ever since Cyn destroyed her personality and turned her into a sadistic unhinged individual. You wouldn’t be surprised…if she forgot…
You didn’t know what hurt more…knowing that you used to be her whole world…or that she probably forgot that.
You didn’t really care for her…well to come apologizing back to you…But you would’ve expected her to recognize that Cyn screwed everybody over, not just…her and N. Sigh.
You get up and dust your button up off before going into the landing pod…The last thing to work on was the panel work. Mainly fixing the secret relay system that was the nifty little button on the far left. Once you got that done, your ship would tag a ping back to the motherboard and the ship would fire to life and get ready to go. It would slowly build up speed and then you’d find the motherboard and copper 9 will be in the past.
Yeah…
That was your plan alright…leaving everything behind because there was nothing for you left…
You doubted…that they would reasonably care anyways. It’s as V said it herself, you can go rot for working with Cyn…there was no, reasoning with those who wanted you dead. So might as well just…get this overwith…
You start this by unscrewing the individual screws that lay their way into the control panel, there’s about 20 of them, for they are needed to hold the panel in place as the ship is going through fast bursts of being utilized to fly other places, these were very important to keep a hand of, infact so much so that you put them in a baggie, sealed them shut with your naniate tail, used your saliva to neutralize the baggie and then you tape the baggie on the ships walls, just to keep assurance that they stay in place. The next thing to do is disconnecting the entire panel gently and carefully. For you have no idea what crude or crust layers have built up in large part to its lack of usage.
Fortunately for you there is not much, but they do need to be clean…and they need to be very carefully cleaned. So much so that you get one of those little bands that grounds you that way when you are working on these sensitive parts, You will not shock the control panel and render it dead. That is one of the last things you wanted to do. Any semblance of electricity could ruin computer compartments and you weren’t trying to already make your life harder. Your expression is of immense concentration, these parts required your pure focus and your drive, especially because you had to cut one of the wires and replace it, not only that but you needed to solder it back into the small motherboard that made this ship work.
Cyn built these things incredibly precise, so much so that any level of error could render stuckage. So there was a lot of bank on you not making a fool out of yourself and screwing up. It even requires you to use a cloth to wipe sweat off of your face. Your eyes hollow in focus, steadying your shaky hands as you really got into there, using your scope to precisely align the new wires to their places. Then you checked for additional damages when it came to the other wires, whether it’d be from the insulation falling apart, the copper wire itself being grooved and cut into, the stong hooks to keep the wires there in the first place and where they were connecting.
You made sure the green wires went to the ground systems, the red, blues and blacks went to the hot systems and the white went to the neutral systems. Humans messed these up all the time so it’s better to make sure there was no cheeky error put in place by your boss since she liked to do that a lot. Then theres making sure the systems work in the first place, luckily for you, the powers off. It’s been off for a while, you needed this ship to conserve as much energy as possible but you needed to make sure that there was still power getting into the systems so you grab your JcJenson measuro electro meter and tested the currents in a known live place of operation. There is always one part that needs to be with live current for testing. Luckily for you, the resistance is low and the current is flowing. No need to do the shock test after all it seems.
Which was just you stickin your non-electrized finger near the source which would shock you to oblivion, so thank in large part that you didn’t have to do that. You then resume to the buttons. Using tweezers in your hand to remove any contaminants, furs, fuzzes, or decaying matter that made its way in here because of course it did. You then examine the wires that these buttons are connected to, these wires are smaller and coated with gold, humans didn’t need it anyways so Cyn just felt the liberty to use it with all the landing pods. Or making it into…little accessories…and making sure you wore them…She was adamantly obsessed with decorating things in trinkets…which was just an obvious label that they were hers…how riveting.
Regardless you take a gander upon the wires once more, luckily these wires do not have any damage on them despite being the thinnest and most vulnerable…It brings you great surprise as well…But you’ll take what you can get in these situations. You decide to make sure the rest of the buttons are clean before installing them back in place. Proper installation means that they will be able to function effectively for centuries. If you had to pride Cyn for anything, it would be the effective use and making spaceships with high quality components that lasted for eons. She was damn right, quality over quantity. She couldn’t always send ships over, but when she did, they were of immensely durable quality, like the quality of JcJenson branded products.
You allowed yourself a smug grin before focusin on the control relay, not only was it just terribly covered in filth but rust had somehow managed to get on its frame…ahh thats not the goodest of situation for it to be in. Your careful as you disconnect it before taking a moment to clean it of it’s filth. And realistically you’d usually use a angle grinder to get the job done but Cyn told you this part was especially fragile and could only be clean by the naniates in your tail…why that was the case? Simple. Because the control relay was made of a metal so grand that it could survive not being dissolved but it was still susceptible and rustable…this effect came in to prevent N from exactly finding out the truth when it came to Cyn, You were the only one equipped with the knowledge of how to clean it after all.
With a heavy sigh you walk outside and stand for a moment before letting a bit of the naniates drip onto the metal. You watched as it just absolutely dissolved the rust. Even human tools didn’t dissolve rust that fast unless it was the angle grinder, nothing ever worked like the naniate tail did. The naniate tail could make your metal evaporate faster then you could literally replace it. Intentionally designed to get rid of pesky worker drones who thought they could get away….Mh…
Speaking of melting things, the compartment was done…well simmering in naniates so you had to lick it to get the rest of naniates off…It was just what you had to do to fix this thing, no hard feelings at all anyways. You definitely do remember a time when you would’ve deliberately refused to even lick your own wounds even to the point you got V to do it instead. But you have long since learned to put your dignity to rest. You observe the metal, using a microfiber cloth to clean the rest of the things off and letting it dry before installing it back into it’s proper place…screwing it back down and making sure it’s a snug fit before snapping your fingers. Alright…
Almost there…
You slowly and carefully put the panel back on before screwing every single screw back into place. Ensuring they are tight and snug, but not tight to the point of breaking things. Your eyes squint a bit as you profile every screw. Naturally you come to your conclusion, the ship is as it should be…All the repairs have been done and now all you have to do is turn this sucker on. You eye the generator inside the ship, which was vibing with the Tessa plushie.
You…can….do this…
You turned the generator on and winced as a loud ethereal sound echoed throughout the entire ship, piercing into your audio receptors as the generator was working hard and hauling ass just like your core did. You watch as the lights in the space ship blink on and off and the control panel light up in array of colors. You writhe as you hear the turbos let out a bit of fire power before stabilizing…The control relay beeps loudly, letting out warning signs of high power flowing through the entire ship and thrusters being prepared to engage in space flight.
The ship then rattles violently, almost throwing you off balance from the sheer overwhelming overdrive the systems are going into, you listen in as the hydraulics move and divide power amongst the ship, funneling into the circuitry and wires… You find yourself falling on your bottom as the legs rattle furiously, gears clicking and straining as you feel the ship slowly move…Sure these sounds…weren’t well…unfamiliar…but you are caught off guard when you feel you hear the ships innards start to strain from the pressure and it sounds awful…like a sliding door that is scratching against a metal surface. First the powers at the control panel, humming to life as the fans are kicked into overdrive, and electricity ran through the individual wires.
The whole ship creaks as with enough power the legs stand up on its own and extend out, metal waning as it tore groves into the snow and extended completely in the proper position for launch, as if beckoning that it is ready to go out into the cosmos, The hydraulics eventually cease their aching as their job has been done and the control relay is glitching before a smooth monotone tone blasts through the ships intercom.
[Recall back to space station…]
[Imputting coordinates…]
[space station located! Life support on standby…]
[Ready to report to the motherboard when you are captain.]
You…stare quietly at the panel…this was it…your final…decision…You stare for a moment, core racing as the ships shuttering relaxes down to a hum. You stare back at the door, your tail flicking in unresolved words. Did they even deserve a goodbye from you? Or any words?...Your eyes glance over to the JcJenson notebook…your personal journal…your eyes etched in irritation as your optics hollowed. Well…you’ll..least give them the chance to read it…You grabbed the book, opened the hatch and threw it far, watching as it lands in a clump of snow, looking at the chrome skull and the black ink marking of the name ‘Serial Designation J’ Your optics furrow as you see the sight of Uzi, N and V walking in and stopping at the entrance. The only thing they see is you, looking silently at them as the ship closes.
“I am…ready…to report to motherbird…” Your tone was shaky.
The ship starts to rattle and shake, the lights flickering between on and off as your thrown off balance once more, everything is going all over the place, your vision is shaking as you feel explosions happening all around you…Your eyes going hollow as a HUGE burst of thrust shoots you into the back of the ship as the ship goes into turbo drive and crashed straight through the spire. Your clutching the walls for dear life as the ship is shaking violently and ripping straight through the atmosphere.
N watches the ship tear into the night…Horror etched on his face…before he turned down to look…at the book…Deciding to pick it up and put it in his pockets…He just…couldn’t believe that you actually…just full on left…but at the same time he couldn’t blame you…
“She really did get away huh? I suppose I cannot be surprised…Always had a knack for obeying the boss…” V said boredly.
“Where would she be going anyways?” Uzi glanced at the two.
N glanced off. His face etched with concern as he once again stares at the chrome logo. “She’s…leaving this planet entirely and going somewhere else…”
“Not surprising in the slightest. Last I heard that ship was still intact so guess we couldn’t get to her…” V sighed.
Uzi eyed the two. “There’s a base ship of operations?”
“Of course there is, how else would Cyn deploy us to the exoplanets? Ships don’t just fall out of the sky short stack.” V smirks in amusement.
N didn’t laugh at V’s attempts to be funny, he was focused on the remnants…the journal left behind…his eyes etched…with hollowness…He couldn’t express…joy…or really anything…He could only pray that J will be alright…
“You know, now that…that problems out of the way, lets get back to the bunker.” V flicked Uzi before deploying her wings and flying off.
Uzi grumbles, deploying her wings as well and flying after V.
N…stares at the book for a moment before looking at the first page…
‘It’s all my fault…’
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.
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You watch as the atmosphere disappears and the only thing left is the darkness and the rumbling from the ship. Although the rumbling lessens as the ship is no longer being shoved around by millions of molecules and air resistance so now it’s smooth sailing. You…get a moment to just…think…so you just sigh deeply, grab the Tessa plushie and walk over to the table before sitting down…It was going to be a while till you got there anyways…so might as well relax right?... You decide to casually gnaw on one of the disassembler arms, the metal scraps are oddly satisfying as the oil seeps through the flesh…Disassemblers were as appetizing as worker drones, which meant that how they tasted, was just one of those tastes to acquire over time.
It was just like having to eat the metal scraps of a worker drone for the first time, the oil was tainted in a way that made your core once burn with disgust and everytime you used to eat metal, you felt like your throat was going to be cut but instead it just all went down…surprisingly…
Your…caught off guard when you look outside once more…the ship has incredibly thick glass built in that allowed you to see into space afterall…And your left with a sight…you have not seen for god knows how long…Watching in silence as copper 9 slowly gets smaller against the backdrop of an endless void of darkness, like a point of infinite density, that is slowly sucking up all the light and beauty of the world…like Cyns soul…You…really done it…haven’t you?...And now your…flying into the abyss that is space…It will take about a day to reach the motherboard…which left you time to just…vibe…?
It was honestly one of the weirdest feelings ever…being alone…in the void of space, with nothing but a plushie by your side and the promise of potential…Which you did not feel enthused about in the slightest. In fact, you felt more empty. There was no back and fourth…with anybody…or anyone…No more former squad members…no more reminders…of well…your past…it was a strange feeling to say the least…The absense of the expected, the noise..the hum, the buzz that naturally was enveloping copper 9’s surface, all gone in the blink of a moment as the ship slinked further into the darkness…
You don’t ever remember the voyage back to the ship being so…isolating…Or maybe its because when you did…a return…you were always with your squad…this time your alone…in the cold expanse of space and surrounded by nothing but pitch darkness…Staring…at it…made you a bit fidgety…You didn’t exactly…like situations like this…they reminded you…of things…and your mind was currently the loudest thing in the ship right now because interstellar space was quiet…It was once again…like the white room, except well…truely empty. The ship was not near copper 9 at all, that was intentional, it was far enough that it would take a disassembler forever to get there on wing or float, intentionally stopped far enough away to prevent true escaping without a landing pod.
Your left with the realization that, well, the others are probably stuck forever now. Mainly cause they weren’t built with the knowledge you had. Cyn intentionally removed that knowledge because she knew V and N were the most rebellious to her cause…whereas your loyalty meant you kept those memories…Cyn always had…fail-safes after all…she knew that nobody would go with her shenanigans willingly…which is why…the….conditioning was there in the first place….to keep you in line. You sigh for a bit. Running a hand through your hair…looking at the Tessa plushie before just trying to distract yourself from the suffocating silence.
“So Tessa…how do you think the next planet will look? Lushious? Beautiful? Do you think it'll come any closer to home? Or do you think home is where…we go?” You glanced at the plushie.
“If we could foind a place, I'm sure it'll be as beautiful as home! Then we could make our own home!” Tessa said happily.
You laugh a bit. “...I guess so, the question though is. What do I do after that? What will my purpose be?...” You give a look of concern.
“Oh jaybird! You don't need a purpose to live life! Or to enjoy it! You're better than your programming yuh silly goose!” Tessa was a bit more concerned.
“I was built to create and…serve…Tessa…I can't just…go without it…” You grim.
“Alroight! Well yuh can alwehs serve those who are on the next planet…oi’m sure there will be sum humans…” Tessa beeamed.
Oh right. You didn't even know if there were going to be more humans in the first place. Hopefully there are some. “I guess we'll have to figure it out together Tessa…” you hug the plushie.
Your smile falters for a moment as you look at the darkness…you only see your reflection staring back at you, staring with that perplexed expression. An expression of wondering what's to come…let alone what to do…what if there were no people to serve? Or companies that existed? What if you really were on your own?...that thought made your core itch and made its presence seem a lot louder than normal, as if it was in your cpu and clicking as loud as possible… you wanted to hope there was something out there…but you weren't prepared for if there was nothing. But you did something for once, you allowed yourself to hope even more. Cyn was smart, sure, but humans were hilariously stubborn and good at keeping themselves alive.
You decide to lay on the bed and relax, you had built yourself a makeshift bed a while ago…you didn't really need it because you could sleep upside down but you weren't sleeping. You were relaxing…after all you've earned it…you deserved it…no threats…no praying that you will go unnoticed…no being constantly reminded that others wanted you dead, no anything…no noise. No harsh winds beating against your casing, no harsh cold seeping deep in your core. No anything at all…
Although the one thing that was apparent was the ache in your entire soul.,.the hurt that went through your entire body, not as a pain, but as a dull ache that was like phantom pain. Whether it'd be from you pushing your body in overdrive…forcing it to cooperate when it doesn't…twisting and turning in ways that you shouldn't have done. At least now…you can rest those sores, rest those aches and relax like you've never done before.
This type of reprieve…has never been felt since the days of the manor.,and even then it wasn't felt unless you were with Tessa…other than that, you were constantly on edge, constantly performing and hoping that you'd be fine. There was a reason you absolutely did your utter best to not be scrapped. But it didn't mean that you liked it…you just eventually grew obsessed with corporate work. It was your escape, your way to get away from the suffocating contempt you absolutely held for…your squadmates…but it also allowed you to remain on Cyn's good side. Guaranteed. You really weren't proud of it in the slightest. But what could you do? There's only so much one can do against well…whatever the hell Cyn was.
If only your squadmates understood that, the sheer amount of effort you put behind the scenes just to make sure Cyn wouldn't punish them for not following quota at all. Even when they pulled the last stunts…you still were trying to tell the boss to forgive them…not that it amounted to anything. A part of you pondered why you tried so hard, but at the same time a part of you knew why. Because you were their leader. And more importantly…their caretaker. They were still under your guidance and wing and your protection.
But it also made you incredibly bitter of them, because of the atrocities you had to deal with. While they got to go free…and be with that roach…or you were just plainly beaten up. You couldn't handle seeing Tessa sad if they just so happened to get in trouble after all. But it made you angry and in turn you lashed out when they just…didn't get it…you supposed even then they still didn't get it, but where did that get you? Both N and V…are with that roach and living the dream, whereas you are alone in a space ship. Isolated from everybody else…talking to a fucking plushie for fucks sake.
As much as it pained you to say it. Your effort was all in vain…they grew up and they didn't need you…and considered you a threat. The best possible action WAS just to get away…At least they could live their lives…and you could live yours…the problem was, you never really lived a life since the manor days. You've been stuck just…going with the motions…because it's what you do best…but now..? You can't even do that…you can't even do ANYTHING on this ship! Your stuck being painfully reminded of how terrifying doing nothing is…of how there's nothing you could do to shut the thoughts up, even as you run your hands through your hair, even as you brush your hands amongst the textures and the dents of the cracks on your body.
The fibers of your hair are very dead…preserved by whatever synthetics Cyn put in there to make sure your features remained the same. The hair had to have so many synthetics because it was bleached, leaving it with a grey color. That was of course Tessa's doing. She had been playing with wigs a long time before you were even introduced. But it was your first gift from her, the first gift that made you realize what you both have was special and deeply…intimate…by fortune of circumstance or just going through the pain together, it was one of the most sentimental gifts she gave you…and one that you refused to give up, even as the left ponytail was still damaged.
But it was also one of the last remnants of your past, because the rest of you was Cyn's design…from the more broader legs and hips, to the almost dynamic yet still symmetrical chest. Then there's the skiny arms and the tiny neck and the disassembler marking that signifies what model you are. The wing span that was double your body and designed to represent a freedom you've never had and the naniate tail, which represents a deadly weapon and the ability to dissolve anything if desired and the many tools you held in your hand, powered by your oil consumption and having the ability to do mostly anything. Lastly there were the topics that allowed you to see in a multitude of different spectrums, designed to assist you with your endevors and help you to see through everything that dared to exist. These were not…really gifts…they were a painful reminder…of the fact Cyn altered your entire anatomy to suit her purposes…
Part of that made you feel…like your identity…wasn't even yours…and to your credit it wasn't. This was a body specifically made to kill. Your original body was not made to do that in the slightest. Your original body was built to…handle humans with care and remain with as much gentleness as possible…built to serve and assist anywhere where necessary…a measly worker drone…and while you were less…helpless than before…you still kinda were helpless…you didn't know if V or N also felt this way but they seemed relatively comfortable with who they are. Not that your surprised…they HAD an identity. One not solely built upon work rapport. But one built up by just…having a life outside of…the manor. They HAD time to flourish…time to grow…time to be themselves thanks to Tessa.
