Chapter Text
As the three of you walk through the snowy, though now glowing, night, you look at your newly acquired rifle, trying to make sure you actually know how to use the thing.
"Now, remember, it could just be a freaky possessed murder-N, or it could be him and Cyn. Or a whole army of creepy possessed little demon drones, we don't really know how this whole thing works." Tessa says, looking back to watch you fiddle with your rifle. There's a lot of things that are fairly self explanatory and obvious, and some other that make you wonder if pressing them would make the gun explode or something.
"You figuring out that gun, Techie?" Tessa asks with a clearly amused giggle.
You flick something that from what you can tell changes the gun's firing mode, from safe, semi auto, and full auto. You decide to keep it on safe for now.
"Yeah, it's just a little finicky, it's fine..." You reply, remembering you should probably rack the charging handle. You pull it back, and it seems to chamber a round, luckily for you.
"Eh, I'm no gun expert myself, so I sure wouldn't be doing and better." She turns her head back to wherever you're walking to as you continue trying to figure out if you have the rifle working or not.
"Where are we going anyway?" You ask, realizing that no one's really given you a goal here, besides finding N, and hopefully using something non-lethal against him. Granted, compared to the likes of Uzi you don't have a major attachment to him, but he's been a good friend the times you've been around him.
"We're heading back to the labs. Luckily for us, you popped up right in our path towards it." Tessa responds, her voice just as cheerful as before. "We're about... J, how far away are we?"
J seems to look something up on her internal systems, and comes back with an answer. "Estimate 8 minutes. Recommend getting into high alert soon." J responds, raising her Submachine gun into a ready position. "If we're right about N being controlled by Cyn, he may attempt an ambush. Prepare for that."
You notice J drifting to the side slightly, covering your left flank. She seems to be protecting you from any incoming attacks from that side, which you can't help but find reassuring.
You reach down, switching your rifle into semi-auto, getting into a stance a bit more controlled than your previous casual walking stance. You hold the rifle at low ready, something you once again remember from a few video games.
You scan your right side for movement, looking through the sparse trees for anything that may be hiding in them. Luckily for you, the area is fairly flat, dotted with the occasional rock, and of course the floating pieces of ground, though those are high up enough to be less of an immediate issue.
You notice J get into a more tactical stance, holding her Submachine gun with two hands, and walking backwards as to cover your rear flank. You can't help but find her agility admirable, you definitely can't walk backwards like that. Not without falling over.
Tessa, however, is a lot more relaxed, not seeming all too worried, especially for someone at the front of the group. Though she is holding her revolver, she's holding it at her side, the hammer not even at half-cock. You can't help but find that slightly strange. Why isn't she ready to fight? Then again, she's not exactly an expert at taking anything seriously.
You take a look to your left, double checking J's right side, and before you can even process it, a Dissasembly Drone missile lands at her feet. J almost trips over it, before diving at Tessa, covering her with her wings, leaving you unfortunately completely exposed.
The explosion sends you flying backwards, slamming into a snowdrift, which is unfortunately for you hard as a rock due to a thick layer of ice below the snow. Your ears ring, the sound of the explosion resonating in your head. You reach out, feeling what you assume to be the grip of your rifle, but an attempt to lift it only results in your hand going limp on top of it, your arm failing to pick it up. You can taste oil in your mouth, causing a low gargling sound before you spit it up, a black blob landing on the snow.
You look downwards, spotting your legs in tatters, your left leg having been shredded by shrapnel, and you can see its wiring sparking in the snow. Your right got the better half of the damage, though you can see a large piece of metal stuck in it.
You lay your head back, laying limp on the ground, the pain of your injuries already starting to fade in like an agonizing crescendo. You let out a pained groan, hoping that someone manages to hear you, though the faint sound of gunfire in your ringing ears doesn't give you much hope that J is going to see saving you as a priority. You aren't sure if your magical healing powers can solve this, or if they can, how long it will take. Based on how long the sentinels were tearing you apart before the fight ended, you could be sitting here for 5 minutes, maybe more, which wouldn't be long if it wasn't for the ever increasing agonizing pain.
"Help..."
You manage to get a word out, the sensation like nails on a chalkboard. Your hand slides off your rifle, laying limp in the snow. An attempt to lift it only results in something more pathetic than your first attempt to lift your gun. You're getting weaker. Fast. Too fast.
Memories of the manor flash through your mind, and you can't tell if you're becoming faint, or if the memories themselves are fading into the void.
