Murder Drones: Disassembly Required

Cloris stared at M, looking a little annoyed. ”It isn’t a social call M. I won’t have to much fun, if any.”

Cloris scowled at the joke that M made, blushing lightly. She didn’t say a word, but she did went over, grabbed the jar, and put it right next to M.

”Good. Although it won’t be Chaos you’ll have to worry about.”

Cloris watched as E took off her hat. The change in her demeanor was astounding. She went into detail explaining the vulnerabilities of the creature. She paused, taking in all that information.

”The big problem is getting access to hack it in the first place. We’ll need a method
To keep it from moving if we’re going to take advantage of its system vulnerabilities.”

Cloris sighed, rubbing the back of her head. ”I’m aware. But I’d need a full day to explain the birds and the bees to you whenever you have the hat on. And time is a luxury we don’t have. Chaos should be able to handle it though.”

Cloris paused, nodding her head reluctantly. ”Just don’t overextend yourself E. If it puts too much of a mental strain on you, put the hat back on.”

Cloris scratched her chin as she considered his questions. ”I can’t speak for anything involving J, but certain details of the Proxima incident are a little vague. Still, it’s strange that your memories would be altered when there were humans fighting in that war too. So then why bother to conceal things from some drones””

Cloris looked a little guilty as 99 showed worry over the call being monitored. ”Don’t worry 99, it’s just E and M. And they don’t know your location. I figured it would be easier to explain the situation if you saw things for yourself.”

Cloris turned the device so it was looking at M. ”M is trapped in this core form. His body went up and started collecting material. Given that happened right after your encounter with the solver beast, it’s safe to assume that it’s evolved into another one of those things.”

Cloris turned the decide back towards herself, staring back at 99. ”I intend on going to the spire later and building M a temporary body. 99, have you noticed any strange movements by the solver or zombie drones? Perhaps we could get a clue to its current location.”

---

Uzi rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. ”Yeah. Good change! Right!”

Doll looked even more annoyed when he called Lizzy “pink starburst” ”ty dayesh' vsem, kogo vstrechayesh', razdrazhayushchiye prozvishcha?”

[“Do you give everyone you meet annoying nicknames?”]

Uzi scowled further at Lizzy.

”That’s right! So go rub up against Doll or something!”

Doll rolled her eyes, looking at Uzi with annoyance. Boy was she a loud little drone. And it only continued as she fought against being popular. She waved her arms frantically.

”w-wait! But I like being an edgy weirdo! I mean okay, I would have liked it if someone had partnered up for me for that class project. But that doesn’t mean I want to be popular!”

Uzi blushed, looking over at Chaos when she suggested he liked the idea. Then he suggested a different color. She looked over at Lizzy again. ”I guess I wouldn’t mind something frilly. But only if it’s purple or black!”

Uzi watched in horror as Lizzy suggested a cheerleader outfit for her to Chaos. She could tell Chaos immediately started visualizing it. The drone felt dread fill her, the image of that horrible fate entering her mind…


Uzi went over to Chaos, leaning up and snapping her fingers in his face again. ”Chaos, stop imagining me in a cheerleader outfit! I’m not a cheerful drone!”

"Or you just need someone sufficiently skilled enough to distract it. Most of these things aren't expecting you to try and fight them in such a direct fashion, they'll do what they can to get inside your head and break your spirit."

E offered as a response to Cloris's assessment.

Still... When M defended his actions, and Cloris said that it would take time that they didn't have, E couldn't help but cross her arms.

"Oh, he'll handle it alright. I don't think you'll have room to complain if he does anything with me."

As annoyed as she tried to come across, she didn't actually have a problem with Chaos. He was kind of endearing, really... If something happened with him, then it would probably be fine. Aside from that, everyone was also really insisting that if E needed to put the hat back on, then she should.

It was nice to know that people respected her choices here, at least. But for now, she would need to go without it. At least for a little while -- she didn't trust M not to do something reckless and really get himself into trouble this time. Although she hadn't expected him to drop such a difficult question in her lap either. E brings a hand to her chin as she ponders that over for a moment.