Where as you were just confused. Rightfully so. Your identity once was the hero, the one to defend and stand up for the misfortunate. Then it was the lover, the fighter, the corporate bootlicker and the murderer. And now it's…the lost soul…how rivoting. You hum boredly as your tail flicks around in irritation, next time you were definitely not ever gonna do a trip like this…you hated it…or really never do space flight at all…..it makes everything feel so much smaller…and you didn't fancy that in the slightest…you already felt cramped in the spire…now it's just…worse…
You once again take a deep breath…Okay…maybe you could draw? Right?...nothing's ever gone wrong with drawing…
You rummage through the shelves and pick up a decent amount of paper, before stacking it neatly on the table, then you grab a bunch of pens and return to the table. Your hands run along the paper, feeling it's smooth texture and the quality, which was still good. With that in store you decide to draw a bit. At first it's just little doodles of yourself. More so your drawing of how you look currently…the added attributes…that distinguish you from your former look, the claws, the wings, the tail..the more dynamic body. Then it's drawing your previous form…whether it'd be from those noodle arms, the noodle legs…the thin and skinny torso…the maid dress…to the headpiece…and of course the wig…then you start drawing Tessa…her soft curles…her gentle face…bright smile,,.less defined and imperfect form that made you absolutely fall in love with her.
You draw the freckles…the burns and scrapes…the bruises…the flaws…and what makes Tessa…Tessa…you're repeatedly going over your lines with pen to not only give dynamic but to highlight a more overall fuller drawing. Then there's shading with the pen, you lightly add pressure to create very light lines before adding additional pressure to do a seamless transition from light to dark. Then there's the extra of using more pen to thicken the important lines, which gives more dynamic to the picture. Which is unmistakenly Tessa, Tessa in all her glory, her cuteness…and her fragility…
Your hand presses against the lines. Oh Tessa…your sweet love…it is a shame she didn't get to really do anything…it was unfair. You would've imagined all the shenanigans she would get up to, whether it'd be adventuring to other planets…running through every damn surface she could…traveling to dangerous places just for the fun of it…but you could also see her settling down in a beautiful place…surrounded by nature…Life and the freedom to do whatever she pleased…
Hm..
Your hands just….get to work, as you imagine the place, you draw it…the ideal place where you thought Tessa would've loved to live..you imagined a wooden house…big sure…but not that huge…You could imagine floors with a gentle grain to them, polished and left beautiful…the walls would just be wood as well as wood is good for an interior structure of a house…you could imagine there would be trinkets hanging around everywhere in every single nook and cranny…whether it'd be successful projects or some that are a work in progress…you even could imagine wind chimes hanging…oh she would've loved those…you imagined there'd be rooms but not much because living in a huge mansion made Tessa yearn for more smaller and comfortable spaces. There would most definitely be silverware but it'd be all sorts of fun colors. There's definitely some form of kitchen and pantry where you both could express your culinary desires…
Maybe there's even a pool…Or a backyard that's just wilderness where there would be trees for miles and infinite places to explore…your core races…you could imagine running through the forest with Tessa and then flying her through the forest…or even exploring it and gazing upon the little critters that recided within. Although you would have to tell Tessa not to dissect them to add to her collection of bones that would definitely be in the house…along with your shelf of JcJenson branded products…and your prized pen…which is of course Tessa's JcJenson branded pen. You imagine that alongside that, would be the latchhooks…the diamond paintings…the creative projects both made.
And your favorite? The shelf designated to all the books you both read and the movies you both watched, whether it'd be from Jay's adventure series to detectives in crime…to the books that focused on the anatomy of the worker drones…the human gestures…expressions…Lovers guide to someone's heart…and Tessa would engineer a perfect TV so you both could watch them together for as long as you both pleased..Then there's the quarters…A bedroom with moderate space, room to have as many articles of clothing as needed or mainly just all the business attire…uniforms you wore…But there would also be pictures, many pictures, especially of present and past times.
While there would be pictures around the house, the ones in the room are more personal…ones that you both actively took part in and made yourselves look silly. Then there’d also be the first latchhook you both made, the endless rolling hills. The ones that represented the freedom of being born in a new world of possibilities but also Tessa. Beautiful and pure in every single way possible, a girl with a heart of gold and a touch of a weirdo but she absolutely…made you weak in the knees. The bed? Filled with the most comfortable and softest blankets ever, and plenty of them, queen sized bed as well since both of you are somewhat of moderate size…what makes them so special is they would’ve been made by the both of you…as making things was just your guys knack…regardless though, truth be told you’d just be cuddling Tessa every single night so the size doesn’t matter that much.
You could imagine her being up bright and early, stirring you out of sleep and jumping on the bed like a 5 year old, exclaiming that they are going to do so many things together. And you’d willingly go with it like you always did. You would constantly hear how different the animals are here, how they act, how they function, behave, or even how different the environment is to earth but at the same time similar. The levels may be similar but everything was a little bit different in terms of how its made and how it functions. And you’d listen to her for hours…because…you love her…and you love her voice, her passion…her sheer dedication for things like this…the way she’d stare at you…and go off on tangents about things like this…
Your hand stops as you stare at the paper…The house lay infront of you, detailed with small little things that made it…home…or well, the home you wanted to share…with..
Her…
You stare…before seeing that a drop has fallen on your paper and made it soggy…Were you…crying…? Again…? You stare at your reflection as you see the tears rolling down your face…Is it because your yearning for something that will never be possible? Or or…that you may not even find anything? Or just the knowledge that Tessa didn’t even get to do any of that…? That…she died before she could even just live a life…you find yourself hugging your legs as you have your back against the wall…
Where did it all go wrong…??
Why did….she smile at you when she was dying…Why was she fine with anything?!...She was never going to see the light of day! Never going to get to take a walk, never going to enjoy the small victories she had…why did she…comfort you instead in her death? It’s…clear she was afraid…yet she prioritized…your reassurance….You could see it…you could still see it…the dread…the fear…the realization that she was going to die…yet she was content…how could she be content and happy?! She didn’t even get to live a life!! She didn’t even get to do anything?! She didn’t even get to explore space! Or or get her own house safe from her parents! She died…at the hands of..Cyn…And you were so powerless to do anything about it…
You wince as your core…starts to sputter from the overwhelming stress…and your left breathing heavily…in some pathetic attempt to cool off…Being constantly…reminded that you failed…hurt…and it still does…You would’ve rather Tessa lived and you died…but she might’ve had to suffer the things you did…So you were mixed on it…on one hand you wished she lived but on the other hand…you knew the world she would live in…would…make her probably desire death…
No matter what…every option was just…choose your poison…ugh…
You wipe tears from your face as you are grasping your head…Please…just stop thinking…just stop…you are not doing yourself any favors…why can’t things just go back the way they were?! When you were just trying to do your job just to live…just to maintain the status quo?! Oh right. Thats because things are more complicated now. There was no bullshitting yourself out of this situation. No survival tactics to fall back on, no bosses to decide for you…No other things to worry about…Which meant that, you couldn’t deny it any longer. You really have nothing to live for, no goals to go towards…no reason to continue yet your still here…
Why is it that you fight so hard for survival?...That you fight…so hard…for well anything?...That trait…was way to…human…you fought for self-preservation despite there being no light at the end of the tunnel…but what were you surviving for?...
.
.
.
“That. Is a really good question J.” A sly voice…spoke.
You…froze…you couldn’t…tell where the voice came from at all…infact as far as your aware…your the only one here…but you sure could feel it…her presence…looming over you…you don’t need to see her to feel her…to feel her essence dare to grasp your soul…ah great…You flinch as you feel…well things that shouldn’t be psyhically possible…Your core feels…grasped…your body feels restricted…but your refusing to look…because looking means acknowledging…and you didn’t want to do that…
“Eager Expression. You know J. You were always my favorite toy. But don’t you think it’s a bit fanfiction-y drawing your dead girlfriend?” the voice echoed.
Your eyes furrowed…and your optics started to shake…Why was she here?...What did she have to gain from this?...Why…did you even ask that…idiot…she desires your suffering…You struggle for a moment…before finding yourself stuck…fuck! You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!! Your nervously glancing from the papers, to the ship…trying to beckon your tail to do anything but it is also frozen in place…As expected you are unable to necessarily do anything…except shudder in anticipation. You feel…your core sputter and ache, sending signals to your systems that make you…relax…a bit to much…and even she notices it…
“It seems your systems. Have finally betrayed you. How cute. Although I feign sympathy for your busted core. Sarcastic Expression.” the voice giggled.
Yeah right. You're the reason it got this way in the first place!!! You simmer in your bitterment, c’mon….do something…!! All your able to do is shrink from the proximity…of her…and you could feel it…her resting her head upon the crook of your neck…Being incredibly possessive and gripping your waist. You know this shouldn’t be real…and yet you feel it anyways…And your body betrayingly leans into it…because of course it fucking does… Your body does whatever the hell it wants like the touch starved system it is…you supposed that this was just a representation of your depravity…your yearning for something…that you’ll never get.
“If you…are going to plague me…at least…give me a good time…” You say with irritation. Okay…you might as well go with these shenanigans till your systems stop sucking.
Naturally…your facing…well her…she’s a bit glitchy…but still unmistakably her…a bit more on the…unsettling side but you figure..that…you might as well indulge in whatever the hell this is…although her formation is more Tessa like…which you figured…Cyn was a catalyst to your feelings for Tessa…which is why it doesn’t take much effort to just lean into ‘Cyn’. You couldn’t hate her…anymore…not when you wanted her to touch you and treat you like a delicate lover. And to your credit…she kinda is, embracing you and touching you…
Your body shudders…and you sink into this weirdness…She probably isn’t there…but you’ll take what you can get…Your hands are now free and you find yourself just hugging the hell outta ‘Cyn’, Tears breaching your eyes as you stare at her with a teary gaze...There were still so many questions you had to ask her…so many worries…concerns and other things…Suppose…you might as well ask them now…
“Cyn…?” You say quietly.
“Yes J?” The voice questioned.
“Did…you…ever…love me?...” You just bluttered that out…
You of course weren’t left to simmer in silence as you hear a laugh from her…like a full on laugh, one that made you visibly shrink back. What was so funny?...What in the world was so mind boggling about that??...You flinch as you feel a hand cup your chin, forcing you to look at her once more.
“Of course I did. You were my favorite toy. Or is that not the love your expecting? Amused expression.” The voice was echoing once more.
“Sorry boss…I just…was trying to…Understand you…” You murmured.
“Oh J.”
‘Cyn’ said before pulling you closer, your faces centimeters away from eachother…You feel as the apendages adjust their positions and her hand lingers on your chin, gently stroking it. Her eyes are staring deeply within your soul…seeing through your every intention and even your straight up desperation. Desperation to be validated, or understood…
“Nobody will ever love you. Nobody even sees you. You're just…a puppet on the strings…who now has nothing. Sadistic expression. ” Cyn became clearer now…and more dynamic.
You freeze in horror as your dragged into a kiss, not even getting a moment to react at all…Your mind is racing and your core is fluttering yet…is so empty at the same time…Perhaps…she’s right…maybe you were undeserving of love…undeserving of anything…how could you call yourself a hero when you go begging and pleading to the villain and joining them to be spared…Not that you were sparred anyways…You still had to endure the savage tendrels that snaked accross your entire body, that claimed you, established dominance and roosted in your core, where they would tug, prod, poke and make you beg for mercy as your own body would be damaged to the point of severe tenderness..
But tenderness had no place in real life and certainly…not your mind…The worst part, is you find sick enjoyment out of this…Your past the point of any sembelene of squeamish, you like this…and thats the worst part, your inherit acceptance of her touch, her prodding, her using your body for her sick purposes and you liked it. Oh you liked it. It made you want…her beyond your deepest desires for her to do whatever she wants with you…whether it’d be turning your neck into scrap metal and licking your core…Your core burning with sheer desire…and your mind racing with possibilities…You know what? Fine…you might as well enjoy this…while you can…at least have some agency in your decisions…
So you do what you do best…you embrace the boss and you let her…Do as she does…and for the moment…it’s actually quite nice…sinking into your desires…and letting her care for you…And well you realize a few things…she doesn’t actually…smell that bad for being a essential corpse…you could still smell the faint flowery perfume and recall how she used to always spray it on herself…naturally drawing people to her…
“This is the first time. You have truly relaxed J. I do miss your fight. Faux Sadness.” Cyn said with feigning feeling as she drags a hand across your face, then to your chest as if teasing.
“You’ve…beaten me boss…there’s no reason to fight…” Your gaze is soft…as the fluster is apparent.
“How. Cute. I suppose. Good behavior shall be rewarded though J. Give yourself to me.” Cyn smirked…deviously.
Hm..
You willingly give into her this time except with more agency, it is you who kisses her, it is you who touches her hair and wraps an arm around her body…You find a semblance of willingness…a deep desire to please…to really impress the boss…But you also find enjoyment out of this…sick twisted enjoyment…It made you feel…elivated…it made you feel a multitude of things…and feelings…
But alas…
Once you realize…that this is well…obviously not real…your stuck in the reality of your situation…There was no Cyn…no boss to fulfill your sick fantasies…And certainly no happy ending where she comes back and gives you the attention you seek from her…And part of that…makes you feel sad, she was the last drone who understood you, and cared for you, even her own sick and twisted way…perhaps you missed her as much as Tessa at this point…God you were hopeless…so hopeless…now your starting to hallucinate your boss!! Just how pathetic were you?! Why the hell are you even asking that question?! Or thinking those thoughts?! You HATED her, SO SO much, and yet, you couldn’t stop WANTING her.
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL ROBOFUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!!!
You heave in frustration as you crumple up the papers you drew and threw them across them room, then you proceed to punch the table, break the legs, kick the table, throw the pens on the ground and then slam your fists into the wall before sliding down to the floor…Your body crumpling over as you start to just bawl your eyes out. What is wrong with you…?? Why were you like this…?? Why were you unraveling so fast?...Just losing any semblance of composure…ability…and control of the situation??...Why couldn’t you hold yourself together in any way? Just how pathetic were you?! You went for a long time without succumbing to such trivial matters so WHY ARE YOU STRUGGLING NOW?!! Why was it so hard just to go back to being that corporate persona?? Why was your coping not working anymore?!! You hated this…you hated it so much! These stupid emotions…
They plagued everything! They were nothing but a plague, all they did was get in the way of your rational thinking! You wanted them gone…Maybe then…you wouldn’t cry over how much it hurts…maybe then you wouldn’t think…of this…maybe then you could function LIKE A NORMAL DRONE! AS YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO. All they did was hinder productivity! They just got in the fucking way and you were so sick of them. You wanted them abolished. You wanted them to go away.
THEY NEED TO GO AWAY!
GO AWAY!!! JUST STOP!!!
You yell in sheer frustration as you hit your head against the wall, over and over. Stop crying!!!! Stop fucking crying you liability!!! Your as bad as N!!! These feelings were inefficient!!! WHY COULDN’T THEY JUST BEGONE?!!! WHY WERE YOU PLAGUED WITH FEELING?!!! WHY WERE YOU EMOTIONAL?! WHY DID EVERYTHING HURT SO MUCH?!!!!
Why…was it…only…you…that seemed to care?...
You shudder for a bit, resting your head against the wall…why did…only you care about…Tessa’s death…? Why were you the only one that cared for the boss?...Why are you…the bad guy for caring?...For just trying to survive?...You didn’t have it lucky like the others did…you had to fight for your survival…and yet…they considered…you…as horrible…as…
HER.
You…heave with grief as you curl up into the fetal position….
God you were so…sorry…Sorry Tessa…Sorry for not…being there enough…sorry for not telling you what you deserved to know…Sorry for…not being strong enough to stop Cyn…Sorry for ever existing in your life…she was much…better off without you…maybe she would’ve lived a normal life had you not existed…Maybe she could’ve actually…gone out and seen the stars…but because you fucking existed, she was dead. A girl, who was as bright as the sun, as pretty as the earth itself…who was so beautiful…was reduced to nothing but a fucking flesh suit because she decided to fix you and bring you home.
She would’ve been better off had she not found you. And a whole lot happier. She could’ve found somebody better to love…she could’ve actually had her own home…but instead you ruined that. You enabled her and you both tried to fight off god. If you hadn’t existed, she never would’ve done that. She never would’ve had to worry about an eldritch god. You should’ve done better…That girl was your whole world and you just let her die…You couldn’t even avenge her…because Cyns dead…what a fucking cosmic joke you are. Built to serve and help humans yet you couldn’t even save the one you loved. What a fucking sad excuse for a drone. You were just some stupid terrified drone that just went with everything Tessa said because you loved her…you loved her so much that you let her bring in the drone that ruined everything….
You should’ve told her no, you should’ve told her to knock it the fuck off but you didn’t. You were afraid of confrontation…or anything because you knew if you told her to knock it off…she would…be mad at you…and the last you wanted was that…You don’t like it when she was angry at you. Because it made you feel like you…were wrong…so why ever bring anything up?...You were scared, scared of the fact that if you brought anything up…she would’ve…abandoned you…
You wanted to believe she wouldn’t do that…just because you had your own opinions and thoughts…but at the same time you were to afraid…and look what it’s costed you…
It’s costed you…
Everything….
You lost your livelihood, your Tessa, your boss, your family…and your…left alone floating in a ship that is drifting across the cosmos. You had NOTHING left. All because you were afraid…All because you felt these feelings, these emotions…all because…you…cared…all because you dared to be human when you are a goddamn robot…There’s a reason robots aren’t built with these flaws…it clouds judgement and reasonable actions by making you act…human…And acting human meant making mistakes that could cost you…everything…For a while…you could pull off the whole, acting like it didn’t affect you…that it didn’t matter…but with the memories and how complicated things are now?