Suddenly, like a cool breeze on a hot day, you feel a hand on your leg, luckily the one that is less injured. You look up towards your savior, seeing the bright yellow X of N's murder face. Not a savior. Not at all.
To make matters worse, as he opens his mouth, you hear the voice of Cyn emanating from him. "If you want something done right, you should just do it yourself. Giggle." His left hand changes to a claw, it moving to your limp right arm, picking you up by it. Luckily, though, a storm of gunfire forces him to drop you and take cover, your body landing crumpled like a ragdoll.
"Boss!" You feel the comforting sensation of J's hand replacing N's, her grip gentler. She lays you in the snow, and you can see the form of Tessa firing at N, keeping him pinned down while J provides aid.
"Holy corporatocracy..." J stares at your broken and battered body in something akin to shock, seeing the oil seeping onto the snow. If you were to guess, you would think that the sight of you bleeding out brings back some memories... She likely would have seen your corpse, if she had exited through the Manor's front door.
Noticing your exposed position, J picks you up in her arms, running quickly into a thicker part of the forest. She ducks beneath a particularly low evergreen, using it as a camouflaged canopy.
She reaches up, untying her bright yellow tie and spitting it in, pressing it against the wounds in a way similar to a disinfectant rag. You can't help but find that notable, V's form of battlefield "medicine" is a lot more desperate and messy, while J is similar to almost a proper battlefield medic. Her strategy seems to have equal effectiveness, though, with the caviot of being a bit more directed with the smaller strategy of application.
"You'll be fine, hold in there boss..."
She mutters, the faint sound of occasional fire from Tessa continuing to muddle your hearing. She puts the oil-soaked tie on your chest, running back into the clearing to grab your gun out of the snowdrift. Running back, she sets it up against a tree, turning back to you, continuing to fix what you can only assume to be a varied assortment of wounds.
"You'll be fine, it's really not as bad as it seems... Your legs have already recovered just..."
Her voice is cut off by a bright, blinding yellow light, causing you to instinctively scramble away from her. Once your vision clears up, you see J's head missing, likely taken clean off by N's plasma cannon. You look up, spotting N moving towards you in something almost a full sprint, Tessa following close behind, but not close enough. It's clear that Cyn sees you as either an easy target or a bargaining chip, and she's determined to get ahold of you.
You pick up your rifle from leaning against the tree, switching to full-auto and firing a stream of bullets at the rapidly approaching N. The recoil almost blows the thing out of your hands, you a weren't exactly holding it correctly in your panic, but it gets the job done.
He seems to notice you pick up the rifle, though, and ducks behind a tree, though it's unlikely the wood completely stopped any of the bullets. You take the chance to crawl into a more secure cover spot, a tree with an even lower canopy that should be able to conceal you from his sight.
Peaking below the canopy, you see N falling back, and J laying crumpled in the snow, her head beginning to regenerate, but not before a generous pool of oil covers the ground. You decide to remain hidden, laying flat in the snow as the few wounds she didn't fix continue leaking oil onto the ground. You feel yourself start to get faint again, the sudden adrenaline shock fading. Luckily, though, you're brought back to reality as J gets back on her feet, quickly locating you.
"I shouldn't have been out in the open like that..." You hear her muttering angrily at herself. She presses her tie back against your wounds, panting softly as she seems to panic. If that doesn't show how desperate this situation is, nothing will.
"Good as new, you were so brave and all that, here's your gun." She puts your rifle in your lap once more, before giving you a salute, dashing back out under the tree to return to the fight.
Now that you're alone once more, the pain begins to fade to manageable levels, enough that you think you may be able to provide some support fire. You grab your gun, crawling out from under the tree, trying to locate where N could possibly be. However, instead of N, you see the familiar face of J... Now plastered with the X eye you have unfortunately become familiar with.
"You know, on second thought, maybe saving you was the wrong decision."
Before you can even react fast enough to pull the trigger, she snatches the gun away with one hand, picking you up by the neck with the other. She dashes up into the sky, getting hundreds of feet above the ground before dangling you out an arms length. You try to kick at her, though it doesn't seem to matter.
"You know, I don't know why I thought a glorified sorting algorithm could be capable of Sentient thought, but clearly I was wrong." Her hand tightens around your neck, your remaining human instincts causing you to choke and gasp for an air you don't need.
"Really? You're pathetic. You should have been killed years ago, the fact you think you're anything but a piss poor recreation of a human would be depressing if you weren't so worthless."