Cloris offers her own insight on the Proxima War, and in turn illuminating another mystery. After having put her thoughts together on the subject, E then speaks up;

"First. I remember Tessa, and what that life was like. It's not exactly pleasant to recall, though."
She admits, but soon continues:
"As for Proxima, you may not recall anything before when we were shipped out to deal with that uprising because that is when we first became Disassembly Drones. They did their best to preserve who we are, but they could have run into possible issues in the process."

She offers a possibility -- it was unlikely, but it was no less valid either. But E figured there was a much more likely one...

"However, Cloris touched on something here. Why would they not want us to remember? And then you have to question of who "they" is. I don't think any of the Humans would have a reason to scrub our memories. So it becomes a matter of who is trying to redirect us."

She pauses long enough to let M and Cloris think that over.
"If you examine our mission details here, they only state that we're to deal with "Rogue AI". That's very open to interpretation. The Worker Drones fit into that category, but so do the zombie drones -- and the Worker Drones aren't even in an uprising. But everyone operates under the assumptions that our orders are to eliminate them all wholesale, with no distinction."

E then extends her index finger as she raises her hand slightly.

"So, you have to think of who gains the most from that. JCJenson would simply reuse the resources once they realize that the Worker Drones are not hostile. I think everything you're worried about comes from the Absolute Solver."

With that, she lowers her hand and relaxes it.
"Finally, while J might seem like she has all the answers, it is an important distinction to make that she might only know some of the story, not all of it. I know you dislike her, but she's not your enemy here. If we assume that the culprit is accurate, and she was working with it, then she would be trying to find a way to sabotage all of this."

But while E was thinking of all of this... Something else crosses her mind. Something extremely important, that with the hat on, she wouldn't have given much thought to. But it had been nagging at her mind the entire time. But as soon as she connects the dots... She stands up.

"Aegis. Tell the crew that M's body has already finished collecting the materials it needs, and it will be ambushing us soon."

The hologram soon blinks into view, startled.

"Wha-
How? M just told us about it!"

E gives a nod.

"He did. But that's the problem. That attack happened several days ago, and his body started acting on it's own shortly after."

The realization hits Aegis, and she quickly nods.

E then turns her attention to the call that Cloris was making, she steps over.

"99. M lost his body and it's eating every piece of material it comes across. It's probably finished by now. Be on your guard."
After that, she turns her attention to Cloris.
"That extends to you. Any action you take outside of the ship is a risk. This is the only safe place right now."

---

So her pet names for him were effective. That was good to know! It was the first time that V had tried something like that. She was winging it, honestly... She mixed some confidence into that, but there was really no way to know how he might react until she just tried it. Though with Klein active now, both of them had more important things to focus on... Such as the tricky situation that Ray was trying to navigate right now.

It was true, they only DID know each other for a short time. But the prospect of getting married to him sounded pretty nice too. She had a feeling if it involved anyone else, she would have ultimately brushed it off in some fashion.

"We'll think about it. It takes time!"
V replies, hoping to help him smooth this over.

The little penguin bot only seemed to partially grasp this as Ray tried to teach him the complexities. The way he just bluntly said that his 'papa' really likes V was enough to catch them both off guard. Ray was trying desperately to catch his tool again while he stumbled over his words.

V just blushed and glanced away with a smile. Being called out like that was kind of embarrassing, but... Kind of nice, too. But only because Klein was innocent. He wasn't doing that to tease either of them or something like that. Her blush grows as Ray mutters that they haven't even gone on a date yet... Technically, the prom was going to be their first date.

Gosh, thinking about it like that, it was kind of nerve-wracking! Although her thoughts were knocked off-course as Ray clears his throat and explains that love is like pudding. She arches a brow after hearing that. Klein had the predictable reaction to it. He tried to get things back on track, only for Klein to start listing off the ingredients for pudding.

V only gets more confused as she listens to those amounts.

"Uhh... I think those ingredients might be just slightly off..."
"Slightly" was an understatement. Klein REALLY needed a sense of taste so he could actually appreciate a balanced pudding. That sounded like a disaster!