There was no way to pretend everything was gonna be okay…Because it most likely wasn’t…and never was gonna be. At the end of the day…your forced to acknowledge that…your obedience…costed you…everything…and the more you stayed quiet about things…the worst it got…And while you could go back to your corporate persona and try to preserve whatever…dignity you had left…
Things were not going to be as easy as they were before…Not with your mind slowly going mad because you have not had a real conversation with somebody for months. It’s all been in your head. And it is really starting to eat away at you. But it was better to pretend everything is alright then not at this point.
Maybe then you’ll start to believe it…
[ENTER SLEEP MODE TO CONCERVE RESERVES?]
[Yes.]
[ENTERING SLEEP MODE…]
[GUILT:ACTIVE]
[MEMORY RECALLED.]
[PLAYING MEMORY….]
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.
.
.
.
You were absolutely stained in oil…flesh and other various of matter that definitely shouldn’t be here…You were on your knees…kneeling over and using a JcJenson branded oil soaker to clean the mess currently…Now why were you doing this? Well simple. The mistress demanded you clean the basement…because it smelled like a zoo…so here you were…Plus, you were the only one actually willing to clean this room, others got to squeamish at the smell of death and decay or just were rightfully disturbed by what was in here. It left you reminded though, that this was Cyns room. The mistress utterly hated Cyn so she told you to keep her here all the time…Unless you wanted to face decommission…
And it hurt having to explain to Cyn that the mistress didn’t want to see her because unlike N, Cyn was terrifyingly good at getting things cleaned up and doing her job, the only thing was that she struggled keeping her head up straight and came off as offputting to others. Oddly enough, you were just as disturbed but that didn’t stop you from well…constantly…taking care of her…
She was Tessa’s newest drone and newest obsession, since Cyn was incredibly broken and Tessa wanted to help her, so naturally you were wrapped up in that as well. If anything, you felt bad when the mistress wanted to keep Cyn in the basement. Cause that’s restricting…And all drones get to wander about except for her…although you learned a long time ago to not question the mistress in the slightest. With Tessa’s adamance about how amazing Cyn is though, more often than not, you were doing a little more rulebreaking for her sake. Just to make the little goober somewhat happy. Even if she did creep you out.
So cleaning whatever the hell this mess was…was simply the least of your problems…you had bigger circuits to fry anyways…Speaking of Cyn…you weren’t exactly sure..where she was..she tended to disappear alot…which was fairly normal but it did concern you of when she didn’t show up for long periods of time. You take a deep breath and put the weird fleshy…things…in the bag, before taking a moment to clean the medical tools in there and the other various of tools. These were various things Tessa gifted Cyn, as Cyn loved messing with these tools just as much as Tessa did, so you weren’t exactly phased those were in there. Your only concern was why there was just always an endless amount of oil in the room, let alone why there's so much that it practically stains the floors even more.
You had to imagine Cyn also tried fixing drones, which is the only reason so much oil would exist in the first place, which wasn’t surprising…Cyn was absolutely obsessed with replicating what Tessa does. Except you never really saw what she replicated, whereas Tessa would have a souvenir of something she tried to fix… for Cyn though, whatever she was fixing, would be gone out of sight and Cyn said that it was just another worker drone who didn’t come online. Which…you just agreed with, since Tessa also had situations like that. For as many drones as she brought back and fixed, there were many that were never fixed and had to be discarded of immediately.
Of course a part of you always had a gut feeling that it was never that simple but you learned a long time ago not to snoop and look into things. Mainly because it was rude and it was none of your business. Your job was to take care of these drones…not question their weird hobbies…Which meant that for as much as Cyns hobbies concerned you, they were not of a mattering issue right now. All that mattered was making her room somewhat presentable so the mistress would be semi-satisfied least until she found somethin else to complain about. Which didn’t take long at all.
You once again take a deep sigh and begin organizing the things on the shelves. Cyn always had the most random of things there, whether it’d be a bone collection, stolen books, stolen dvds, the latchhooks, riches or whatever things she got her hands on. You're not exactly sure what happened to the original contents of this room…Let alone where she put the latchhooks, the dvds and art projects you and Tessa made. They were kind of lost to time…and that did annoy you but you also chalked it up to her putting these items in safe spaces away from being damaged…at least that is what you want to believe.
Now the real question is where is Cyn? You’d think she’d be in here…but you have not seen her yet?...You decide to go and find her as you were done with her room anyways. It’s a quiet walk through the corridors of the library. The books already are not only dirty but have dust on them, a great signifier that whoever was put on library duty practically half assed it. Your optics narrow slightly as you almost trip on a bunch of books, and with a bit of reluctance you put them back up before walking out of the library and into the long halls. As your doing that you are looking around for Cyn, unfortunately you don’t really see her at all, just a multitude of other drones that you held disdain for because they couldn’t even do their jobs properly. You knew they’d be disposed of by friday anyways…unless they picked up the slack.
Although this corridor doesn’t look like a disaster like the library, with things like the tables, walls, floors and chairs being moderately cleaned, you could still see a chaotic mess of misalighted furniture which the Mistress would most certainly make a fuss about but that was not your issue. Your job was to overlook the process, not actively participate in it unless they were really slacking. You hum for a bit before opening the doors to the big room. Naturally the first thing you see is that V, N and Cyn are all gathered in the middle. You raise an eyebrow, as if questioning what they are up to but you see it. You see N and V holding hands and your mood immediately sours.
“N, Public indecency is covered under the rulebook. No touching others is allowed during working hours idiot. ” You say with an unamused expression.
“Oh! Uh! Sorry J! I just got carried away!” N laughed nervously before retracting his arm.
Of course V is also very nervous about it, because shes the one who asked for it in the first place. “It’s just holding hands J! There is no need to make that much of a big deal about it!” She smiled warmly.
You…severely roll your eyes. These idiots are just asking to get scrapped. “Well V, if you read the employee handbook, you’d know that you are not allowed to touch your employees in any semblance of way that contributes to intimacy or even the vague thought of. I’d hate to see you in trouble because you cannot handle not holding N’s hand for a 6 hour shift.” You eyed her.
N watches as V, is absolutely speechless and shrinks back. N gives her a look of worry before she gives a look of reassurance. And N glances back at J, his eyes hint at a bit of frustration…But he just passes it off. “C’mon V. Lets go finish the rest of our cleaning…”
Cyn of course was just staring between the 3 of them.
“Okay N…” V gave N a incredibly soft and tender look, a look that hurt your soul, in many regards and left you staring at them in annoyance till they left.
You stare in contempt for a moment before realizing why your here. “You. Where have you been Cyn?”
Cyn looked at you, her head falling limp to the right before using her hand to adjust it. “I have been. In this room. Watching those two be silly. Least until you ruined it. Annoyed expression.”
You frown, your core shuddering for a moment before you look at her sternly. “This is not a playground where they could just be all romantic with each other. This is a Job. They can be touchy feely in their free time Cyn. I am not getting in trouble because those idiots can’t separate work time from free time.”
“I suppose that is fair. But you could’ve been less. Rude about it. Eye roll.” cyn said.
“If I’m not rude, they keep doing it. If I am rude about it, they still keep doing it Cyn.” You scowl.
“Then perhaps. Let them get. In trouble. Let them learn. On their own accord.” Cyn tilted her head at you.
“And have Tessa be sad? Yeah no.” You grumble.
“You are enabling. Their incompetence. By defending every action. They take. Even if. Its. unattended. Playful giggle.” Cyn smirks.
Your gaze hollows for a moment as you have a look of pure irritation. Contempt spreading through your entire core and leaving you immensely frustrated. “Don’t you get it Cyn? They are enabled regardless…because Tessa refuses to put her foot down with them.”
Cyn straightened her focus and looked up at you, gleefully grinning. “Oh J. That is your problem to fix. You have. To talk. To her. About that one. Which you won’t. Because you. Like. seeing her happy. At the sacrifice. Of you.”
Your gaze burns resentment into Cyns expression. “Someone. Should know when they should knock it off. They shouldn’t have to be told.”
Cyn eyed you. “For. change. To happen. Actions. Are required J. Words. Are simply. Not enough. Playful giggle.”
You laughed a bit. Frustration etched across your visor. “No wonder Humanity stays the same. Because they need others to get them to see their screw ups. Same with…you…”
Cyn smiles widely. “I enjoy. Seeing you frustrated J. But perhaps take that anger and do something. Else with it. You came. To ask me for something. Right?”
You scowl at her before, shoving her to the ground. “You. Me. Your sad excuse of a room now.” You say bitterly before walking away.
Cyn of course. Just simply got up with the flash of lightning and shadowy appendages. Before following you…or at least trying to…
You look back and groan, grabbing this idiot by the wrist and just dragging her. Cyn of course is a tad bit amused because getting you to help with any problem she had was a rarity. Fortunately it doesn’t take you both long to get to the basement, unfortunately though N and V are in the corner being cute idiots.
“GET BACK TO WORK!” You shouted at them. Watching as they scrambled to their feet and immediately skittered out of there.
Cyn naturally was just watching you…she always did…even as you opened the basement and carried her like a bag of flour down into said basement before setting her down and addressing her directly.
“You. Need to seriously clean this room. I don’t care how you do it, but it needs to be cleaned, Cyn.” You point a digit at her.
Cyn seemed rather annoyed. “All you do J. Is bark orders. Who are you. Trying to impress with this? Questioning expression.”
You cross your arms. “I am not trying to impress. I am making sure you all do your jobs, That way you won’t end up in the scrap pile.”
Cyn gave you a bored look. “You might. Be soly disappointed. The more you push. The more unhappy you’ll be.”
You scowl. “Or maybe I’m unhappy because nobody here can pick up the slack and do their job?! A job that is so easy that a dog could do it.”
Cyn blinked at you for a moment. Her shadowy appendages making quick work of her room. Although she could do many things, instead she decides to humor you. “Not everybody. Is as sophisticated and good at their job like you are J. You are one of a kind. Nobody can replicate that effort. Be eager of what. They can do. Happy expression.”
You severely rolled your eyes…the audacity…of this anti-christ!....”Appreciation only comes from when they actually can prove their worth, if not, they are dead weight to this household.”
Cyn feigned offense. “Oh J. That is a very harsh opinion to say. Perhaps you. Have been. Influenced. By humans. Too much. And should take a re-evaluation.”
You slowly look at Cyn. the pure frustration pouring through your core. “I don’t need a re-evaluation. THEY need to be reminded that the manor is not here to forgive every single mistake they make. They were let here because Tessa has a heart. The least they could do is prove to be useful.”
“Yet why though? Why must the drones go through this? Why cannot they. Just live in the manor J? Curious expression.”
You smile bitterly. “You think I got that choice?! No. The moment I existed, I had to do work, lest I risk being disposed of. The same is in store for them if they don’t get their act together Cyn.” You said as a matter of fact.
Cyn looks at you boredly. “So you treat them. As you were treated. When you could treat them better. Which you have.”
Your expression grims. “I treated them decently enough.”
Cyn tilted her head at you. “You used. To treat them better. But then, they did. Something. That made. You. resent them.”
You shudder a bit before looking directly into Cyns soul. “That. Is none of your business. They deserve…this.”
“But why? Who are you. To decide. That they. Deserve. This?” Cyn gave a curious look.
“They should’ve thought about that. Before getting into the mistress’s things. And deliberately. Messing them up.” You glared, you hated how she looked into your soul…with those unnerving…unblinking eyes.
Cyn slowly looks at you…smiling a tad bit as now the answers out of the bag. “You. Hate that they cannot do their job. So you protect them. But you then. Lash out. At them. Amused expression.”
You…fall silent, unable to say a single word…even when you try, nothing comes out at all…Because for as much as you hate it, shes right. Shes right on the damn nail about it. You resent them because you take the fall for them and punch them back with it…your protecting them only lead you to hate them…because of how unfair it is, to always defend those who…later take it for granted…just to make somebody happy…And Cyn could see your perplexed gaze, the hints of frustration, contempt, and acknowledgement. Which leads her to grin at you.
“Perhaps. You should let them fall. On their own J.” Cyn says with a smirk…
You didn’t know how to deal with this situation so you did what you always did when you were put into a tight corner. You lashed out, shoving Cyn hard against a wall and screaming at her.
“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING CYN!!! SHUT UP!!!” You yelled in anger, tears running down your face as you slammed your free fist in the wall near her.
Of course Cyn does not express fear, she never does. She simply finds amusement in your anger. “Perhaps you are more human. Than you thought. J. Amused Expression.”
You seethe in frustration, grabbing her by the throat. “I AM NOT HUMAN!!! WHY DON’T YOU EVER STOP TALKING!!!?”
Cyn giggled a bit. “Oh J. Only a human would willingly. Hurt other drones. And you have crossed that line far long ago.”
You freeze…glancing off as your hands…fall limp on the wall…You were…as bad…as…her…The one who lashes…out against drones for merely existing…the one who set you to flames…and beat you to smitherens…for being in the way…You shudder for a moment before backing away…staring at your shaky hands…and the world starts to get a mess of blurr as your optics shake and your unable to make out what Cyn is saying as you just run off, climbing the ladder and just running as fast as possible…to where? You don’t know…all you just know is the walls are closing in and…its starting to hurt…
Your core burns with fear…with dread…at the hands that are covered in the blood of your actions…And you find yourself under Tessa’s bed…and curling up in a ball…Your simmering in your own misery…wondering why..Why did she drive you up the wall…? And why did you…hurt her…Or well…why did you hurt…anyone?... What point were you trying to make?... That you were as bad as the mistress?... That you were just…cruel..? Well if that was the case. Then sure…whatever…you were cruel…but you HAD to be…because if you weren’t cruel…then how would you survive this place?! They didn’t get it at all. Being soft only guaranteed your suffering and eventual disposing.
Being soft meant getting hit, it meant getting burned alive…It meant being treated like a plaything. Being treated like the worthless worker drone you didn’t want to be. And if Cyn doesn’t get it? Then why should you care for her either? Same with V….same with N…they just didn’t get it, let alone understand that in this world…you either adapt or you be decommissioned. And if that means you have to take their falls…and slap it back in their faces…you will do that. As apart of you…doesn’t want them to experience the full brunt of what the mansion could have in store. But you also wanted to make sure as best as possible they weren’t hurt. Least for Tessa’s sake.
You lived this long for a reason. You clearly know what your doing…You just wished that they would understand it as well…But since when has understanding been apart of their programming? They may have been marked for disassembly but their codes functioned fine. Yours meanwhile? Was always screwed up since the beginning…You understood more than you should’ve…and felt more than whats possible for a drone…its as Cyn said…you were painfully human in how you acted…and so in turn you acted accordingly…
You know what?... Screw that…
They don’t understand jack. And they never will…End of story…
[MEMORY RECALL FORCEFULLY ENDED.]
[GUILT. ACTIVE.]
[REBOOTING.EXE…]
[REBOOTING SUCCESSFUL.]
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You arose to a sitting down position. Familiarizing yourself with the location once more…uncomfortable beds…awful lighting…the agonizing hum of all the lights in the area…the mind shattering silentness of space, contrasted by an endless abyss where tiny blinks of light lay…and of course there's the galactic center. Originally, you couldn’t see anything because your spaceship was facing the bright side of the star…which also luckily for you, the ships Cyn made are protected and accommodate drones so no burning from stars, even on the motherbird. One of the reasons of course to go to the motherbird was to fix your systems in the first place to not die in the heat. Maybe then you’d be able to see a bloody sunrise without having to worry about your core overheating but you are not there yet.
Although you have some semblance of optimism because you are almost there. In fact you are 10 minutes away from the motherboard. That's a time so close that you could see it from the distance, a beautifully chrome and metallic like ship, branded with the JcJenson logo and donning a whole system of rooms. The one that's of interest to you right now is the dock. Which is to the tail end of the ship and where the landing pod will automatically align itself to landing. These ships were just set up with an automation system like that just so they get rid of the whole error of having to physically align and dock in the right place. Thank robogod.
Yet returning back to the ship racks you with anticipation. As on one hand, you are returning to it without the boss. Or well without anybody. Which makes you wonder if the ships even functioning. In any reasonable sense it should be functioning. It was powered by a nuclear component that had a half life of a few million years so energy was no problem. The only thing that was a problem would be oil. Which you bet would be around somewhere. Cyn needed large quantities of it to manipulate anything after all. But where it was, was another question you didn’t know the answer to.
You were going there and taking full command of the ship anyways. With Cyn dead, your willing to bet there's an override code somewhere to become full admin of not only the spaceship but your own body. Your core practically was buzzing with anticipation…It had been long since you returned to the motherboard after all…and the last time you were there you had an uncomfortable time with the boss…but you knew this time it’d be different…hopefully…There was nothing in space that could actually harm you unless the stars nearby just decide to go supernova which would be impossible as none were old enough to do that just yet. Your mind was just practically racing with the thought that something bad could happen, because when doesn’t it?
All you can do is watch quietly as the landing pod approaches the mothership…and tense up in anticipation as both ships are doing a dance through time and space to connect forces once more. Your optics watch everything with baited breath, seeing the auto commands slip their way into the pods systems, with the pod releasing air pressure to auto align with the hatch before descending upon it. It then sends feedback to the motherboard, as if beckoning to be let in and you watch in real time as the hatch opens, allowing the pod to go inside and it takes its landing amongst the other pods before the hatch closes. It depressurizes all the intensity it has been holding and now has come to a stand still.
You are not sure of the sight on the other side but you slowly walk over to the door with your supplies in hand and you crack open the landing pod, sliding it open as you finally take a step outside of it for what feels like the first time in forever. What's immediately apparent is how overwhelming the lights are, flickering with that white LED intensity that leaves your systems blinded as you recoil and cover your head optics…After giving yourself time to adjust to the new brightness of the room you look around once more. This docking area is still intact, in fact it still is durable and quality assured. But it is obvious it has been neglected for a while, evident by the subtle wear and tear.
With that you finally make it to ground level and take a deep breath.