You think back to what Uzi did during her fight with J. Her tail... Her tail. You can spear her in the hand.
In a single move, you snatch her tail and drive it into her hand. She lets out a gasp, her grip slipping as she turns to look at her wound. You slip from her hand, beginning to plumet towards the ground.
Well, that wasn't the perfect plan. It sounded good in the moment, make her stop squeezing you, but no that you're thinking about it, it really wasn't a good idea.
You look down towards the ground, seeing it rapidly approaching. What is this, the third time you've make collision with the ground today? Maybe you'll get lucky like the first time.
However, instead of making collision with the snowy ground, you feel J's arms wrap around you, before she holds you at arms length once more, her hands this time holding you by the chest. She speaks once more, though her voice seems to glitch slightly, occasionally being consumed by static.
"Really? You're techie. You should have been killed years ago, the fact you think you're anything boss, calm down! a piss poor recreation of a human would be depressing hello? you weren't so it's J!"
You look up at the the drone in front of you in confusion. Kinda weird she's bugging out like this, but there isn't any meaning behind it. Just inconsequential glitches.
Seeing your chance, you try grabbing her tail once more, but she stops you, moving her grip to pin your arms to your sides.
"This is adorable, you know? Just a calm down drone, thinking he can beat me. Remember the last time Cyn is control like this? Need me to remind you what it's okay, boss snapping that neck of yours?"
The glitches get more prevelent, but you pay no mind to them. Clearly Cyn is trying to mess with your mind by thinking they're on your side. They're not on your side. No one is.
J flies downward, pinning you against the ground as her hand tightens on your neck.
"One move, and it's all I'm here to help. Or maybe you'd prefer the gun?" She pulls out her Submachine gun, putting it your visor. "Pick one, please, just speak quick. But maybe I'll keep bringing I don't want to do this, boss."
She doesn't want to help you. What has she ever done to help you? She only cares about herself. V? She only cares about herself. Everyone you've ever met hates you. And you hate them back.
You make one final attempt to squirm out of her grip, trying to bite at her, to kick at her, to smack the gun away. But, like everyone else, she betrays you, and the last thing you ever see in your meaningless little pawn life is her finger closing on the trigger.
.
.
.
Your eyes reopen to not the sight of J's eyes covered with an X, but instead, the comforting, worried glow in her optics as she lets out a shaky sigh of relief.
"There you are..." She mutters, her arms wrapping tightly around you. You can feel her panicked breaths beginning to slow, and you begin to think... What the hell just happened.
"J... What... Was that real?" Your voice comes out weak and shaky, the previous anger and energy you had having almost completely faded. It's like you just woke up from a long nap, everything feels dizzy and distant.
"No, no it was not." J looks around, finding a small indent in the snow to use as cover. She lays you down in it, digging it out a bit more with her claws, creating something similar to a trench.
"From what I've seen, Cyn was controlling both of us," J starts, reaching over the small indent into the ground to grab your rifle. She sets it in the snow next to you, clearly expecting an attack. "Seems I got knocked out of it when N shot me in the head, same thing happened with you."
She switches her right hand to her Submachine gun, perching prone over the edge of the trench as she prepares for an imminent attack. "If I were to guess, I would assume she's figured it out, it's why you attacked me once I wasn't under her control."
You reach over, your grip landing on your rifle. You lift it up into your lap, finally having the strength to do so. "Is Tessa okay..?"
You hear J pause, her breathing becoming heavy, as if that name has brought back bad memories, recent ones. "Tessa's dead." Her voice returns to the same tactical coldness you've gotten used to. Clearly a coping mechanism, one she developed from the shock and fear of seeing your corpse back at the manor.
"I thought she wasn't. I'm an idiot, sir. I'm sorry I didn't use the common sense I was programmed with." You can hear her voice bite with self hatred, as if once the fighting's stopped and she knows you're safe, the first thing she'd do is turn the gun on herself.
"You didn't do anything wrong J," You pick up your rifle, peaking over the side of the trench, waiting for the same target she is, whatever that may be. "Is N..?"
"He's fine," She mutters, the grip on her Submachine gun growing shaky. "The entire time, he was just fine, trying to do what was right..."
Your small trench grows quite, as you're unsure what to say. In the far distance you can hear the sound of gunfire, the occasional bullet whizzing closer.
"Should we... Help?" You mutter out, looking to J for support.