Ray at least finally course corrects and explains the overall point he's trying to make -- and it makes a lot of perfect sense. As much as V felt like she could rush straight into this idea with him, it also felt like it would be pretty special to take their time and do it all right.

"Yeah..."
She comments, and as Klein remarks that he kind of gets it, she decides to offer a bit of a helping hand here.

Or... Uh, she was going to. Right up until Ray removes his glove and then reaches for her hand. She had been so caught up in trying to help him deliver the point that she was caught entirely off guard when he did that. Blush lines began to fill her screen as she then interlocked her fingers with his.

She clears her throat and tries to organize her thoughts again.

"S-so... It's sorta like how you can't rush the creation of pudding, either. It takes the right ingredients, and the proper amount of time. But once it's done, it's worth having."

After that, Ray seemed to be lost in thought, before wondering aloud if friendship was more like Lemon Posset. Hmm, if it were a food, then...

"Maybe more like pizza? I remember articles about how it's a favorite food everywhere. Plus I remember the young lady always seemed to be in a good mood after having it."

Huh. That was weird. V's eye flickered and she lightly taps the side of her head while trying to think of what brought that on. What young lady?

She remembered... Black hair. Energetic... It was right on the tip of her tongue!

She had been so lost in thought that Ray had ample time to finish up with Klein and send him on his way. She snaps out of it as he turns to her and speaks to her once more. So the question was what they might want to do next?

"Hmm... Maybe we should only do some simple things for now? I get the feeling there's going to be an important meeting soon."

V replies -- she'd talk with him about those scrambled memories of hers later. He had enough to worry about at the moment.

---

Lizzy was having a little too much fun with this. Chaos seemed to be wondering if Doll really liked the nickname or not.

"Oh don't worry. She's the strong, silent type. Doesn't speak a lot."

Of course, if it ever got to the point that it really did deeply trouble Doll, she would clear things up. But... Little exercises like this was good. Doll needed to be able to interact with people, and put up with some things that might make her uncomfortable or annoyed. You needed a thick skin -- and to not have an immediate, murder-y reaction too. That was also important.

She does smile as Chaos gives her a nickname, as well as the reasoning for it.

"Pink Starburst, huh? You know what? I kinda like that."
And finally, realizing that Doll's annoyance was getting a little TOO high, she steps over to her girlfriend and gently grabs her hands.

"Aww. I'll always be your little pink starburst."

She gives her a quick peck on the lips, and soon enough the chaos continues! Uzi frantically denied wanting to be popular, and insisted she was fine being the edgy weirdo. Lizzy rolls her eyes in response.
"Well, you're gonna have to get used to the idea at some point."

Plus if she decided to point out anything realistic here, it would put a stop to all the fun she could be having with them right now. Lizzy was just enjoying how easy it was to get the appropriate response out of Chaos, and in turn, Uzi!

"Fine, fine. You can keep your goth aesthetic."
She replies -- that was kind of what she was working on already, but it was better to see Uzi squirm a little.

And boy... Did she start squirming once Chaos said what he was thinking out loud. Lizzy couldn't help but giggle at that -- wow, she had never seen a boy so blatantly attracted to girls like this before. That pretty much confirms that he must see herself and Doll in the same light, too. She looks over at Doll and gives her a wink.

Not long after, she finishes the creation of a gothic prom dress. Eugh. Lizzy could never wear something like this. But she keeps that thought mostly to herself.

"Yeah, here you go. By the way, Chaos has already seen it so he'll want to see you wearing it at Prom later."

She smirks as she holds the dress up for Uzi.

---

Okay! Everyone had their time to settle in... Cloris got through her checkup -- and now she had good news and bad news to share! Along with some even worse news that Aegis was going to keep entirely to herself for now. That was going to be a whole mess to deal with later...

But never mind all that! In Ray's Room, in the Workshop, and in the Rec Room, Aegis delivered her message;

"Everyone, when you have finished your tasks, I would like you all to head to the meeting room. We have important news to discuss. Unfortunately there's some bad news. Fortunately, there's some good news as well!"

With that, the holograms would flicker out, and everyone would know to head to the meeting room at their earliest convenience.