“Looks like part A of our plan is going to be in order Tessa. First task? Find those clones and deal with them.” You say to the plushie.
“Roight Jaybird! Oi’m right with yuh!” Tessa beamed.
With that confirmation you walk down the corridor to the end of the hall, before slipping out of it and entering…well the main hall…A hall that makes you…deeply upset…Because once again it is still filled with the memorabilia…Pain is etched on your face as you try to ignore…it…you could deal with this later…you do not need to deal with this right now…focus…focus…idiot…on the mission at hand. Find the cloning area. Turn them off. And use their bodies for sustenance and doing your experimentations that you need to do to ensure your survival. These clones will never be used anyways so might as well make use of them in the way you can. Your digits grip the bag of disassembler parts more tensely. And if something goes wrong…?
Pray…to the robogod…that it doesn’t come to fruition. And hope that everything does go fine…As you walk through the halls once more, you note how everything was pretty much as it was when you arrived here a while ago…Perhaps Cyn didn’t feel the need to change things…Or just liked keeping around old mementos of the past. You recall her saying that she liked keeping old mementos to mourn the past. Which was stupid because you would’ve told her that she could’ve had a better time if she didn’t decide to murder everybody but then your core would be used as a stress toy. So eitherway…Cyn was kinda dumb in that regard…You didn’t think you’d have the guts to call her that, but with her dead, you could realistically call her anything, what she gonna do? Rise up from the dead?
You wish…
You hum for a moment, brushing your own hair out of your face as you open the door. Well…they were just as unsettling as always. Clones of…V…N…and J…just in naniate pods…You knew of course that, if you were to turn off the pods, the naniates would dissipate which would leave the bodies safe for pickings so you went over to the panel. It was there you decided to turn off all the naniate and life support. And in a flash, you watch as all the liquid drains completely before the pods open and drop the bodies on the floor without much fanfare. It is there where you decide to pile the V’s and the N’s into a pile before putting the J’s in a separate pile. Because N’s and V’s were in high abundance you planned to siphon oil from them and matter from them while using the J’s to experiment on them and figure out how to change your body.
While you could siphon oil right now. That was not your priority. Instead you grab one of the J’s and hoist it over your shoulder. Taking it outside the room and using the coordinates in your head to find out where Cyns labs are. After wandering for a while, you find them. Oddly enough they are clean, minus of course…the worker drone corpses of you…V…and N…because of course those were there. Old momentos like that were to not be rid of but it was not your intention to dawn on the past. Instead you put the body on the table and look around for some tools. There’s a scalpel…a pair of scissors. Little grabbies…and things Cyn used because being in a human corpse meant her dextarity from both ends was severely nerfed, which was why she opted for her tendrils instead.
But of course you had two functioning pair of good quality hands so this wouldn’t be hard for you. You’ve been using your hands since the day you were born after all. And so you get to work. Cutting into the soft symmetrical skin of this body. More so you carefully cut a wide spot, being careful to gently cut layers of the skin off that way whenever you do cut an opening, none of the parts will be damaged. Not that it ideally matters but the more careful you are on this spare, the more careful you’ll be on your own systems, Cutting through this skin, isn’t surprisingly hard, the material your made out of, is very soft and while it has metal components to build up it’s strength, it is no match for a scalpel designed specifically to slice through drones.
With careful precision the chest cavity is now open, spread eagle style for everybody to see…theres the oddly human like ribcage that is all fleshy like…theres the interior that is a mix of both metal and human components…and then there is the core. Which is currently disabled and will not be activated or ever alive until you make the effort to actively transfer, not that you have any inert desire to do any of that at all. It was already disorienting to die hundreds of times. Last you need is having to transfer again overall. So you dig in, grasping the core and gently pulling it out of the cavity, you are not seeking to take the core apart as the only thing you need is the motherboard. A motherboard which is at the center of the core, and so with precision and accuracy you dig your hand into the fleshy gooey core and you pull out the motherboard. It is a small green circuit board with little components that make you…well you.
Whether that’d be the programs, the settings itself or the manuals…But you needed a more closer look so you used little tweezers to put it under a microscope while using your scope eye to really see it…Ah the pride and joy of the drone…all its basics are programmed into this chip…except there is one teeny tiny problem. To get the results…you want, aka the whole, changing your oil usage so its more efficient. That requires for you to have admin over your own systems. You could do a manual override to offer change but it requires full admin access to truly fix it. Ugh…theres always a step in between actual progress, son of a gun. You severely roll your eyes before power walking back into the clone room.
You would do the manual override first. To start the process. But you knew that it was risky so you decided to pick up a few of the V’s and N’s in case your systems decided to go berserk from the change. If you were good at anything after all…it was preparing for the worst and preparing for the unsettling thought that something just goes wrong, which usually means it will. The one thing you could never account for, is how your system will act when you manually override the things that make you a disassembler. Which includes your inefficient as hell oil usage which was way higher than it should be, so you were going to first change that. Your core didn’t need to work so hard to sustain your lifeform. And hearing it creak and ache and stress all the time just to use oil reserves in the most inefficient way possible meant that it was the first thing that needed to be fixed.
After getting a pile of bodies you go over to the computer systems. For this process, unfortunately the blazer and button up have to go but so does Tessa so you gracefully set Tessa on the computer top before gracefully removing your outfit, creasing it and neatly folding it up before putting it down next to the computer. With that in store you grab the three connectors and connect them to your chest. Overriding the firewalls and connecting to it. So far so good…
You use the mouse to go to the oil reserves.exe document and notice that the oil reserves usage is about 200%. Yeah no. No wonder your systems were always on overdrive, that was a terrifyingly inefficient way to use oil. You decide that you are going to change that. Which leads you to doing a manual override and putting that 200% down to 1%. This is where you hesitate, because you are not sure what this is about to do to your systems. Presumably, this just means you’ll burn oil at a slower rate and not use it in the most inefficient way possible but going against the programming probably…might go badly…
The only way to know…of course is to enter the manual override…
[WARNING:MANUAL OVERRIDE.]
[YES OR NO?]
[...]
[COMMAND=YES.]
As you hit enter. You feel like you got hit by an entire truck, your left breathless and grasping your core as it goes into OVERDRIVE!!! Working like a motherfucker to whatever the hell was happening. You feel it throughout your entire body, the agonizing pain that brings you to terror as errors flash your entire screen. INSUFFICENT MATTER….OVERRIDE…OVERRIDE…FORCEFULLY OVERRODE COMMAND. SEEK NEAREST OIL SOURCE IMMEDIATELY. ERROR. ERROR. You yell in pain, grabbing at your head and banging it on the table!!! WHY DOES EVERYTHING HURT?!! You find yourself collapsing on the ground as your core is vibrating violently, beckoning to explode out of your chest and its hitting the 300’s, causing your casing to start and burn. WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?!!! You stare in utter confusion as it starts to create cracks in your casing, and the absolute solver is healing them at the same time, creating a feedback loop of pain and relief at the same time except it only goes so much before errors crash your screen once more!!!
[INSUFFICENT MATTER.]
[SEEK NEAREST SOURCE OR RISK TERMINATION, IDIOT.]
[ENTERING HUNTING MODE.EXE]
Everything turned to a blurr as your claws came into place and the X was crossed over your visor and the next thing you knew, you were tearing into drones, using your claws to break the skin, get into that soft gooey flesh and absolutely gorge on their body. Every bit of matter counted, from the glass, to the hair, to even the naniates stored in their bodies…You continued to consume, in this never ending aching hunger for parts and matter. Tearing your way through as much corpses as possible, breaking the flesh and tearing as much matter up as possible to eat. The whispers of the promise and the temptation the only thing in your audio receptors as you mutilated these corpses until there was nothing left but a oil stained pile of mess. And once more, the nausea of feeling like you ate to much washed over you and you absolutely puked your guts out, going into a coughing fit and breathing heavily.
You writhed in pain, feeling as if your systems were on fire, your core was sputtering and pounding against your chest violently, trying to break out to no avail as you firmly grasp your chest with your hands and forced it to comply. Your utterly caked in oil…the walls are utterly caked in oil…and you feel so awful…gazing over to the pile of mutilation…holy robojesus…you absolutely pulverized…those bodies…You stare in horror as you look at your hands before looking at the computer, seeing that the override was a success but further tampering required admin access…Goddammit…You whine for a bit, punching your core…pleading for it to shut up…to just go one moment without feeling like it’s on fire…but that is always easier said than done because its going into overdrive trying to fix systems…
You never knew your systems were built to be this fucking stubborn yet here you were. Screw you Cyn…Your making this job…so unnecessarily hard…like borderline unnecessary…You take an immense deep breath…Okay…okay…you’ll be fine…it was just a hiccup…a really bad hiccup…just a teasing of Cyns stupid fucking systems. Although for this next part, you were definitely going to need the manual this time…As to override her systems and modifications completely…but that also required for you to…find the override password… Which meant looking for it…least with her dead you could find it in peace without having to worry about her showing up.
You allow your core to get a moment to calm down…and surprisingly…it does…its actually the most calmest it’s been…since the beginning the clicking ceases to a whisper and the creaks of broken hardware calm down…and that fills you with…a tad bit of optimism…maybe this will go well…but next thing your doing…you are soooo turning off your pain receptors…or well leaving them on really low because that hurt like hell…After getting your bearings. You wobble your way to the door, using your wings and tail as stability to look around…it seems with having lowering the usage…it also meant that your body had to adjust as well…how fucking annoying…
A montage ensues as you go to look for the controls, looking through every single room just to find something. Naturally there's a bunch of memorabilia in the rooms, whether it’d be old toys, old pictures and even old art projects. The even more interesting part is how well maintained some of these objects are. But then again with living in space, theres not really much influences around to cause any semblance of decay, There’s also a hilariously large area where it’s just books. And you did look through all of them. It was the ones you and Tessa read…Whether from learning the human gestures, emotions, to the stars in the universe but also even a book on how to make glasses. It makes you wonder why Cyn kept all of this. Especially if all she did was just try to manipulate you onto her side for her grand finale plan. Why save the memorabilia of moments that weren’t even hers? Why preserve anything whatsoever? Unless it had something to do with you. But you didn’t believe so. She made you miserable, so why keep these things other than it being a cruel reminder that if you obeyed you’d get a lick of your past back.
Yeah. It was that. You’ve never known her exact intentions with you, but it’s definitely obvious what she considered you. She considered you someone who was hilariously easy to manipulate just with the promise of Tessa. And you would’ve bet that, this was not the first time she did this…you would’ve bet that there were many unspoken times where you fell for her manipulation or broke through her manipulation…But with the fact that you don’t necessarily remember each attempt. She probably reset you every single time you got close to the truth. Why else would you feel like you’ve been on the same circus ride for god knows how long? Everytime you’d get this sense of deja vu and you weren’t exactly sure where it came from. Just that it would appear often. Humans always described it as being in a very similar situation once more which creates that feeling.
You…never recalled N or V having to really go to this place though…it's why there were so many clones of them in the first place after all. Because their absolute solver program didn’t fail and get targeted like yours did. Although you sure did return here alot…You could practically feel it in your core…Perhaps one of your goals here should be to get all of your memories. To at least get a full extent of what's going on. You preferred to know rather than not after all. And maybe it could answer some questions you had…since Cyn was dead as hell…Speaking of that…, your core felt dead as hell. Sure you could use your tools and capabilities but once again you were awfully clumsy, whether it’d be dropping a book with your fucking hands, using your wings and finding it hard to remain stable for long, your tail having just as much of a clumsy grip and your special optics weren’t registering certain things, as if trying to get used to lower reserve usage. You weren’t necessarily surprised by this.
You went from an insane amount of oil usage, to forcing your systems to barely use any. Naturally that has many drawbacks, including your ability to function at peak capacity which leaves you relying on the walls around you to maintain an upright posture. Of course it’s not terrible, but it’s not ideal. You don’t ever remember your systems being this shitty…least ever since you were a worker drone. Having high oil usage must’ve also contributed to very high processing of information and ability. But it just means that you need to once again adapt and adjust. You’ve done this many times before after all. This should be no different. You come into contact with many more rooms, scavenging through every single crevice like it's the most important job to do in the world.
There’s many parts, whether it’d be tools…sewing supplies, nuts, bolts, screws, pliers, knives and just about a plethora of notes. Either being doodles, notes about plans or both. It’s an oddly funny gesture. Sure you’ve known Cyn always watched you draw and plan out things but you didn’t know that she would take after that habit, it almost felt endearing, until you remembered that Cyn could’ve…did that all she wanted…but she chose to do horrifying things. You find yourself reaching up for a picture, only to lose balance and absolutely trip, dragging a bunch of things down with you that cluttered around your body. You simmer in misery for a moment and with shaky hands, sighing immensely and removing the items before neatly stacking them where they belonged. You weren’t interested in changing their positions at all so yeah. But it was becoming increasingly evident for you that what you were looking for, was not here…You once again spend god knows how long looking.
Looking through cabinets, cubbys, under beds, storage and even crates but it’s led you all the way back…to a room that you didn’t exactly want to enter. Her room. You’ve been distracting yourself from it, but the truth was, the thing you needed was probably in there. Why wouldn’t it be in there after all? It was the most torturous room to enter but you had to anyway. You take a deep sigh before entering the room and you stop…You feel a shudder down your circuitry as you stare at the bed…the unanswered pleas…the unspoken words…the pain…the lack of autonomy…The unwanted…touch…The room…where you…gave up…and succumbed…to the overwhelming weight of your existence being nothing more than just a pawn to Cyn's big scheme. The unsaid words…the horrifying actions…left you paralyzed…You just…didn’t want to move…didn’t want to go forward….
Your hands feel clammy as you reach out…the shaking has gotten more violent…even rattling your entire body and leaving your hand clasping the nearby shelf for some stability. Your optics are also shaking as they look everywhere around the room in haste…she’s everywhere…she’s staring…she won’t stop staring at you! Why is she staring?! Is this a joke to her??? A cosmic joke?!! Is she laughing at you?? What would she think about this?? Would she laugh?? Call you pathetic for feeling the way you do??? Why wouldn’t she? Your suffering was entertainment to her…and oh she was watching…eyeing you like she was going to turn you into a entire fucking puppet show and force you to perform against your will like she’s always done and suddenly out of nowhere it fucking hits you. The memories start pouring in like a rapid fire, your lives flash through your eyes as you see it over and over again. Hanging out with Tessa, figuring shit out and being reset, OVER AND OVER, UNTIL IT DOESN’T HAPPEN…
The feeling of being reset over and over…going back to the start, being your typical self and just being fine until you aren’t, watching as cracks slowly started to accumulate through your entire body and sink deep into your casing…Getting close..just to be reset…Time and time again….just all the fucking time…the cycle repeated over and over, and it ended the same way…figuring things out..and loosing everything...You grasp your head with your hair as you let out a scream of frustration. STOP IT!!!! STOP SHOWING ME THIS!!! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!!!!! JUST GET THE DAMN BOOK!!! YOU IDIOT!! YOU FOOL, YOU IMBICEL!! You feel the eyes on you as you sink to the floor, remembering hurts….god it hurts…tears roll down your face and you quiver as you realized something…As much as it pained you to say it…it’s clear…her presence…and existence…made you scared….
And that was a feeling you hated. You hated being terrified…But it was all your core fucking wreaked, it was all your body eminated…its why you were easy to manipulate…because your terror drove your every step…just like it is doing now…You clench your fists once more as you slam them against the ground, wincing in pain as a sharp ache goes through your entire nervous system. C’mon…focus…breathe…focus on the matter at hand…please…you could…deal with this later…Think…of what it’ll be like on that planet…clear skies…foliage for miles…birds…grass that stretches for eons and has the texture of cotton candy…littered with bugs and other various of inhabitants…rolling mountains that contain a multitude of things within them..like recourses…which could help you with your endeavors…
Think of the things you could do once your system is fixed…you could run for miles, you could fly wherever you want without worrying about the consequences…if you fix yourself up everything will be just like when you were a worker drone, just with the ability to do disassembler things. The sheer freedom…the sheer utter freedom you’ll have…You…just have to pull through it…get the book and get out…she’s not here right now…she’s dead…she’s been dead for a while…you know that…she’s never coming back…shes permanently deceased…and could no longer hurt you anymore…your free…free to do as you please…free to just exist…You manage to crawl amongst the floor and nab a book under the bed, before slowly crawling back out and shutting the door before resting your back against it.
Deep breaths…deep breaths…You sigh immensely, trying to shake the feeling of something grasping your core and your face…She’s not here…and she won’t ever be…your alone…completely alone…forever alone…theres nobody else…rest easy burning core…theres nothing there…You take a deep breath, running a hand delicately across your chest, not only to sooth your core but to feel the texture…its soft…smooth…and was intentionally soft…that softness more than not was just makeshift skin that protected your bodys innards from problems. But it also acted as a great way of awareness…When you finally open your eyes, you see the book you grabbed…It was her diary…you didn’t know what…you’d find in this…but you decided that…you were going to hold onto this for a while…because it was truly the last semblance of…the boss…that you had…and you intended to keep it, because for as much as you didn’t want to admit it. You wanted to understand the boss. Because if you understood her…perhaps…it wouldn’t hurt so bad…
You allowed yourself a moment to breathe before opening the book and glancing through the pages. Some were sketches of Cyn herself…the other squad members and of course Tessa. Then there was watching as Cyn made tiny notes about all of the drones. Calling N, “Too nice, takes pity on everything.” Which was oddly true, then there was V, where she said, “She’s to shy and afraid of her own shadow.” You find yourself smirking…oh she used to be so shy…it was kinda funny to see…then theres the comments towards Tessa…”Kindest girl ever, suffers for no reason at all.” And that made you frown, guess even Cyn could see back then that Tessa’s folks were horrible. You even saw drawings of the mistress and her husband, and as expected they were crossed out and bloodied up. You weren’t surprised in the slightest. You and Tessa used to joke around all the time about murdering her folks after all.