She looks back at you, a nervous look in her eye. She pauses for a moment, before muttering "It's your call, Boss...", her voice shaky with fear. She's seen something that has clearly put her into a state of shock, and if something can offset her, you're terrified to learn what it may be.
After some consideration on what threat you could possibly be facing, you nod. If she's by your side, it can't be that bad. "Let's go help."
J gets on her feet, helping you to do the same, as well as making sure you have your gun on you. She keeps an eye on the treeline, as if expecting, or more accurately waiting, for something to pop out.
"I think an air approach is best, boss."
Once you're on your feet, J picks you up into her arms, now with a hold much more reminiscent of the way V held you while you were in the air. Her wings deploy, and she takes off into the sky, holding you tightly in her arms. You can tell she's terrified.
"N should be easy to distinguish. Anything that's not him, weapons hot."
Her flight slows down as she flies over the clearing, and you take the chance to aim your rifle, searching for targets. You can see obvious fighting on the ground, but N is impossible to see through the smoke and gunfire.
J notices the lack of visibility, and takes the chance to land, getting into a treeline with a view of the battle. As you look through the smoke and gunfire, the battlefield grows oddly quiet. You raise your rifle, aiming into the blowing snow, being completely blind to anything in the area. J moves to the side, taking position behind a tree as she prepares for what you can only assume to be Cyn to move out of the smoke. And eventually, she does. You see the familiar awkward drone walk out of the smoke, no sign of N. However, something is... different. She's covered in flesh. Human flesh. Not in some messy attempt at slapping together a meatsuit, no, her form is clearly human. Or rather the remnants of one.
"You have not been a, very good guinea pig. Disappointed." Despite her voice being primarily monotone, you can hear a certain anger in it. She's clearly furious her plan to use you as a toy to betray your friends didn't go as planned.
"I'm not your toy to toss around." Your voice trembles slightly as your brain processes what you're looking at. You look to your left, seeing J looking at you with a look of fear, though clear determination to win this fight.
"You are a weak species. Your civilization fell in weeks." She walks forward, almost something like a stumbling limp, the same an injured human might do when they were losing consciousness. With anyone else, you would see it as accidental, though with her, you have no doubt of its intentionality. "Earth was weak. But it's gone now. You know that, don't you?"
No. No you didn't. You can tell she's trying to use psychological tactics against you, to try to make you pause, to think if she's telling the truth about the destruction of your home planet. You don't let her.
"I plan to avenge them." You say, a determination in your voice despite how much it shakes.
"You're not even a human. You're an imitation. You're a copy of a different person's consciousness." She takes a few more stumbling steps towards the treeline, now only 60 or so feet away.
"And I'm a more valuable person than you will ever be." You pull the trigger, sending a stream of bullets her way. A few hit, though she blocks the rest with her solver, the bullets whizzing and ricocheting into the dirt. She continues to approach, unbothered by your bursts on gunfire.
"This is fun, giggle. But guns are dumb." Before you can even react, the ejector on your rifle is pressed, dropping the mag in the snow. For good measure, the charging handle is slapped backwards, hitting you in the cheek and ejecting the round. You reach down to get a new magazine, though the rifle your holding completely falls apart, the upper receiver coming completely loose and landing in the snow with a loud clank.
J notices your complete lack of firepower, and sends a plasma gun blast towards Cyn. She dodges it without issue, uprooting a small tree from the ground and sending it flying at J.
J dodges it, though is temporarily occupied doing so, allowing Cyn an opening to teleport right beside you, a terrifying grin on her face. With her so close, you're allowed a look at her skinsuit disguise, and you recognise a few defining features from Tessa. It's Tessa's skin.
The realization causes you to pause in shock, and Cyn takes the chance to rip off your right arm with a tentacle. Finally coming to your senses, you let out a fearful scream, trying to run, but being stopped by another tentacle wrapping tightly around your neck.
"This was very, fun. I had a good time. Good time is over." You feel a tentacle stab through your stomach, severing control of the lower half of your body, your legs going completely limp. You let out a choked gasp as you completely lose feeling in your legs, your body freezing in shock.
J attempts to save you by dive bombing Cyn with an aerial attack, though is swatted away with a smack of a tentacle, clearly an afterthought rather than Cyn considering her an actual threat.