I remember Uzi wanting me to talk about my backstory. I think later tonight I should tell her about what exactly happened to me, so further understand what 'Good change' can be about.

I look at Doll, then back at Lizzy. "Oh yeah, I kinda see that now..."

Doll replied to me, but I could\ understand half what she meant. "I agree Doll! 'Lil Pink Starburst' is a cute and adorable nickname!"

"Glad you liked the nickname though, Lizzy. Like Doll said it was cute." Doll seemed not to like the nickname at first, as she looked a little agitated, but after a smooch from hers girlfriend seemed to lighten hers mood.

"Huh? Wha?" I said as Uzi snapped out of my daydreaming state. "...Oh right, guess you wouldnt want to wear that even if it was in purple. Plus I couldve easily seen your belly button... if Drones had one."

After a few minutes Lizzy was finished with Uzi's prom dress. "Wow, its like Lizzy saw what I was thinking and created exactly that! Lizzy is amazing, really. Doll is one lucky gal."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lizzy and J finishing designing our prom clothing and they did an amazing job. As we where finishing, Aegis spoke through the intercoms.

"Well, guess we got nothing better to do. Lets go to that meeting."

I began to walk towards the meeting room, until I felt a grumbling in my stomach. "...You guys go on ahead. I need to get something real quick, then I'll meet up with guys!"

”And we’ve got individuals with the skill to do that. Still, that is a risk as long as we don’t know each creatures individual abilities. On the bright side, the mental fortitude of everyone here has remained firm. I don’t see any reason for that to change.”

Cloris rubbed her forehead, her head tilting down slightly. ”No, I don’t. Whatever is going to happen will happen.”

Cloris looked over at M, staring at him flatly as he told her to keep her fetishes away from him.

”I can see why Chaos put you in that jar. I have more patience than him, but it isn’t unlimited.”

Cloris looked over at E curiously as she mentioned Tessa. She was still curious about that. But she wasn’t going to pry too deeply into something so personal unless she had to.

Then M said he didn’t remember her at all. Or any human faces in general. And then M gave his theory on why he thought it was the humans. Cloris gave M a little smile as he mentioned she would have trouble with them.

”None taken M. Although I doubt I’d have to worry about an attack from you in that form.”

She then paused, putting a hand on her hip.

”It’s not a bad theory. But if the humans were worried that you could turn on them, then they would have disposed of you when Proxima was concerned. They wouldn’t have wanted to take the risk of you getting your memories back and starting another Proxima situation on Copper 9.”

But then M dropped a bombshell: someone had been using the pods to send out a message. And it hadn’t been anyone in their squad. Cloris considered it, stroking her thumb against her chin. Then she looked at M.

”M, we can’t just assume that a disassembly drone sent out the communications. There are other squads scattered throughout the planet. And some of them have probably been wiped out. That would leave their ships unguarded.”

Cloris sighed, looking over at E. ”The solver is very crafty. I think it’s dangerous to assume anything if we don’t have concrete evidence.That’s it’s greatest weapon: deception that poisons the mind. J is not our enemy, I know that much.”

Cloris looked over at M, squinting at him. ”I’ve seen it before. Only it’s my first time seeing this from a disassembly drone. Usually it’s only something a witch can do. So I’m wondering how M managed to pull it off. Perhaps it’s a quirk in his redesign: perhaps that’s part of why his memories were wiped.”

Cloris looked between E and the communicator. Then she looked at M. She closed her eyes, reaching up and pressing her palm against her forehead.

”How could I have overlooked that?  it would have taken M considerable time to travel in that small a form. And the spire would give the thing the most material.”

Cloris sighed, looking at M. ”I’m sorry, but you’re going to be stuck in that form for awhile. I can’t build a body with what we have on board and it’s too dangerous to gather materials without knowing where it is. Right now the sun is out, so there’s only so many places it can be. But the spire is one of them.”

Cloris looked at the communicator again. ”99, you know where you fought the thing. It couldn’t have moved very quickly while it was gathering materials. It would have had to hide from the sunlight at some point within the radius of your battle. It would have had to taken its time until it could find enough material to move faster.”