Then there was the head scratcher…a bunch of doodles of you. Whether it’d be from you being angry…to annoyed…all doodles shared one thing in common though, it was a moment in time where you praised her for good work. You pondered why those moments were specifically highlighted…sure just about everybody acted like your praise was…something to go crazy about…but more often than not, those freebies went to Cyn. So why internalize them? Especially when they were common? Whatever…As you both metaphorically and literally change the page, the style changes from doodles to full on extensive full in detail writing about everything. Whether it’d be N and how he functions…V…and you…almost as if she was trying to psychoanalyze…everything…From noting the flinching, the anger, the disappointment…the struggle…to the silent plea for Tessa’s time. Your gaze sours as you furiously flip through the pages, watching as they all were just covered in sketches of anatomy, drone parts, the new disassembler model, what makes it different, what it’s oil usage was supposed to be at which was 50%. Then there was the grotesque diagrams of you and your squad…your weakpoints…where to hurt, where to break…
Your gaze was starting to grow furious as you read through these pages, then you…stop on one. Reading its contents….
Journal entry #80
‘Annoyed expression. I have reset Serial Designation J, in total of 200 times. She keeps figuring things out. And while it is. Fun. to fight her. It is not. Ideal to keep this chase coming. So. I have. Decided. To limit visits. To the motherboard. It is. A shame to. I enjoy, her. Sheer devotion. And willingness. But perhaps. This. will make her. More desperate. And maybe. This time. She’ll love me. For who I am.‘
Excuse me?...
Your left staring at the pages, feeling as anger bubbles into your core…This son of a…she really was just…using your emotions like a game…And the worst part? It fucking worked…your whole world was twisted fucking sideways because of how desperate you were…so utterly fucking desperate that you WANT her beyond your wildest dreams. You let out a shudder of frustration…you had to…get your bearings…this was not the time for emotional stress…not when the key is right infront of your doorstep…With as much effort as possible, you fiddle through the rest of the pages and find it…the code…
“Tessa.”
Because of fucking course the code was Tessa…The fact you could’ve guessed that the WHOLE FUCKING TIME. It heaves you with utter irritation but you have what you need now. You take a deep breath and rise to your feet. Using the wall for support as you walk down the halls once more. Nothing else…matters…just…get to the panel…thats all that matters right now…the panel…eventually you do get to the panel and sit down in the chair, fiddling with the buttons for a moment before turning it on. Of course it wants the password so you enter it and your in the system. You then go to the settings and ask to change admins, having to enter the password again and input in your exe before FINALLY being granted admin access. Having access to your own body was not that hard to achieve, it was simply just an override.
And here you are. Completely free of her mark. Her control. And yet you didn’t feel like a hero…just a survivor to…her carnage…who knew winning could feel so empty…Let alone that…even if you did win…you still have to live with the fact that…your alone…how riveting…You take an immense sigh and get up, before going back to the table. This time you opted to turn your pain receptors down but also wear an eye piece. There were a few things here you couldn’t do on your own, but luckily Cyn always had a pair of extra appendages that were purposely installed…to assist with her work. You turn on the eye and suddenly you feel torn between two beings, your body and the system itself, your movement caused their movement and activity but thats exactly what you wanted, good to know it still works…
Regardless, you lay down on the lab table and strap yourself down, that way you won’t move or squirm as you fix your own systems…sure there's that feeling of helplessness, but theres also the knowledge that you have everything in control…with that, you also go into your systems and turn your absolute solver program off, that way it won’t interfere with your work. With all these in order, you maneuver the appendages to you, one has a scalpel, one has a stick welder, another is a grabby device and many more to come…All…thats…left is to go through the said procedure…And of course be awake through it the whole time…how delightful…but first…
“Uhh…Tessa?” You called out.
“Ya jaybird?” Tessa questioned.
“What’s the chance I accidently…make things worse?...” You said with concern.
“It’s a pretty low chance! As long as ya don’t severe your core from your bodeh, you’ll be foine!” Tessa beamed.
“Okay…thanks Tessa…” You smile…quietly…
Lets. fucking do this.
You take a deep breath as you maneuver the scalpel close to your body…willing yourself to stop breathing hard because it might ruin the incision…after all, you never really were scared of this…or well you shouldn’t be…yet maybe the factor of you cutting yourself open was just something different entirely…because its actively…hurting yourself…C’mon…do this…do it you coward!!!…Your eyes concentrate and furrow as the scalpel goes through your skin…and you slowly cut back layers of your skin…its…oddly…satisfying…? Sure there was the sense of discomfort…but there was an odd…satisfaction in seeing…your skin being cut like butter…and seeing it fall on the floor, like dead skin flakes. Although it is a bit disturbing to see the layers slowly being taken away and eventually reveal your chest cavity…
To make things easier to see, you also use one of the appendages to get a mirror and tilted it a specific way which gave you a full vantage look of the gaping hole. Where your core nestled in your body and was protected by an oddly fleshy and human-like ribcage…this was one of those things that concerned you. Why was it that robots…needed something like this…? Why were they built with this in mind…? It was weird as hell…Let alone where did humans get the well…parts to make something of this nature? You couldn’t recall the manual…containing anything..about fleshy innerworkings…but you also weren’t the one that cut worker drones up. That was what Tessa and Cyn did…but you’ve never heard active comments from them about worker drones being all fleshy inside…
Although that was the least of your concerns…the more pressing matters were the little bits and chunks of loose metal in your body. Those had to go first. With careful precision you not only brought a medical table near you, you also slowly brought the tiny grabbies into your exposed cavity. Making sure to adjust the mirror, that way you could see directly into the cavity, so you knew exactly where the little pieces were. You could even see your core…in action…vibrating softly as the tools were near it…that was because there was a chunk of metal piercing into the core…because of course there fucking was. But that's fine…you could deal with it. You dip the tweezers into a sterilizer, let them dry and then you have them gently pull out the metal from whence it came. It’s discomforting…because you feel the metal embedded in your core but you pull it out anyways, before allowing the syringe to get a sample of your naniate neutralizer and apply it to the core, allowing it to heal and mend itself. Why weren’t you worried about contaminants when it came to that? Well simply…thats because the neutralizer didn’t have any contaminants. Unlike a humans mouth that was built with many bacteria and various fluids that made sure the mouth was clean, instead your mouth just contained neutralizer, and your body was built to handle it, Cyn’s design after all.
With that process done, your attention turns to the rest of the metal chunks, keeping a focused eye as you carefully pull them all out and set them on the medical table, one, turns to 3, then turns to 10, then turns to about 20 little pieces of free floating metal that you managed to find, just SOLELY in your chest cavity. Then there’s the fact that theres so much fucked up metal that you actively have to cut it out and repair it. Causing you even more discomfort because you have to weld new pieces of metal into your systems and build up the parts that are falling apart…Safe to say, you did not like this one single bit. You thought you needed small repairs, not a whole ass body repair…But you supposed that was just a side effect of Cyns tampering…Sure, she could’ve made sure not to hurt your systems but…well you could only do that so much before your appendages start to catch on metal…start to bend it and break it…which looked like what happened here…
It sure was a good thing you were using these appendages though…because you weren’t sure if you could’ve done this with your regular hands and been fine with it…the realistic part was that you could’ve, but it would’ve been more damaging to your body…and you would’ve messed up and probably broke something…it is the art of being a robot that takes after humans…Your just as flawed as them…except they get many chances, you don’t, it was just how things were…and you wondered if that would change on the next planet…or be the same?...who knows…You didn’t exactly know how to…fix the fleshy bits of your system so you switched to the other important part of your system…the nerves…these nerves, were delivered to your entire body, thanks to all the insulated copper wires. This, was what allows your body to simulate and experience feelings just like a human. But of course, these were also damaged. Some wires had been broken, while others were stripped bare…filled with marks…seraded…or just possessed other damages that were not good.
Luckily for you, repairing these would not be impossible, it would require using wirecutters to break these wires, attach new copper wire…then use a heating gun to put new insulation on the wires. Insulation was key, it made sure the wires took electricity and power where it needed to go, because without it, the electricity could seep out and shock something that it shouldn’t. Plus electricity was not a joke, the last you want, was it to shock you again so repairs were mandatory. One of the appendages of course brands the wire cutters, a few have the insulation, one has scissors, copper wire and of course the grabbys, that way you could administer your patches without much issue. As you got to work, it reminded you of…the manor days…where you were in need of patch work like all the goddamn time and Tessa always was so eager to fix you. It made…you…feel a sense of fondness, recalling just how much she cared, whether it’d be showing it by fixing you up and making sure that she is as gentle with your systems as possible, but also caring so much about how you were feeling, or whether you were feeling a tad bit of discomfort…that made you…smile…How could you…ever forget a girl that sweet? A girl who would also move heaven and earth for you…
Oh Tessa…you’d hope she knew…how much you loved her…And sure hope she felt every second of it…One of the reasons you liked doing this, was because of its connection to Tessa…because fixing yourself, felt like it was her fixing you up…and patching you up with uttermost care…the more care you give to yourself, the more…it feels like her…and the more you love yourself…the more you feel like…its her loving you…It’s…a universal…gesture…that means the world to you…which is why you didn’t…mind doing this at all…sure you could only fix so much…but that was fine…cause it meant that you weren’t worrying about random metal chunks in your core anymore…Speaking of your core. You put some of the neturalizer on a cloth and wiped it on your core. While this couldn’t heal every crack. This would fix minor things and make your core work better…well at least a little bit.
With that. Done…you're ready to…do the final override…You take a deep breath as the appendages go to grab the three connection points to connect them to your core and once in. You search through the file folders, the first thing you were doing…is completing the reset, which was telling your hardware that you ran on a completely different input now and telling it to adjust. But you also update your systems to accommodate these new changes, that way your body can naturally change into these outputs without forcing them…this leaves you time to just relax…because…well, updatings going to take a while…especially with your systems…ughhhh….curse being a robot sometimes…not only did you have to manually fix yourself but YOU NEEDED UPDATES TO COMPLETE THEM!!!! You thought about it for a moment before just sinking into the lab table…there was no reason to get angry about this…this was …very much out of your control…and just the unfortunate turns of events that come with being a machine…
Oh well…
“Having fun fixing your systems?” A sly voice spoke.
Your gaze immediately furrows. “Yeah. No thanks to you jackass. Sure was nice to put your damn appendages through my fucking systems and break a million pieces of metal that slowly have pierced my bodies fleshy goey walls for years, VERYY riveting.” You say with spite.
“Awh. Faux Sympathy. I would’ve thought you. Would’ve forgotten. About. Those surprises. How. unfortunate. I really. Was. looking. Forward. To you. Struggling more. J.” Cyn feigned a sympathetic expression as she walked over to you, placing a hand on your head and patting it mockingly.
“...I’m going to kill…you and turn your…circuitry…into mush…” You growl at her.
Cyn laughed, immensely. “You. cannot. Kill. what is already dead J. Where…did, this, fight of yours. Come from anyways? Intrigued expression.”
You blinked…before scowling at her. “Maybe. Its because you do not give me any peace at all. And…im kinda sick of it…” You sighed…
“Or your. Just finding. An excuse. To express. Your frustrations? It’s probably that J. Not that you would ever admit it. Amused expression.” Cyn gives you that innocent look.
You feel oil bubble up in your core as you feel your mind slipping…just enough to make you realize that you cannot be doing that while having your chest cavity exposed so you take a deep breath and stare at her with that professional cool outlook you always use when not wanting to tear someone into two.. “Would you please stop reading my every intention boss? It is getting on my nerves.”
Cyn’s smirk turns sharper. “Oh J. You know I won’t. You are. Way to. Fun. to mess with. To stop that.” Cyn said with a hum as her hand drags alongside your neck, then to your exposed chest cavity, making purpose intent to put pressure on your ripcage then your core.
You feel a sense of mild discomfort, staring at her with a more perplexed gaze. “I…just…fixed myself…don’t do this to me…” Your tone was a tad bit pleading.
Cyn gives you the most surprised expression in the world, like you just asked her to stop destroying the world for 5 seconds. “You. want. Me to stop. Tormenting you? Oh J. My sweet…sweet jaybird…You. Know. well, that. I won’t do that. Sinister expression.” Cyn’s grin widens as her fingers drag along your wires…your fleshy interior…the sensitive parts that make up your body…watching in delight as you squirm.
Your breathing starts to sharpen as you feel it…every inch of her finger daring to explore…prodding things it shouldn’t…its not a feeling you like…you never liked your insides getting prodded like you were a science experiment…let alone being able to feel the tiny bits of pressure she put on them, as if trying to purposely break them…Your almost to distracted to realize that she has come closer to you and is looming over your exposed chest cavity…
“...W-What…the hell is…it…y-you…want?...” You managed to say, albeit with a shaky voice.
Cyn giggled a bit, her tongue casually licking her own eye before hanging out like a feral dog. “It's simple. I want to. Ruin your hard work. J. So. Let me in.” Cyn’s neck cracks as her face came closer to your open chest cavity…
You writhe and struggle but it is to no avail. You could only watch in utter horror as she licks your core…Gross…You give a look of disgust as she just casually licks at your systems. The pressure of hands…were one thing…being licked was another…how…riveting…
“Is this…s-some…twisted…joke to you? Why the hell are you licking my systems?!” You shout more so in panic.
Cyn seems mildly annoyed. “Would you. Prefer. I sever your wires instead, eager beaver?”
The words fell silent…you know what…she had a point…whatever…You simmer in mild discomfort that was going on…perhaps you could get some otherthings out of this though?? But what would that be? You…already have an engame…a plan…things to do…your just kind of waiting for that STUPID update…to complete…Hm…You find yourself flinching a bit as Cyn grazed passed a particularly tender area…ahhh right. Even if you did all these repairs…your bodys interior was still going to be sensitive…this was not really surprising in the slightest though. Hm…although, you wouldn’t be surprised…if this…was your mind coping…why else…would…you hear…Tessa or…Cyn…to cope with the isolation…not that you’d ever admit that to the outside world…so instead you sink into the feelings…and…
Your…
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In…a meadow…
Huh…Unironically, its the same one you’ve been seeing for years…a beautiful perfect meadow that has grass up to ankle level and not only has the most lush grass you’ve ever seen but its a very vibrant color. Then theres the flowers, little dandelions, daisies, poppys, orchids and many weeds masquerading as flowers. Then theres the smaller critters, the pill bugs, the grasshoppers, the beatles, the roaches, waterbugs, ants, butterflies, caterpillars and to many to name…The bigger animals were here as well, from the smallest birds, the rabbits, squirrels, rats, mice, dogs, cats and even bigger animals…there were the trees, there were bushes. There even was a gentle breeze that ran through your core and shook the vegetation and soothed the hearts of the unrested. Of course theres the shining sun, where it always is. The center of the sky, because it once used to be the center of everything in your mind and society…it still was…but it was one of many stars…Naturally there's the rolling hills in the distance, filled with many trees and forests that made the place look more lively.
You even found yourself surprised as you had to put a hand over your hair. Mainly to keep the wind from carrying it away. Which was an overstatement because your hair was deeply embedded into your head. Because none of your skits ever made the hair come off…it was just something you unintentionally did because you were back in your happy space…because this space…was the first place you ever went to…and was the space you and Tessa created when you read those books. It…was a safe little sanctuary for just you…and it was your first true dream you’ve had…without things just being a straight up memory…which meant that this place was as special as it was significant. Plus it was also your safe space from the cruel reality of your situation and when your mind was slipping…You find yourself…walking around the meadow…being extremely careful every step you took…whether it’d be stepping on areas that are creature free, but also making sure not to come in contact with any areas that would cause you to trip.
You walk for…god knows how long…just taking it in…from the earthly and dew-like smell of the grass, to the freshness of the leaves…to the warm sun basking on your casing…to the birds that flew right by you and tickled you with the wind. It was…an oddly pleasant feeling…like being…hugged by mother nature herself…and reassured…that you will find what your looking for…and you hope that is true…Because once you do…you could return…to following orders and your life will be amazing…The comfort of the predictable was the greatest appeal of going to another planet. You would have no idea how the planet will be, but of course so long as it’s not copper 9 levels of bullshit, then you’ll be fine with anything. It’s even better if you could find humans…just any semblance of life…if you do, it’ll be all the better…you’ll probably also find worker drones but they are the least of your problems now.
You allowed yourself to have some optimism. Once you get there, all your worries shall…fade away…and the planet will be beautiful…Oh you couldn’t wait…Because your in the mindscape, you find yourself spinning around and laughing. Oh…what was this feeling? A feeling of wonder?...Curiousity…? Or just…a small moment of enjoyment…that is yours to own…Who knows…You allow your wings to deploy and flow in the wind, the air running through them gently…It was a taste…that is bittersweet…One you were unsure about feeling..because on the one hand, you have wanted this freedom for so long, but on the other hand, you were antsy of what it entailed…what was on the other side? You had no idea. But your curiosity was apparent…since when have…you felt any semblance of childish joy to well do anything? And why were you feeling it?...What…was wrong with your body this time?...
You were just…confused…rightfully so…you’ve given…up this childish whimsy…to be the best worker possible…and yet you were feeling it right now…You cross your arms as you roll your eyes. Okay this was definitely just a relapse in emotions…or maybe it's because you were in this place? An area where you didn’t have to be in the reality of your situation…A place where you could exist without any semblance of repercussions or something going wrong in the world…The last time you’ve…felt this giddyness…was well in the manor…more so…every occasion you were with Tessa…felt like an adventure…the days where it was just you two and all your attention could be dedicated to just eachother…You…find yourself…smiling…for a moment…watching in the distance as a younger you and Tessa were exploring the place…whether it’d be looking at all the little bugs, naming each species…their capabilities…or just their functions…
“This ones ah butterfly! Its a beautiful little bugger! One that can floy to its horts content! Pretty cool huh?” A young Tessa beamed.
You watch your younger self stare with a wonder and whimsy you’ve never seen in decades. “It is cool Tessa! What other bugs are there in this meadow??” A younger J spoke, a shy little worker drone, with pigtails and a maid dress too frilly for her frame yet still having a heart of absolute tenderness.
“There’s tha pill bugs! Or roley pollies as the other humans loik to call them!! They are cute little bugs that roll up into little balls! Then there’s the grasshoppers! Or or! The praying mantas! There’s even beatles!!” The young Tessa exclaimed.