Cyn looks at your limp shock with clear interest, swinging you around like a ragdoll as she looks you over. "Your nervous system is still active. Interesting." Cyn seems to want to test your reaction to blunt force trauma, doing so by slamming you into a tree at full force. Being completely in shock, you have little to no reaction, the remnants of your human instincts attempting to shield you from the trauma. That seems to annoy Cyn, and she tosses you aside, your limp, broken body slamming into a tree with a sickening crack, your visor completely shattering as you slam face first into it.
J looks at your limp, bleeding body, her breathing becoming panicked as she realizes what's happening. You're too injured to even realize what's happening to you. She looks up at Cyn, her breathing turning into a low growl as she draws her swords.
"I'm going to cut you into pieces and eat you for dinner, you worthless piece of machinery." J's voice comes out surprisingly determined for her state, and it's clear he has some choice words to say that she has been wanting to say for a very, very long time.
Cyn tries to swipe at her with a tentacle, but J's infuriated state has boosted her reaction time. With a single slash, she takes the tentacle clean off, the severed appendage landing in the snow, spraying a mixture of oil and blood. Cyn doesn't seem to feel any pain from the attack, but having actual resistance to her main strategy of attack clearly angers her.
"You are very annoying." Cyn jumps at J, though she dodges, taking another tentacle off with a slash of her sword, along with attacking at the joint of her right arm, temporarily disabling her ability to use it while it heals.
"I'm an efficient worker, just like you made me to be." J launches an attack of her own, this time at Cyn's legs, aiming for the Leg Control Transistors located just below the hips. Cyn notices the attack and jumps backward, blocking her sword attacks with a solver shield.
Cyn halts her attacks temporarily, trying to use J's guilt against her. "You are a traitor. To humanity. You killed planets."
"Consider me killing you my redemption arc." J fires a rocket behind Cyn, the blast causing her to slam full force into her own solver shield. The shield falls, and J takes the chance, driving her sword into Cyn's back while she's on the ground.
Cyn recovers quickly, though, a tentacle wrapping around the blade like a boa constrictor as she rips the blade out of her own back, driving it into J's foot.
J lets out a surprised scream, before she is silenced with a tentacle straight through the throat.
You come to your senses to hear the sound of J drowning in her own oil. You look up from your position under the tree, your optics flashing with errors as your systems desperately attempt to repair themselves.
"This is good. You were annoying when you were saying things." Cyn slams J's bleeding body into the ground, J's hand reaching up as she tries to pull Cyn's tentacle out of her neck. Normally, a neck wound would be absolutely nothing to a Dissasembly Drone. Their saliva heals their own wounds after all, it's like shooting a morphine syringe after someone is done injecting themselves with it. But with Cyn's tentacle constantly causing damage to her neck, she's unable to self-heal herself.
"This is very fun. Very fun to watch. I'm having fun." As J tries to reach up to pull the tentacle from her throat, Cyn grabs her hand, ripping it clean off. She tosses it in your general direction, and you can see her look towards you, an almost giddy smile on her face.
"Snack for you. Yum." She's clearly enjoying watching the two of you suffer. She could have just stabbed both of you in the core and gotten this over with, but no. She's making sure the both of you feel as much pain as you can.
You push yourself to your feet, though that ends about as well as you expected. She slices off both of your legs, and you land flat on your face, laying in the snow as you try desperately to tune out the sound of J's suffering. However, the occasional words she manages to get out only further just how traumatic this all is.
"Boss....."
"I'm sorry..."
"Help..."
"I can't..."
You try to drag yourself away from Cyn, but that seems to only annoy her more. She slices off both of J's hands, before wrapping a tentacle around you, slamming you into the ground repeatedly.
"It is annoying when you try to run." She growls out, her tentacle tightening around you as she slams you into yet another tree, spearing you on it, yet again completely disabling your lower half.
"This was, fun. But I have, bigger issues." She picks J up by the neck, slamming her full force into the tree next to you, thankfully not speared on a branch like you are, though clearly in enough pain to not be any issue to Cyn's plans.
Just as quickly as she attacked, Cyn disappears into the distance, her tentacles working like a spider's legs to carry her across the landscape.
Your legs feel heavy as you dangle off the branch, the little feeling they have left draining onto the ground in an increasing puddle of oil.
"Boss..." You hear J's voice, it sounds distant, almost obscured by a fog, more fearful than you've every heard before.
"Everything is going to be okay..." You feel her hands on your back as she slowly pulls you off the branch, careful not to cause any excess damage. She lays you on the snow, undoing her tie once more as she prepares to repair your wounds.