She paused, rubbing the back of her head. ”The crew is still recovering from the last battle. But that’s out the window with this new development. You’re right, there’s no time to waste. Including the spire, there are 3 locations near here with a high concentration of drone corpses. There’s the underground labs, but that place has security measures that would make it hard for the solver to infiltrate it. There’s the spire, and there’s the bunker. Those are the only 3 places it could be. Unless it’s already collected what it needs and is hiding somewhere else.”

Cloris nodded, looking at the 99. ”Right, just keep in touch 99. I”ll let you know if we learn anything else. And do be careful.”

After that the meeting was called. And after 99 and her cut the connection, Cloris would make her way to the meeting room, motioning for E and M to follow.

---

Doll rolled her eyes as Chaos mistook her for throwing out a compliment. Maybe it was a good thing he couldn’t understood Russian. Then it would be a worse kind of awkward. But it was still annoying. Although that shifted when Lizzy came over to her and told her that she was her Pink Starburst. She gave her girlfriend a little smile.

”Vozmozhno, Pink Starburst — eto ne takoye uzh plokhoye prozvishche.”

[“Perhaps Pink Starburst isn't a bad nickname after all.”]

She blushed lightly, kissing Lizzy back. Meanwhile Uzi looked at Lizzy incredulously.

”You’re crazy Lizzy. Even if I do get popular, it isn’t going to last. Not at all! I’m going to be able to go back to my edgy loner self and things will be normal again!”

Who was she even kidding with that last part? Nothing was going to be normal ever again. Even if they got through all of whatever was being thrown at them, she didn’t ever see the humans going away.

Uzi huffed at Lizzy, putting her hands on her hips. ”Good. Don’t even joke about me wearing pink ever again. I’d never live it down if people viewed me as girly.”

Perhaps that was why Chaos’s vision of her in a cheerleader outfit was annoying to her. She blushed at his comment. ”Ew! Why would we have those? Belly buttons are so weird!”

Uzi stared at the dress as Lizzy held the dress up. She leaned her upper body forward, examining it closely. She looked rather surprised.

”Wow, that’s… actually really cool. Okay, I can wear this!”

And then they all got called to the meeting room. Trying on the dress would have to wait.

---

Cloris came in and sat down at her designed table. Doll made sure to save a seat for Lizzy. Uzi hopped onto Karasu’s chair, which just happened to be the biggest one. She rested back, putting her hands behind her head.

”Okay, so are we getting the bad news or the good news first? Please tell me that we aren’t going to have to fight another monster.”

"Well, my circumstances are sort of... Special."

E admits, then gesturing to her top hat.

"But yes. I remember a lot. I can't confidently say that I remember everything, however. What I know for sure is that Tessa used to own us -- and I think she still might."

She replies -- but it seems that M was still pretty sure that the Humans would have all the reason in the world to get rid of the Disassembly Drones, as well as their memories. E wasn't quite as sure about that, to be honest... He DID notice some very unusual things, though. Cloris ended up pointing out some of the flaws with it, and E gives a nod in agreement.

"Cloris is right. If they were that concerned about us, they would have done away with us on Proxima, and filed it under 'they were destroyed in the war.'"
She voices her agreement, and then soon adds;
"Plus, I think even you can agree that we're dealing with a lot more than just some "rogue Worker Drones" right now."

That left the concern that there was still someone sending out signals using one of the pods and their comms, though... Cloris raised the very real possibility that anyone could be using it for any reason, including to sow distrust between them. E was inclined to agree with that -- but even if M wasn't, there was another reason why she felt like his suspicions were wrongly placed right now.

"M, how about the fact that we fought a giant monster? And then your body got up by itself and started eating whatever it could come across? I don't think we were sent here for the Drones. We were sent here to deal with the Absolute Solver."

With all of THAT addressed, there was just one more thing to think about... And that was where the monster might be right now. As Cloris said, there was three possibilities, but the labs were too heavily defended. E brings a hand to her chin.

"... I think we can rule out the spires as well. I doubt it knows that the Disassembly Drones have moved away from them -- too much of a risk. There's no place to hide if the Disassembly Drones come back; and they will as soon as the sun comes up."