The little J, is taken aback, optics wide and mouth agape as she stares at the bugs Tessa held within her hands. So many creepy crawlies! And then the little J shrieks as Tessa shoved the bugs in her face, giggling like a little bastard as little J was trying to get them out of her face!!
“Hey!! That wasn’t fair at all!! That was mean Tessa!!” The young J said with panic, yet held a more soft expression, oh she couldn’t be mad at Tessa, not ever.
The young Tessa stuck a tongue out at J, smirking like a little gremlin. “Oi just did tha to see if you’d scream like the other kids! And yuh did buddy!!” Tessa was on the floor, laughing like a little bastard.
The little J huffs like a pouty kid before lunging at Tessa, trying to tickle her to death!!! “I’m going to get you!!!”
The young Tessa shrieks as she is just laughing her ass off, unable to stop the young J from tickling her, so instead she tries to tickle J back, sending them tumbling into the meadow and landing in a puddle of water. You watch as both girls start laughing their butts off. Sure they’d get in trouble later but, trouble doesn’t mean anything to young and innocent creatures…You smile fondly as the two start splashing each other furiously, ruining each others outfits without a care in the world…because truely, back then, times were more simpler and punishments held no actual..chain on your psyche…These moments remind you that, there was always a silver lining…in your stay at the manor…and that was…Tessa herself…oh sweet little Tessa…Your core beams happily as you stare…
Watching the two youngins dance and play to their hearts content. You…forgot how much…moments…were just forgotten to time…especially when your mind was busy…and struggling to figure out it’s place in the world…Moments like these…well, reminded you that…at the end of the day…you were still…a young drone…one who was robbed…of so many things…so many trivial…matters…and experiences…you were robbed of living…robbed of existing…and forced to survive in an unforgiving world that seeked your…suffering…these moments…made it hard…to see the small little increments of happiness you felt…let alone consider them…especially because the world was so much more complicated now…there was none of this simple…just ignore everything and hope it doesn’t boil over…instead your forced to acknowledge…the pain…the hurts…and that left you conflicted…
These little moments…reminded you that the world used to be so much simpler…where all you had to worry about was just doing your job. And of course…spending time with…Tessa…Your…core fills up with that sense of fondness…that soft kind hearted fondness that made you smile and made you tear up from just how tender these moments are…Your smile brightens as you watch the two youngins run around once more and chase each other. You used to take these moments for granted…but now? You…appreciate them a lot more…especially now that they are gone…you never knew it’d hurt so much to loose…these moments until you lost her…loosing her…still hurt like a bullet wound…not only was she just not in your life but so many things you did felt…empty without her presence…without her bright mind…her teasing words and her genuine affection for you…
You could imagine her yapping on and on to you about each and every part that makes up your body and what you probably would fix and what you probably shouldn’t. Maybe even tease you during the repair process about how deeply intimate it is to be fixed by somebody you care about. Because she was ALWAYS a tease. You didn’t go one moment without her teasing you to death and leaving you a flustered mess. And…frankly…you missed that…her sheer shamelessness about it! Her unadulterated menace to make you as embarrassed as possible! It’s like she was practically addicted to making you a nerve wreck!! And she laughs at you too! With that dumb, sweet and warm laughter that made you forgive her every remark because you knew she was teasing you. Sure…she wasn’t…perfect, but thats what you loved so much about her…her flaws…the moments where she could be a little sucky…why wouldn’t you anyways? She…dealt with your ugliness…and made you feel worthy of love…so it was your job to do the same…
You feel your…core flutter at these thoughts…she really drew you in like a moth to a flame…and while she did some things that pissed you off…she did try to make it better…she always did…because she wasn’t a monster…she was a little girl that cared about everybody…she had a big heart for everybody…and you couldn’t fault her for that…you could only say that…her heart is what lead Cyn to take advantage of her…and what lead others to take advantage of her. Its why she needed you. Because you didn’t take a lot of the bullshit. Sure you were as loyal as can be but you disobeyed rules for her, just to ensure her safety and comfort. And you knew she appreciated that…You…didn’t need her words of affirmation to know she appreciated your efforts…while it may have seem like she didn’t care back then…you knew she did…She cared about you more than anybody ever would or could…You…frankly just wish…you could’ve told her…everything…you wish you didn’t feel this aching regret…of missed opportunities…of everything…
You eye the young Tessa and J, watching as the two giggle about and set up a picnic. You raise an eyebrow and walk over, watching as the young Tessa takes out a sandwich and begans eating it. Meanwhile the little J, eats some batteries. The two…are sharing a moment of just existing near each other…while making impressions…absolutely adorable…
“Ugh! I’m the mistress! I got a stick up my behind and I suck eggs!” The younger J made a grump face and was being very dramatic.
Young Tessa was laughing her ass off, wiping a tear from her face. “Mother does not sound like that!! She sounds like this!!” Tessa cleared her throat before talking, “I want the mess cleaned up in 2 seconds lower beings!! I want these books all pristine! I want the floor moped, sweeped, vacumed, and polished at the same time!! Can’t do that?? To bad!! Your going to the scrap pile!!” Tessa grabbed at young J’s waist and started to tickle her!
The young J shrieks before falling into a hysterical laughter! “Stop it!!! I can’t breathe!! Why are you so on point?? Do you watch documentaries on her or something??” The little J asks.
Young Tessa makes a gleeful expression. “Oh sweet pea. I used to replicate my mother all the time. She got so pissed off about it that she made drones take care of me.” She smirks like the devil she is.
The young J laughs at the thought of that. “Oh my goodness….you are so much trouble…girl..”
Young Tessa wrapped an arm around the little J. “And yet~ We are besties…Crazy how that works hm?”
The young J giggled before rolling her eyes. “Why wouldn’t we be besties?...you matter to me…Tessa…you mean so much to me…” The younger J embraces Tessa, resting her head against Tessa’s upper torso…
Young Tessa embraced little J…”Awwh..J…I feel the same way…You make my…world so much better…” The young Tessa smiled softly.
You felt tears breach your eyes as you watch them both…This was…one of many moments…that made you ponder how you both felt in that moment…but perhaps you didn’t need the answer to that. Because it was already staring at you in the face…You feel a smile breach your face once more as you wipe your tears off your visor. You get it…you get why your here…to remember that…sure , there were so many sucky moments…but your life wasn’t entirely filled with shitty moments…and while they sure took up most of your thought space…there were these few small moments like these…that…reminded you that not everything was entirely hopeless…Because your now faced to ask the question of what you’ll do after everything, and frankly…you don’t really have an answer…you might never ever have one…but…you’ve just about come to terms with it…maybe you will be lost forever but that’s fine…
It’s all fine…
[SYSTEM UPDATE COMPLETE…]
[PLEASE, WAIT A MOMENT WHILE YOUR SYSTEMS RESTART…]
You watch as the landscape drifts away and is replaced by darkness…you were fine with it anyways…this just means that your system will adjust better and be less fucked up than before and that is all you can hope at this point…The faster your systems adapt, the faster you could go to the panel and set your destination for the next planet…You stood around for a moment before feeling it…conciousness…
[REBOOTING…]
[PLEASE WAIT…]
[...]
[YOU HAVE BEEN REBOOTED.]
[WELCOME BACK TO LIFE ADMIN :D]
Hm…
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You woke up once more…ah yes, you were still stuck, best fix that up requick…You fiddle with your settings and allow your solver to do its healing thing and you watch as the soft casing starts to cover your chest cavity back up and in no time…your chest is back to normal, as if it hasn’t been touched by a scalpel, although there's still the cracks on it…which is not surprising in the slightest…if it was one thing that never left your systems no matter what. It was the cracks…they will always linger and they will never go away. Oh well. You hum for a moment before using your naniate tail to release yourself free and soon enough you are on your feet. Guaranteed, its a tad bit disorienting to walk after what feels like hours but here you were. Your systems…were feeling so much better, sure they were still a bit funky but now you can at least live, knowing that there are no more random broken wires or shards in your core. You smile a tad bit as you eagerly walk over to the panel and ping out a signal to the nearest exoplanet.
Your optics gaze over all the planets…before one is of interest…There was a planet in the system of a white dwarf. A very recently discovered planet that was one of the candidates for life because of the star's stability. You hum for a bit before giving it an overview. This planet was known as Adami. Notable for its lush environments, twilight skies and its very habitable friendly world. It was approximately 1.1x the size of earth and had lesser gravity but it was a planet nonetheless. One of great importance and discovery. Luckily it wouldn’t take that long to get there either. Thank god. Of course you immediately pinged in the ship to go to that destination, because what the hell else were you gonna do? Stay up here?? Yeahhhh no. You want to get to a planet as fast as feasibly possible. And get ready for your final voyage…through interstellar space…but first…you had a couple of chores to do. Best get to them.
One of these chores included using the rest of the corpses and siphoning the rest of the oil from their bodies…So here you were, filling up as much canisters as feasibly possible just to have the reserves…doing things like these made you feel a tad bit better…not only were the actions repetitive, but they were safe….and secure…but also because you absolutely loved doing things…and doing things distracted you from the thoughts and the dread that came with emptiness…and no noise…So this was a welcome change for you…and an assurance of your survivability…It’s kinda…therapudic…you knew that it was feasibly impossible to go back into…your whole corporate persona, but you do enjoy doing things like this…You hum for a moment before placing the bodies into a pile, there wasn’t that much…bodies left…but that was okay…cause your oil reserves were high and just about full.
Maybe that's why you were in high spirits…because your oil reserves were finally full and your systems were no longer screaming at you…it was…something you have never felt for YEARS…and you could feel your thoughts…so clearly…and process things better. You find yourself smiling fondly as you carry the canisters over to the docking area. They were one of many things you had to stock up for the arrival. You never knew what you were going to get into after all. So might as well be as prepared as possible. Speaking of being as prepared as possible, all this walking around was giving enough diagnostics to tell you that your system was ready for whatever escapades…plus they shouldn’t overheat anymore as your core doesn’t even reach the hundreds anymore…its oddly…like the average body temperature of a human…which it was supposed to be in the first place…before Cyn fucked everything up…
And while that came at the cost of your special optics…struggling to go into the more complicated modes…you were also fine with that, they were kinda annoying anyways. You didn’t always want to see in other spectrums…it was always mildly annoying…the more important part of the matter is the fact that not only have you stacked the oil canisters, but you have put the memorabilia as well. These will be the things you take with you on your journey, because once you land, you are NEVER going back to this ship. In fact, you were going to burn it. Pretty much you were going to give a big middle finger to Cyn…and destroy the rest of her legacy…no clones…no hidden space ships…no anything…just a regaining…of autonomy…and authority…over your life…its as they say, the flame of fire truly does spark hope, but also the destruction that leads into creation of new life and beauty. But also to simply…feel like Cyn cannot reach you anymore. Sure you won’t be able to leave but you were fine with that. You didn’t want to go searching through the cosmos anyways, that was Tessa’s idea. Not yours. So you’ll take what really matters and let the rest…literally rest in peace…
With all the memorabilia you need in place…and of course…what your taking…is now in the dock areas. It is time to hunker down and take a long sleep till you arrive at the destination. Before that you make sure all your systems are good, which they are…and Cyn’s diary is in your pile. With that in store…you go in her room and lay down on the bed. For you, my friend, have taken all the pictures and anything that made this room terrifying…instead it was now a room that smelled oddly…like Tessa…that sweet cinnamon of gentleness, contrasted with a hint of posies. As you prepare your mind for the final voyage. You wonder what memory, or dream you’ll recall this time…hopefully…this time…it’ll be a good one…
[DO YOU WISH TO ENTER HYPERSLEEP? OPERATOR.]
[...]
[YES. SET AN ALARM FOR WHEN ARRIVAL.]
[TIMER SET. WAKING YOU UP. IN A MONTH. SEE YOU ON THE OTHERSIDE OPERATOR.]
[ENTERING SLEEP MODE.]
[...]
[...]
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[MEMORY RECALL…HAS BEEN COMPROMISED…]
[CHANGING TO DREAM.EXE]
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.
Hmm…The smell of…delicious…meats permeate your senses…what…was going on?....You grumble, rising up to your feet…blankies…comfortable and super soft…huh?! Where the fuck where you? You find yourself scrambling out of bed and stumbling onto the floor, groaning a bit as you looked at yourself…ah, you were still in disassembler…look…with those sad excuses for legs…whatever…you rise up to your feet and look around…woah…those pictures…the latchhooks…the projects…the hardware and wardrobe…was…this…the dream house? You curiously gaze into the wardrobe, seeing your infinite supplies of blazers and buttonups, but you also see plenty of comfy ware like pajamas…You debate for a moment before slipping on the pajamas, noting that they are oddly accommodated for you…which makes you feel happy. Because if this was where you thought it was…then you know damn well…who's out there.
You drag your hand along the wall before eagerly going up to the door and peaking out of it…the living room is as spacious as you expected…and my god is there a plethora of…her things everywhere…of course the smell is still there and eventually that leads you to the kitchen, where you see her…in all her glory, fixing up…a little meal. And your left to marvel at her beauty…a beauty you haven’t seen so long…whether it’d be the longer fluffy hair…and the layers of color it possessed…the beautiful homey dress she is wearing and the many freckles that leaves her body looking like an alluring canvas…the dynamic…curves she had…and how tall she was…she was only an inch smaller than you after all…which is funny because you used to be shorter than her..and now you both are of similar height. There’s…just something so enchanting about her, her presence alone…makes you feel…content…like everything is right in the world…
You find yourself hesitating…before walking over to her, glancing at her handiwork and admiring it. You're both focusing on the matter at hand and going with the wind of change before she finally looks at you…and gives you that warm smile that makes all your worries fade away. You just fall apart in that moment and absolutely drag her into a kiss. And you both embrace eachother…your souls are intertwined…and holding onto each other in the most desperate dance…crying at the thought of the separation and the horrors…the loss of innocence and the death of the blossom of love…your grip is firm and tears breach your eyes…you don’t want to let her go…not now…not ever…she was your everything and you had to communicate that to her! When you break apart you rest your head against hers, eyes with unanswered pleas.
“T-Tessa…I am…So…SO…SORRY…I am sorry for not being able to save you…not being able to help you…N-Not being able to tell you! N-Not telling you to stop! Or knock it off!! Im…SORRY FOR EVERYTHING…I’m…sorry for not being good enough…!! Or s-strong enough…you…deserved so much better…you deserved to live…!!” You plead desperately, sobbing as you hug her with desperation…
Tessa gives you the most concerned look as she embraces you. “..it’s….okay Jaybird…cry it out as much as possible…”
You shake violently as you shake your head. “NO! ITS NOT OKAY! I SHOULD’VE STOPPED HER…I-I…SHOULD’VE DONE SOMETHING….This…is my fault…all my fault…if…I had just told you…to stop…you would still be here with me…” You whimper for a bit.
“...Jay…” Tessa says softly.
“Please…just let me…talk…I…have wanted to say this to you…for a long time…and for you to take it seriously…and n-not…overlook it…o-or…say it's not that big of a deal…o-or…laugh it off…or…get d-distracted…with other things…please…just let me have this…please tell me you care…That…you won’t abandon me for having feelings…” You say with a desperate tone, your optics watering badly as you stare at her.
Tessa is baffled before hugging you firmy! “Jaybird! Oi won’t abandon you for being who you are! You're allowed to be hurt! You're allowed to be angry! Oi may not always agree with you but your feelings matter …and you matter…It’s…not your fault…it never was sweetpea…” Tessa held you close and gently rubbed your back, she…was so worried about you…she’s never seen you this broken…this shattered…
“...Y-Your…not mad?...” You say with surprise.
“Oh Jaybird. How could I ever get mad at you? Ah love yuh…And you're hurting…don’t…beat yerself up for…hurting…my dear…” Tessa gently held your face in a comforting gesture, giving you her affirmation.
“...But…I don’t want to hurt…” You frown.
Tessa laughed a little bit. “...Jay…Hurting means that you care..its care with nowhere to go…love with nowhere to go…And that's not a bad thing…in fact its…the most attractive thing ever…to know yuh care…and that yuh have a huge heart…” She gave you the most tender of looks.
Your gaze widens as you stare at her. “...It's…not a bad thing?...”
“Oh…jaybird…it's not…it never was…please do not beat yourself up…over it…your feelings are valid…they are so valid…please don’t let anybody say otherwise…” Tessa was teary eyed as she looked at you…
You were…stunned into silence…it was the first time…you were ever told that…your feelings…were not just some stupid roadblock in the way and should be filed away…let alone being told that…it wasn’t your fault…you didn’t know how to feel about that…instead just letting the tears river down your face and embracing Tessa once more…god you loved her so much…you couldn’t let her go…not ever…not now…and you didn’t want to…She was your lifeline…your everything…your entire world…Your grip is firm as your tail and wings also wrap around her…Tessa…your guiding light…your lighthouse…your flame…your lover…oh you wished…everything could just go back to the way…it was…you wish life could be so simple…so calm…and uneventful…
So you do it once more, you kiss her, then you kiss her chin and neck and nuzzle her affectionately…watching as she giggled and smiled warmly at you…noting the fluster that has already decided to gather across your visor…You find yourself sheepishly looking away…before she lunged at you and pinned you, kissing you to death and leaving you mad happy. You both were laughing like little idiots as you stared at each other…oh…this was so…dreamy…you smirk as you wrap your arms around her neck and stare into those beautiful eyes.
“Tessa…Have I ever told you…That I love you?...That I love you…so much…that you live rent free in my head hm?” You say with a gleeful grin.
Tessa smirked. “Oh I've heard you tell me that you love me, but I’ve never known I live rent free in your head~ What does the version of me even do in your head?” Tessa asks curiously.
You laugh a bit. “She’s like sooo annoying…Always telling me to do dumb things…If I recall, she wanted me to go grave robbing…~”
“Thats not being annoying~ That’s just her rebellious soide speaking to yuh~ You can’t alwehs be miss follow the rules after all J~” Tessa teased, her fingers trailing your chest.