No... Chances are, it would pick somewhere a lot safer if those two places were too dangerous...

"... You guys got all of these Worker Drones from a Bunker, right? You probably want to go there and do a sweep of it."

E picks up her top hat, but she doesn't put it on. She would follow Cloris along to the meeting room...

---

Evidently, it didn't take much for Klein to start singing Ray's praises. One promise of a special batch of pudding was enough to make the penguin bot erupt into cheer. V couldn't help but smile at it, especially when Klein got the word wrong... It was pretty adorable.

Although it was V's turn to be on the receiving end of that kind of thinking. Normally she wouldn't have been taken by surprise so heavily, but Ray really did find the perfect moment to catch her like that -- not that she was complaining though... Holding hands like this was nice.

Ray eventually solidifies the point by agreeing with her, he simply wanted the 'pudding' -- or in this case, their relationship -- to be as perfect as it could be. V nods in agreement with that. As much as she wanted to rush straight into experiencing all kinds of things. She had to admit that having some anticipation about it was pretty nice too...

"Or, as a popular saying goes; "You can't rush art.""

In any case... The pizza analogy that V ended up making led to an unexpected moment for the both of them. She was on the verge of remembering something -- or someone -- but it just wasn't quite there yet. She hadn't been intending to ignore Ray or his concerns, so she does snap out of it a little more once she realizes he had been trying to get her attention there.

"Oh. I'm fine, just feel like I'm about to remember something, I guess. It's kind of weird."

But, they would have to focus on that later, because her suspicions were correct: They had an important meeting as explained by Aegis in her timely arrival. Although the Coral AI was met with suspicion from him. She couldn't help but cross her arms in response.

"It's a "Please come to the meeting room!", gosh!
You're acting weird, you know?"

... She kind of understood what Cloris meant now. Lying wasn't easy, and it sucked. Even if you had good reasons. But she knew very well that Ray was on the brink -- as it was, this bad news about another monster and how it was already set to go might be a bit much. But at least he agreed to be there right away.

Though after he glances at V, he does ask if it will be just the Humans, or if the Drones will be allowed too.

"I think after their involvement in the battle last night, they've earned the right to be present. So yes, you can bring her and the others."

Aegis answered -- and she would make that clear to anyone else that was curious, of course. Once her hologram fizzles out, that leaves Ray and V alone to prepare for the meeting. She was already going to start making her way there, up until Ray grabbed hold of her wrist and told her to hold on for a moment, because he had come to an important decision.

... Suddenly this felt very romantic as he trailed his hands down to hers, and grabbed them. She blushed in response. Did he decide to propose to her after all? She would soon find out as he begins to explain things -- and while it wasn't exactly the marriage proposal that had gotten hyped up in her head... It was pretty close!

"You know I'd be happy going anywhere with you..."
She replies, feeling a little bashful about it all now. But she soon continues:
"... But that sounds nice. Let's make that happen."

After they took a little moment to enjoy their time together, they would be off to the meeting room...

---

Lizzy couldn't help but softly giggle at how fast it was to get Doll into a better mood. That sort of thing was pretty nice too, even if it wasn't the shenanigans she usually got up to.

"Had a feeling you would come around."

Still, as Uzi insisted that she would just go right back to being her edgy loner self and everything would be normal again -- Lizzy couldn't help but gesture to J.

"I'm pretty sure things have changed so much that they're not going to be the same again -- which works for me, things had gotten so boring."
And then Lizzy smiled as she continued speaking after a brief pause.
"And now we're practically tripping over interesting things!"

The comment Uzi made about not wanting to be seen as girly at least went unchallenged at this point. If only because Lizzy had been busy working on the dress at the time. Although his comment about belly buttons and Drones possibly and possibly not having one spurred the reaction of someone who definitely had some free time on her hands right now.

J uses one hand to adjust her tie. Her other hand is brought up and she extends her index finger as she closes her eyes.

"Well-"

And then a subsequent shouting from Uzi cut her off. J crosses her arms.
"Fine, jeez!"

That was the second time one of her sales pitches had been interrupted! It's a good thing she was still ahead of quota on them. But she wasn't going to let another one be interrupted -- even if she had to make sure that M and Uzi were both tied and gagged for it!

But at least that gave Lizzy enough time to finish the dress and show it off for Uzi; who seemed to approve of it. The blonde Drone simply smirks in response.

"Of course you can wear it. I am an artist, after all."

Still... Shortly thereafter, Aegis had called them into a meeting. Lizzy sets the dress aside for now, and assumes that Doll will want to go as well. J was already following Chaos, as was Uzi.

---

Once everyone had settled into the meeting room (and Chaos had gotten his snacks), Aegis takes a breath as she starts it off;

"I'm going to do the bad news first. Our recent arrival, M-"
She gestures to the Solver Core that sat on E's shoulder.

"-Arrived with information about a new monster we'll have to deal with. He lost his body, and it began absorbing whatever material it could come across. That attack was days ago, and chances are, it has already finished the preparations, or nearly has."

Aegis looks to E, and the Disassembly Drone nods in response.

"That's right. Cloris suggested the three most likely places it might have gone. The underground labs, the corpse spires, and the Bunkers. The underground labs have too much security, and the corpse spires are used by the Disassembly Drones. I think the third option here is the most likely one."

After E says that, Aegis nods in agreement.

"It would also match the pattern of the other monsters we've seen. Given the extent of the breach and the battle that took place in the Bunker... We believe that it might be located there."

So that was the bad news in full. It was a lot to take in -- but Aegis decides now is the best time to go over the good news!

"But! We also have some good news. A partially infected Drone has stepped forward and is willing to work with us. They also fought in the battle last night to help ensure our victory."
She kept it vague for now, wanting to appropriately reveal the details in order.
"From my observations, their terms are that we don't treat them as an experiment or keep them locked up. I am willing to vouch for the fact that they are on our side."

With that, she looks over to Doll and gives a nod.

"The Drone in question is Doll. With her help, we can learn more about what we're up against. And in turn we can help her. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement."

Aegis then looks over to Ray.

"Of course, I know you're not the type of person to do that either."

About at that point, Lizzy decides to come clean as well;
"Yeah... Guess I should admit that I was asking all of those questions to try and gauge what you guys were like. Sorry about the distrust, but I had to be sure."

Aegis gives an understanding nod in response.

"I don't think anyone can really blame you here."

With that addressed, Aegis looks to everyone gathered in the meeting room.

"... So there you have it. The bad news and the good news. I believe it is now in our best interest to decide how we should proceed."

J then finally speaks up.

"Okay. Well, I think our best option is to pretend that we're falling for the trap. If we go in on high alert, searching every nook and cranny, it's going to back off and re-assess the situation.

We should prepare, but let it think that it has the advantage."

J offered her assessment of how to proceed. That left everyone else the opportunity to think it over and suggest their own courses of action... Or to expand on her plan, if they agreed with it.

---

"...Belly buttons is kinda weird when you think about it." I was about to go on about how its from an umbilical cut when you just got out of birth, but I really dont want Uzi to be grossed out.

Once again J was cut off from going on another sales pitch. I chuckle. "Dont worry J, we'll hear another pitch from you tonight Im sure."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eventually I made it to the kitchen, where all the food is found. I looked around, wondering what I should bring me. "Something quick... and easy to make" I said to myself. There is some old Chinese food in the fridge but thats months old, and I dont want to bring in an entire watermelon with me. Instead, I chose a bag of chips and a grape soda. With that, I would be able to eat chips without everyone knowing.

"I dont know why, but meetings just makes me hungry." I said to myself as I hid the chips and soda beneath my clothing.

Eventually I made it to the meeting. "Sorry Im late guys! ...I had to use the restroom really badly." I told the crew as I sat down on my designated chair. I tried to open the chips and soda as stealth-fully as I could, hoping no one would notice that I snuck food in the meeting room.

I listened to Aegis and E explain the situation, all the while snacking on some chips. Its pretty obvious now that I brought snacks with me, as everyone could hear me crunch away at the chips. Unfortunately, with months of lack table manners, I began to stuff my face with chips.