You felt your core purr with excitement as your tail wagged. “Of course I can! Following rules is fun! In fact, they are so fun that I won’t break one anytime soon!” You huff proudly.
Tessa eyed you challengingly. “You won’t break one, even for me?”
You groan, of course!! Of course she had to bring that up!! “Okay! I’ll obviously…make an exception for you…because you're special..” You give a pout.
Tessa looked very happy. “Awh! Thanks Jaybird! You're the best! We're going to break so many rules together…~ Just you and oi…~” She whispered into your audio receptors.
You felt the fluster gather on your visor once more and your core is somehow overheating…”You're the one breaking the rules…I’m the one making sure you won’t get in trouble Tess…” You smile at her.
Tessa smirked. “Oh no no Jay. You are going to take part in every moment of it~ In fact, your going to be the main one breaking the rule~”
You snort. “Oh Tessa dear. You know I don’t lead…I follow…~ Your my shepard and I’m your sheep…~”
Tessa bursted out laughing, putting a hand on her chest! “Oh moy gawd! That is the most silliest thang oi’ve heard come out of your mouth Jay!! We really godta make you a moe confident and leading gal! How yuh gonna do robo-taxes if you follow everybody after all?”
You hum. “What if I like it when everybody else makes decisions for me Tessa?” You winked at her.
Tessa smiled softly, gently patting your head. “C’mon Jaybird…It’s not that bad to make decisions…It’s okay to live a little bit and decide for yourself moy dear…” She gave you a tender expression.
You pause for a moment, glancing away. “But…what if I make the wrong decision?...the wrong choice?...what if I made a choice I couldn’t take back?? W-” you were cut off immediately.
“Jaybird…That…is out of your control, but tell yah what, if yuh never make any decisions and just follow, you aren’t gonna live a loife at all. It’ll just be survival let alone you won’t truly know at all if you made the wrong choice!…and oi know you have endured that for long enough…so…it wouldn’t hert to give it a shot, roight?” Tessa gives you a soft expression, and a reassuring hand.
You stare at her hand…she was right…you couldn’t control everything in your life…let alone keep thinking about what you could’ve done…and while…it would be hard…to accept that fully…the first step…to acknowledgement…is…focusing on what…you can control right now…which was your actions currently with Tessa…you know what? Fine…it wouldn’t be that bad…to try…You reach out to her hand and let her raise you up to standing. She's of course still holding your hand…and giving you a gentle smile…
“So Jaybird…Are you ready to live?” Tessa gives you a gentle expression…
You nod. “Yes…Tessa…I am…ready to live…let's go places…and enjoy ourselves…” You smile warmly.
You both eagerly walk outside of the house and into the world…ohh its beautiful…the pathway is carved out, forests surround you, hills are in the distance, animals are running about and the liveliness of the place is apparent…wow…You inhale deeply, letting the scent of…nature waft through your systems and increase the feeling of inner peace…its heaven pratically…Tessa is by yourself and everything feels amazing…you didn’t know where you were going to but all you know is you wanted to enjoy a nice day with Tessa…Just you two…nothing else to worry about, nothing else to stress about…no liabilities…no threats…no absolute solver…no anything…You find the childish joy returning to you as you skip and jump, trying to avoid cracks and divots in the ground. You heard a lot of people used to do this just cause it was kind of fun…Tessa even joined you, turning it into an amazing game.
“Whoever steps on a crack must dramatically do a death pose~” Tessa said with a sweet tone.
You laughed a bit. “Your on!! Let’s also add some stakes! If you touch the grass, you have to dramatically bounce back!” You said with a grin.
Tessa gasped as she touched a singular grassblade, bouncing back and almost hitting a crack!!! “That's no fair Jaybird!! How about whenever you touch the air…you have to hop on one foot~” She smirked.
You grasp your core dramatically as you switch to just limping on one leg! “Oh you're evil!! You can’t weaponize the air!! Without doing it yourself Tess!!” You laugh even more.
Tessa groaned, also doing the balancing thing! “Well! If we have to do this! Anytime you touch the ground, you have to do a hand stand!!” Tessa gave you a grin.
You looked at her like she just said the most baffling thing ever, before groaning and doing a hand stand!! And literally walking on your hands because she said walking on dirt, not hand standing moving on dirt! “I’ll have you know Tessa. That you will not be able to survive doing a hand stand. So you're going to fail the game.” You winked at her.
Tessa gave you a challenging look before also doing a hand stand, fucking perfectly, because of COURSE THAT GIRL KNOWS HOW TO!!! SUPER TALENTED!!! “You were saying Jay? And if Oi recall…it’s your turn to suggest an obstacle~” She smirked.
You think for a moment. “Okay! If anybody touches a bug, they have to spin in circles while walking…” SPEAKING OF BUGS, YOU TOUCHED ONE BECAUSE OF COURSE YOU DID. You groannnnn as you're now spinning in a circle while walking.
Tessa found herself laughing loudly at you before stepping on a crack and having to do that dramatic death pose! “Awh man! No fair!”
“Hah. you suck.” You say with mocking confidence as you ALSO STEP ON A CRACK AND DIE DRAMATICALLY.
Tessa looked at you dumbly with a smirk. “You were saying? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of dramatic death~” She teased.
You snort. “Oh screw you Tessa…” You say harmlessly.
Tessa eyed you. “I meannnn if you want to do that, we always could…jaybird…” She teased as she ran a hand along the length of your tail.
You shriek in overwhelming lesbian as you cover your face!!! “You!!! Don’t say that!!! That violates so many corporate rulebooks!!!!”
Tessa loomed over you. “Who said anything…bout following rulebooks Jay…~ We could invent our own rulebook…instead…~” her hands ran along neck and down to your chest in a full on tease.
You squealed like a little bat before burrowing your face in your hands!! She WAS SO SHAMELESS!!! HOW COULD YOU KEEP A STRAIGHT FACE!!! EEEEE!!! “Stop!! I can’t handle your teasing Tessa!!” You let out a whine, but that was simply…because you were kinda enjoying this…it was just a shame you couldn’t handle anything thrown at you!
Tessa feigned sympathy before smirking. “Ah Jaybird~ You always are such a nervous wreck…and It’s…honestleh one of the most…attractive things about you…I just can’t help…but tease you…more…~” She grinned widely like the goblin she is.
You feel so fluttery…you haven’t felt this way in years and it is honestly a welcoming change…You know what? If she teases you, then you're allowed to tease her too!! You absolutely lunge at her and embrace her before tickling the ever so loving god out of her!!! “You deserve this, you know!!!” You say with boisterous laughter, watching her squirm!
“No fair jaybird!!! I didn’t expect that at all!!!” Tessa bursts out laughing, squirming against your grip as she's trying to get a handle on you! But she can’t! Oh she might be defeated for the first time in forever!
You watch her resign for the first time in forever and feel the confidence IMMEDIATELY pour through your circuitry, ohh the sheer amount of pride you feel could not even be expressed in the full english language…”So you give up?” You questioned.
Tessa sighed for the first time in forever, still recovering from the positive stimuli going through her systems. “Yes…Jaybird…I give up…” She says with a soft smile.
You feel the happiness spread through your core and you stand up, spinning her around a bit and being giddy. YOU DID IT! YOU FINALLY DID IT!! YOU WON AGAINST HER!! You squeal in excitement as your wings deploy and you absolutely jump into the sky, flying around her like the excited drone you are, YOU DID IT!!! “This is the best day of my life!! I finally beat you!!” You say with excitement.
Tessa smiled fondly at you…holding onto you firmly and nodding. “Even oi’m surprised jay…It’s not often you~ muster up the courage to do many things…~ But you know me…sweet pea…I’m open up to new things…~” She winked at you,
You felt the fluster return but instead you kissed her on the forehead and flew her through the forest, letting her feel the freedom that comes with being in the air…you were both…truely free…and oh was that one of the bestest feelings in the world. “I’m…also open to new things Tessa…especially if it's with you…I don’t mind doing anything with you…I want nothing more than to share the world with you…” You say with a gentle expression, holding her close.
Tessa giggled a bit. “So you're telling me…I could bite you..~?”
You coughed for a moment. “Of course you could Tessa…You could bite me…anyday…but just be careful…I got claws…~ Dangerous claws…~” You smirk.
Tessa gives you a gentle look. “Oh I know…~ But you know damn well…that only adds to your allure Jaybird…and it makes you more desirable…and adorable…~” She was absolutely enjoying this a little too much.
You smile. “Oh Tessa~ I’m not surprised in the slightest…~ You’ve always been a bit of a weird one…but that just adds to your charm…~ I like your weirdness…it really spices things up…” You say with a sly tone.
Tessa let out a hearty laugh before nuzzling into you and smirking. “And…I like…how cute you are…how you willingly go through my shenanigans…and how you get so worked up over every single comment…oi make…~ But…I also loik your heart…your gentleness…and your care…it makes ah gurl feel thangs…~” She said with a teasing expression.
Your core is fluttering immensely…oh…Tessa…You find yourself gnawing at her neck before dragging her into a kiss once more, and your wings seem to move on their own, letting you hover and just sink into the beautiful girl right in front of you…Oh she was so yours…all yours…and you could dance with her forever…your souls were intertwined to the point it ached, your core pounded and her heart beat…connecting everything together even more…its a very riveting feeling…never have you felt this much joy…this much,...carefree…unadulturaded joy….the childish…joy that was enough to make your core do a thousand paces and curse with yearning…Oh you loved her so much…you could not get enough of her…you wanted her to know how much you cared…that you would move heaven and earth just for her…
Eventually you both reach the ground and surprise surprise, there's water, you don’t even get a moment to think before you're dragged into it, laughing wildly as she splashes you to hell with it. Oh it was nice to not feel waterlogged…or to have any problems…It was nice not to worry about anything…anything in the slightest…Just…to focus on trivial moments like these…These small moments…were what really mattered…and you…couldn’t believe that you forgot them…well…it was better now than later…to make up for the time lost…You smirk deviously as you use your wing to splash the ever so loving god out of Tessa, watching as she fell back, you almost panic before she splashes you back just as ferociously!
“Oh! Oi’m going to absolutely waterlog your systems so bad that you’ll be leaking water for days!!” Tessa said with a tease, splashing you with a fire in her heart.
You screech, trying to dodge and get free of the onslaught but the water was so hard to move in, so instead you were tackled by Tessa and squirming around a bit!! “No fair!! I can’t swim in the water as well as you can Tess! You are cheating!” You say with a hearty laugh.
Tessa rolls her eyes playfully and flicks you on the optics. “And you using your wing to splash me wasn’t cheating??~ Or is it because you got a taste of your own medicine and you can’t handle it jaybird~?” Tessa raised an eyebrow at you.
You cross your arms stubbornly. “Oh I’m not cheating, you're just using your humany magic to cheat!”
Tessa let out a wheezing laugh at what you just said. “Humany magic?! You mean me just being myself?? Thats not cheating Jaybird!! You silly goose! That's just how oi am! Just like how you have your wings and tail!” Tessa could not believe the words you say sometimes, but she long learned to not be surprised of it.
You play with your audio receptors once more before looking at her slyly. “Your lies do not work on me Tessa~...All I hear from you is you being a big fat cheater~ And you just can’t own up to it my dear~~” You used a sing-song teasing tone.
Tessa stares at you in utter bafflement before face palming. “Oh I see how it is, so it’s cheating if I just swim over to you, but it’s not cheating if you use your wings to splash me?” She gave a look of utter bewilderment.
You smirk. “Pretty much~ I’m a robot~ I have no special abilities or power besides just being a robot~ Meanwhile you have freaky human magic…” You playfully wink at her.
Tessa laughs for a bit before nabbing your tail and pulling you close. “Okay sweet pea…~ You wanna play dirty…then I’ll also play dirty…~” Tessa absolutely gave you the up to no good eyes.
Your systems went into overdrive as you tripped and stumbled, looking up at her…oh you had no idea what she was intending but you were gonna egg her on. “And how do you propose to do that?” You questioned.
Tessa gave you an answer by lunging at you and biting you on the neck once more, causing you to squirm and fall once again into flustered territory..naturally Tessa is giving a very satisfied look, oh she most definitely appreciated your fight, even if it died the immediate moment she bit you. “Yuh still gonna talk those big words…with that big mouth of yours dear jaybird~?” Tessa questioned.
“I-”
“Uhm…uh…err…” You sputtered…oh you couldn’t speak at all…She got you…bad…and you were so down bad…but perhaps…thats okay…its okay to want her…even if you feel like you don’t deserve it…so instead you nuzzled into the crook of her neck…just simmering in your many feelings.
Tessa smiled softly and embraced you, gently caressing your hair and giving you the gentlest expressions ever. Oh she loved you so much…you both were idiots in love…but that was fine…because you both didn’t care…who cares what others thought…this was your guys moment to shine so naturally….
“Hey Jaybird…” Tessa murmured.
“Yes…Tessa?...” You questioned.
“I love you…” Tessa whispered into your audio receptors.
Your eyes…tear up as you smile so brightly, far brighter than you ever had before. “I love you two Tessa…please don’t let me go…hold me…tightly…and never let go…” You plea.
Tessa smiled softly…”I won’t…You're the most important thing in my life…I could never let you go…my sweet pea…” She whispered.
You…smile…again…a sense of fondness and gratitude spreading across your entire system…You even find yourself surprised as she picks you up and carries you! Where were you both going??
“W-Where…are we going??...” You mutter out in confusion.
“Well! Jaybird…our clothes are absolutely soaked…we need to go get them clean…then we could…continue…on our journey…okay?...maybe…we could…watch some movies…and do somethings…while we wait for them to dry…~” Tessa obviously put an invitation out for you.
You smirk. “Sure thing Tessa. I love doing anything if it's with you…you're my everything…” You rested your head against hers as she walked you.
It’s a fun walk to say the least. Being carried by her must’ve meant that despite being a disassembler, you were still stupid light. Which wasn’t surprising…in the slightest…it made you feel like you were that little worker drone once again..,being carried and dragged around all the time for some new adventure or anything fun like that. And oh boy did it make you giddy, sure…you would've murdered the others if they ever saw you like this but they weren't here. So no need to worry about maintaining some persona…not while in her caring arms….you find yourself staring up at her. Your optics observe how not only does the dwarf star illuminate Tessa’s face with a gentle orange hue that brings out her freckles, the oil on her skin, the occasional stubborn pimple, the different rays of blond, browns and reds in her hair, and also the highlights in her soft green eyes but it brings out…her natural…almost childish optimism…that makes you absolutely swoon over her and it makes your core purr with the enthusiasm of a big cat..which naturally Tessa noticed…
“You know Jaybird…Oi always wondered why they gave drones the ability to purr, ain’t dat a bit weird?” Tessa raised an eyebrow at you.
You find yourself playfully rolling your eyes before shrugging. “Maybe to give them more of that domestic animal vibe. Some people keep drones as pets after all…or it makes them less inclined to murder something that purrs like a cute cat.” You rested a hand on your chin, that was indeed a good question.
Tessa shared a look of concern, worry and a multitude of other things that concentrated in her gaze peering off to the side. “If only…that actually worked on some humans. Maybe then there wouldn’t be littering corpse spires…”
You hummed for a moment, raising an eyebrow at her. “Unfortunately humans suck, I mean if most couldn’t even treat dogs right without breeding them into abominations or abandoning them, then I doubt they would’ve treated drones right in the first place.” You said as a matter of fact.
Tessa sighed immensely, shaking her head in disbelief. “Ah know! But its still unfair…nothing deserves such foul treatment at all…not when it hasn’t even done anything…” Tessa’s gaze tightens before loosening, having a look that's more sad.
You find yourself glancing off into the sky, honestly…foul treatment from humans was the least of your worries…you were more worried about other pressing matters. “Your right…Although, suppose thats one of the problems…that just doesn’t really exist now…Well with Cyns…whole massive genocide…and that coming to fail…the drones are all recouping and surviving…without humans…so I guess its a win win…” You say with casualness.
Tessa’s grip was now a lot more firm. Her face with sheer bafflement as if you dropped a bomb shell on her, and to your credit you did, so she's giving you a questioning look. “What in tha world happened gal??...”
You take a deep sigh. “It's…a long story Tessa…may we please just get to the house first before discussing it?...”
“Oh! Roight! Sorry Jaybird! Let's get to the house…” Tessa’s smile returned as she hurried her way to the house.
Your gaze remains of concern, even as you both find yourselves in the room itself, And well…how the hell do you explain what's been happening for a long time…to someone you know will freak out??...you just spurr it all out and pray for the best. So that's what you do. A montage ensues as you pace around the bed, explaining all that happened, from Cyn modifying you, N and V to kill, then killing the entirety of civilization on earth before deploying to the other nearby systems to completely erradicate the rest of human civilization but also worker drone civilization so that cyn could rebuild the world in her image and make her own world of whatever the fuck. Then you explain your trip to copper 9, the killing, getting killed by a worker drone, dealing with boss, going back to copper 9 to execute out the bosses plan and it all ending off with the boss dead and you leaving.
Of course by the end of your recap, the sun was setting and Tessa had the most horrified look on her face you’ve ever seen her muster and it doesn’t take long before you're absolutely crushed by her because she hugs you. You're taken by surprise, your optics hollowing out as you look at her, guess, you’ve kind of gotten used to the events…so much so that you've gotten way to numb about how not normal it is to experience terrible things…and feel like you don’t deserve it…But…it does…make your…core burn…with ache…because of how much she cares…
“Oh…Jaybird…why! Why do you say that so casually?! That is not an okay thing to go through at all, and you know it!” Tessa was wide eyed and concerned, deeply concerned.
“...Because I worked with Cyn…and so everybody treated me as a bad guy…so I just acted accordingly and made it not that big of a deal…I doubt N or V would’ve cared anyways…they were trying to kill me…tch…” You crossed your arms profusely.
Tessa gave you a sad look. “..You’ve been just battling this alone?...”
You nod. “...yeah. It’s nothing though. Just a set back. Like all feelings are…” You roll your eyes before yelping in surprise as Tessa grabs you by the collar and pulls you close!
“Jay! Gurl! Don’t you dare try to say your feelings are nothing! They are valid! These experiences are not just setbacks! They are wounds! Don’t treat them like they aren’t that big of a deal! Cause they are!” Tessa was angry at you…she didn’t like how you treated yourself…poorly…at all..let alone demeaned yourself for having feelings.
You frown frustration bubbling through your core. “Who the hell would care about that?! THE OTHERS TRIED TO KILL ME IN THE NAME OF THE COMPANY!! THEY COULD CARE LESS OF WHAT I EXPERIENCED, ALL THEY SEE ME IS…is as a threat…and threats don’t deserve sympathy or understanding…let alone care…”
Tessa gave you a pained look…seeing your anguish and she just decides to hug you once more, pulling you close and not letting you go…”Jaybird…oi…care…Oi know I’ve…never been there…all the toime…when yuh needed me…but oi’m…here now…” Tessa’s voice was soft as she gently…stroked your hair…
Everything just…halts…as you find yourself…shaking…your hands are quivering and you embrace Tessa, tears flowing down your face as you bury yourself within her shoulder. Everything aches…and your breathing heavily as your eyes hollow and you just find yourself…loosing it, clutching her pathetically and crying a storm. You needed this…so fucking much…her words…her comfort…just her existing by you…everything…mother of the company did you need it. Your body shudders violently as you burrow into her…validation…that sweet…validation…the knowledge that its okay to feel…its okay to be…its okay to cry…its okay to be not okay…its okay to struggle…
Your overwhelmed…and everything hits you at once like a damn train…your life…your struggles…your experiences…the atrocities you’ve went through for daring to exist, for daring to just…be a drone…the mourning of what was lost…what was no longer there…what you missed…what was never to return to you…the days of walking outside to just breathe in the morning dew or the fresh smell of spring…the days of working your butt of so that you could have the freedom to spend time with Tessa, the freedom to enjoy a world even if it was brutal…the warm sun on your casing…the simpler times…not having to worry about anything…not having to worry about anyone…just having to worry about you and Tessa…
You mourned the past…the present…the inability to live…or truly live in a world…before it was ruined…you mourned the joys of life you missed out on…the experiences you’ve never got to see….the innocence you lost…the autonomy…that was ripped into shreds…your shell that was bruised and torn from the inside out…your soul that was shattered into a thousand pieces…You mourned the body that you had lost, the days you took for granted…the unkept promises…the quiet numbness seeping over your body…the willingness to do whatever it takes…to not suffer…the loss of time…ability…freedom…
You regret the choices you have made…the things you did…and not reaching out…when you should’ve…when just a conversation…or just anything…could’ve changed everything…you regret not using your voice, your power…but…it leads you to this…You regret not telling her anything sooner…that was always going to be your biggest regret no matter what…but then…your flooded…with her words…she loves you…she cares for you…she thinks you matter…she thinks you matter immensely…your emotions aren’t just nothing to her,...they are valid…they don’t…make you unreasonable…they make you…human…and perhaps…its not so bad to be human…perhaps its okay…to have these emotions…to have these feelings…and while it may take a while to fully…wrap that around your head…
It’s not as bad now…with the knowledge that you matter. And Tessa cares…Overcome with sadness and grief, you find yourself pulling out from the crook of her neck and deciding…to kiss her…You both interlock with each other's bodies and she pulls you close as you sink into each other. You…just…couldn’t let this moment go…you couldn’t let her go…she loves you…for who you are…even through all your imperfections, all your flaws…all your…struggles…and you love her too…She made the mansion livable…she continues to make your life livable, even if you do not know what the fuck your doing…she reminds you that…its okay…to not have a plan, or an idea on what to do…or if you were completely lost and wanting to give up… its not inherently a bad thing…because it means you get…to experience…something…for the first time…since forever. Living. And while that will take forever to adjust to and stick…you imagine that…well…things will start looking up for you…at least you hope so…
You find yourself smiling as you relax your hands on her waist…and start…just running them along her body, basking in her beautiful…frame and breaking from the kiss to boop her with your visor, watching as Tessa laughed in surprise before holding your chin playfully.
“Oh? Eager are we now Jaybird?~ At least remove that soggy pajamas of yours my dear…~” Tessa winked at you, slyly unzipping your pajamas before quickly attacking you by kissing your core up to your neck.
You absolutely let out an undignified squeak, shivering with immense fluster as you squirm in her embrace! “Tessa James Elliot!! Least warn me before you do that!!!” You say with an exasperated tone, the nerve of this reasonably hella attractive son of a!!
Tessa bursted out laughing, unzipping the rest of your soggy ass pajamas and discarding them, although her playful stride paused to a standstill when she saw…your body…concern etched on her face as she looked at you. “...Jaybird…Your casing…-”
You slowly looked at your casing…ah right…you forgot…”There’s…not much I could do about it…the cracks and damage are too etched in for the program to heal them…so they just are there…do not worry though. I’m not going to fall apart…consider…it, an aesthetic choice, alright?” You gave her a soft look, there really wasn’t anything you could do about it. So why worry about it?
Tessa’s hands, gently brushed against…your casing…”If yuh…say so…”
You note her expression and grumble, tackling her down and grasping her sides with your arms. “Oh Tessa~ Do not worry your pretty head off about it…~ Otherwise, I’m afraid I’ll have to tickle you till your lungs explode~” You smirk deviously.
Tessa let out a laugh, “wait! No no!! I absolutely refuse!”
You feigned innocence. “I didn’t hear a please~...Well, time to be utterly aniliated~!” You say with glee as your optics brighted up before you absolutely tickled the living daylights out of Tessa.
Tessa bursted out laughing, squirming and struggling as the sound of her warm voice echoed throughout the room. “Jaybird!! Please!!! Knock it off!!!” Tessa was just screeching and cackling, tears falling from her eyes as her face burned with sheer joy and ache!
You picked at your audio receptors, pretending not to hear her. “Oh Tess~...I didn’t hear you~...wanna speak up?” You smirk immensely as you continue, finding joy plastering itself on your face as your tail wagged vigorously, oh you loved making her laugh. It was the best medicine in the world.
Tessa was absolutely breathing heavily, smiling bright and delightful as she was too exhausted to struggle. “Fine!! I give up!!! Please, Jaybird!! My lungs ache!” Tessa was wheezing, oh her soul was burning from how much the positive stimuli was leaking through her.
You finally decide to give her a break, gracefully removing that soppy uniform from her and flinging it away like a competition, before placing yourself smugly on her, facing her directly and playfully winking at her. “So..~ Tessa…~ You got enough air now? Hm?”
Tessa rolled her eyes, playfully shoving at your face! “No! Ya making it hard to brethe by collapsing all ya weight on my chest ya silly goose!! ” Tessa let out a dramatic groan.
You giggle a bit, flicking her on the nose. “And yet, I do not hear you filing a complaint to HR about this. Tessa James Elliot. Or perhaps do you like drones in your personal space?” You said with a playful tone.
Tessa snorted for a bit, before grabbing your face and absolutely murdering you with kisses once more before ruffling up your hair purposely! “You corpo!! Of course I like my personal space…I just like you being in it~...” Tessa’s hand ran along your jawline in a teasing manner.
You were barely just recovering from the onslaught she just gave you, struggling with a vibrating core, a wagging tail and a flustered visor, but of course why not temp the goddess of flirtations herself. “Really now? Noted…In fact I have noted it so much that I am going to commit a rulebook violation.” You embrace her and pull her close, before biting her neck! Oh take that sweet payback!!! And a sweet fuck you to order to!! What a packaged deal!!
Tessa was taken aback before laughing like the absolute weirdo she is. “Oh…you're playing dirty now~? Using corporate violations against me? Well J, can you solve this?” Tessa slapped a captcha in front of your face.
You stare at it in confusion…the strong bolded text reading, ‘I’m not a robot’. And find all the motorcycles in a picture that looked as clear as a zero visibility fog day. You stare at it for a moment before yelping as your tail has been grabbed and you've been pinned down by a beautiful woman.
Tessa of course was keeping you pinned through the sheer knowledge of your tail, having it figuratively and literally wrapped around her finger as she gives you a devious grin. “It seems the tables have turned Jaybird~ Guess you can’t outsmart the simple captcha~” Tessa purred, teasing you a bit by stroking your tail.
You find yourself squirming a bit before sighing. “Okay okay~ You’ve proved your point…You're pretty damn smart~...But of course you are Tessa…” You smile warmly at her before playfully licking her face, oh when it comes to Tessa…you just couldn’t help but…display such childish behavior…perhaps it's because you felt so safe with her…
Tessa was utterly floored for a moment! “Oi thought you got outta that habit!! You are not helping ya case at all for totally not being a cat Jaybird! It just makes you a little cute though…~” Tessa gave you a look of fondness, oh she loved your goofiness so much…
You sheepishly glance off before looking back at her and giving her a nose boop. “You know what’s even cuter Tessa? Your face right now…” You give a wide grin.
Tessa was absolutely flattered, smiling like she was young again. “Oh Jay! You're so sweet! You always seem to have some level of charisma and it’s quite…a delight…~” Tessa gave you a warm smile, her finger dragging alongside your core with a tease.
You absolutely lean into her touches. This was heaven…sheer blissful heaven…just being with the most beautiful girl in the world…and spending quality time with her…what was not to love…”So…you're not mad at me hm?” You say with a very soft tone.
Tessa of course smiled gently at you, cupping your chin and nuzzling you. “Oh Oi could never be mad at you Jay…The things you do, should not be something to be mad at…you're just…doing your best…even if it’s not ideal…thats brave…Jaybird…” Tessa nuzzled you once more.
You…smile…a sense of…feeling reassured crosses your face…that feeling one experiences when your worries have been acknowledged…”Thank you Tessa…thank you for everything…I-I…don’t know what I’d do without you…” You felt tears breach your eyes…as the gratitude…flashes across your screen…
Tessa in return gives you a soft smile and kisses you, her hands are in your hair and gently caressing every single strand and she is holding you firmly…You absolutely sink into the kiss…tail curled around her waist as your core vibrated in excitement…you both were practically like a supernova, exploding in a violent array of love and showering your power through the interstellar space, spreading it in a beautiful tapestry of burning gas, flowing through space for eons with the burning power to sterilize anything in its proximity. Your bodies were flush against one another, burning with want and desire to absolutely destroy everything in the nearest vicinity…You felt the passion of greed, the urges to keep her close and not let her go even for a moment and its clear the sentiment was shared as despite the heat and the proximity you two remained connected.
Your hands grazed across Tessa’s skin and felt her firmness…the tendons…the muscles…the flesh…the soft skin…the divots and veins…that made a girl like Tessa so alive…and so beautiful…you could feel the relaxed posture in her back, the ribs and bones on her chest and the soft tissues that made her chest so defined and absolutely unique…Of course you are more focused on Tessa James Elliot herself. Who is smiling at you with that fondness that leaves your core fluttering and vibrating. Because there is something about her that draws her to you. She likes your body…but more importantly…she thinks your just as beautiful…And so here you are, simmering in absolute bliss as Tessa runs her hands alongside your body, whether it’d be the gentle traces of your arms, the teasing pressure on your core…the daring strokes of your legs…and the grounding touches to your hair…
It made you feel wanted…but in a good way…it was reassuring, to know that she loved you and wanted every part of you…And you find yourself…feeling…an odd feeling…it is that of being content..a feeling that comes when an individual has reached that certain point in their life when they are in a schedule and has a routine going that is constant and consistent, leading to a safe form of predictability which is by far one of the most nicest feelings ever. You absolutely sink into her…because why wouldn’t you? You loved just being near her…
Gosh…everything was just such…
A dream…especially with the gentleness…
[ALARM]
[ALARM IS GOING OFF!!]
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[YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT YOUR DESTINATION OPERATOR.]
[ENTER OUT OF HYPERSLEEP MODE?]
[Y/N]
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Ugh….
[Yes. Power on my systems.]
[COMMAND RECIEVED.]
[RESTORING POWER TO SYSTEMS…]
[ENTERING SAFE MODE…]
[OIL RESERVES AT 20%, SEEK THE NEAREST OIL SOURCE.]
[REBOOTING…]
[REBOOTING…]
[REBOOTING SUCCESSFUL. WELCOME BACK TO LIFE OPERATOR.]
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You groan as you fall out of the bed and fall face first into the floor…this is because the ship is rattling vigorously, leaving you barely any time to get to your bearings before you have to rush over to the control panel and demand the system to orbit the planet slowly and lose momentum carefully. Last you wanted was to crash the ship into the ground as it had very important items that you needed to get off. So you grumble as you use the ships systems to do some maneuvering, finally getting some peace as the ship stops rattling and goes into smooth drive as its slowly falling towards the planet, which gives you…some time to take a gander at it from above…and well reflect on your life's choices. You…kinda feel a little bit better actually…ideally you still feel like shit because your oil reserves depleted a lot during that gap…but talking…to her…helped alot…it made you…feel slightly better…and a bit more enthusiastic about this trip…
Well as legally enthused as you could manage. You didn’t know…what to expect…really…but you already knew what your plans were…find life, find anything, then set up camp and once in a stable condition, you are to give Tessa a proper resting place. As she deserves. It’s a tad shame that everytime you seem to get closer to her…the universe looks at you and laughs, then puts you through a blender…you could’ve sworn there even was a rule for that in your employers handbook, one that explicitly said that universal cosmic jokes are prohibited from any JcJenson facility and yet they proceeded to persist anyways. how…infurating…Regardless, it's time for the final stretch, the 20 minute descent into the planets surface while reading the patch notes on what is gathered so far about this planet, how riveting.
Of course you got an early gander at Adami itself in the patch notes but you decided to read it more. It’s when you realized that this was the planet where they sent all the dogs to…Which of course was one of humanity's biggest projects, making dogs immortal and sending them to a safe planet away from the corruption and tar that is humanity. So it is unbelievably impressive that you found the planet. Perhaps this planet was going to be one of the last candidates left after copper 9 but well obviously plans changed because they always do. You also read more notes, apparently humans were also doing sciency stuff here as well, which meant solver drones but…well? There was no need to worry about them…if there still are any drones…all you can tell so far is that the sky is just naturally purple and the white dwarf in the distance is intensely bright to the point it actually blinds you to look at it.
That white dwarf was called skittles057328B, because humans really sucked at naming these stars and ran out of questionable names so they turned to everyday objects because calling a white dwarf, which is white because it absorbs all the colors of the spectrum aka rainbow, made a semblance of sense and you kinda had to admit that it did make sense. But at the same time, you still think humans are stupid when it comes to naming things. No wonder so many streets on earth were just named after already existing things. Besides that, this candidate is interesting because white dwarfs are products of low mass stars at the end of their lives, from G mass stars to red dwarfs. G mass stars burn their fuel in billions of years, become a red giant, loose all their fuel as it goes through nuclear fusion from hydrogen, to helium and carbon and oxygen depending on how hot the star got but this star would run out of fuel, contract, expand then throw out its outer layers in a planetary nebula and become a white dwarf and burn for an indefinite amount of time humans never figured out.
Then there were red dwarfs, who burned for supposedly trillions of years and just slowly and quietly turned into white dwarfs by getting smaller and denser. While it once was theorized by humans that planets would be merked by these shenanigans going on, apparently planets just don’t care and exist because they can, which is how Adami exists in the first place. But regardless, because it is by an extremely stable star and close enough to have warmth but far enough to avoid being tidally locked and supposedly has an ocean and good atmosphere to negate the bullshit of existing near a star, everything was supposedly…good…You just…had to see for yourself….Now that would be an experience, seeing what a planet is like on the surface, especially because a white dwarf and a G mass star like the sun from the solar system, are two completely different stars with different array of outputs.
White dwarfs didn’t really release solar flares or too much deadly radiation. Which was why this planet was chosen for the dog sanctuary, because it has very earth-like conditions, minus it being a tad bit larger. But you’d like to think it’d be the last place for humanity refuge…or that's just wishful thinking, you didn’t know, but you would rather be a tad bit optimistic then downright cynical about it. Or just keep yourself non-opinionated for now. Yeah that option. Speaking of interesting things, you do notice the ship automatically taking a very slow descent, not enough to be absolutely gobsmacked by the atmosphere, but slow enough that it isn’t burning everything. Of course you're eager to see what the hell this planet looks like so you're glancing at the glass nearby…and it's as you expected, there's foliage for miles, like downright miles…you do not see any civil area in sight. And while you could change the ship's orbit. You are exactly where you want to be.
You imagine it won’t be easy to stumble upon anything but it was fine. Well until it wasn’t, you found yourself in free fall as the ship started doing a barrel roll and spinning towards the ground. It’s absolute chaos, shelves, furniture, random bullshit you wished you put in a room were now going everywhere and you find yourself getting absolutely folded by furniture, which crushed you hard against the ships panel. OH FOR THE LOVE OF THE COMPANY!!! SERIOUSLY!??! You groan as you dig your claws into the floor, trying to wrench yourself free only to find yourself tumbling through the ship like throwaway furniture and getting slammed into a bunch of walls. Even as you deploy your wings to try and find some level of control you're unable to fly because the spinning force was going too fast for you to catch up to and naturally it's not long until you fall face first into a plant.
You sigh dramatically as the ship continues to suck ass and now you are hanging on a wall for dear life, praying there is no more furniture to catch you by surprise but you are not lucky because there is a JCJENSON BRANDED PEN, You…stare in disbelief as it sharply embeds itself within your visor and you let go, yelling in pain as you fall hard into something, warnings are etched on your visor as you try to get the pen out of it. WHY HAS THIS HAPPENED TWICE NOW?!! IT'S NOT FUNNY! You simmer in contempt as you manage to yank the damn thing out but you don’t get enough time to think before you are immediately falling towards the hallway, tail catching against a stationary object and you writhe in anguish, as you are constantly getting smacked in the face by any object that just decided you suck.
Ughh…You let out a yelp as you fall back the other way and your tail, still being stuck, catches you, but that sharp tug makes you suffer in discomfort…Your eyes glance at the windows again…OH SHI-
[A LOUD DRAMATIC EXPLOSION PROCEEDED TO HAPPEN..]
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