Every now and then, a familiar robot would bump into my leg. I looked down from beneath the table and discovered it was Klein. I took a chip from the bag and offered it to Klein.

I swallowed, took a sip from my drink, and spoke to Uzi and J. "Is it me, or E is just... a ton smarter now?"

Aegis went on, and I began to stuff my face with chips once more. I listened closely as Aegis mentions something about an infected drone Among Us. "No way!" I responded, mouth full like I was in a movie theater. Aegis then states it was Doll who was infected all the time.

I got up from my seat. Mouth full, I began to talk out loud. "Lil Bassshhhuka issss infeccccteffve!?" The information was such a shock to me I forgot to swallow before talking. I swallowed, then repeated what I said. "Wait! Our Lil Babushka is an infected drone!?" I look over to her. There was no way of telling that she was ever infected. "I must study her! I... I need to do things, for science!"

I sat down. "Sorry for interrupting. Continue Aegis."

Aegis continued hers speech. Nothing much I could contribute to, so I stayed quiet. Mostly however, I began thinking up ways to study Doll. There is a lot that I dont know than what I know, and I dont know when I can study her.

"Fall for its trap? Who is going to act as bait then?" Everyone looked at me as I asked this question. I took another chip from the bag. "What?" I said to them, confused as I ate another chip.

Cloris looked at E curiously as she brought up Tessa possibly owning them. ”So you're not sure who’s orders you’re acting under right now. That’s concerning to say the least.”

Cloris looked over at M as he pointed out they could have been scared of retaliation.

”If they had you in a position where they could rewrite your memories, then they were in a perfect position to dispose of you if they wanted to. I doubt they would try either disposal or a memory wipe unless they had the situation fully under control. Either way, you wouldn’t have gotten the chance to retaliate.”

Cloris reached up, rubbing her hair with one of her hands. It was a habit she had going back a long way. One she still did even though she couldn’t feel her hair.

”You weren’t put here just to be cast aside. This planet may be nearly dead now, but it’s the site of a major conflict. And everyone will have a part to play in this.”

Cloris nodded, lowering her head down from her hair. ”There is great power in the absolute solver. A sentient AI that can seemingly bend reality to its will. Its capabilities are limited when it comes to those monsters. But even weakened it’s a formidable foe.”

Cloris paused, stroking her chin and tilting her head slightly downward. ”It would depend on who gave you the orders. The Solver was always treated as top secret by JC Jenson, so they wouldn’t have taken the chance and acknowledge its existence giving you an order. Piling up the corpses high allows you to keep track of them. You form a base made from dead bodies and guard it. That makes it harder for the solver to assimilate drones, since that means it has to get through you in order to get what it wants.”

Cloris paused, putting a hand on her hip. ”This is where the chess match begins M. In order to win, we need to get into the head of our opponent. The Solver wants to divide us so it can easily pick us off. So we need to be alert and keep in mind what exactly would benefit it the most at all times. And not to lose ourselves to emotion or distrust.”

Cloris looked over at E, her eyes widening in realization. ”We’ll check and see if anyone has gone missing recently. I would say the bunker is the hardest to get into, but from what I understand, the drones guarding the door are a little gullible.”

She looked over at M, looking at him in surprise. ”Well you’re taking this in stride. I hope you don’t lose that confidence.”

---

Doll only gave a slight smile in response to Lizzy’s words. Her girlfriend knew what the right things to say and do were. It made her feel much more at ease with her around.

Uzi rolled her eyes, letting out a frustrated groan when Lizzy said things wouldn’t go back to normal. ”Ugh! I know it won’t ever go back to how it was. But I don’t want to lose my edge either.”

J then tried to interject into the belly button thing. Uzi was not going to have any of that though, an irritated symbol appearing on her visor.

”I DON’T FRICKING CARE WHAT RT3 CAME UP WITH J!”

Uzi had to admit, Lizzy came through for her. She let out a sigh as she proclaimed she was an artist.

”Well you know how to make good dresses. I’ll give you that much Lizzy.”

---

Uzi looked over as she heard a sound. She saw Chaos trying to sneakily eat chips and drink something. Doll looked slightly annoyed, although it wasn’t as visceral as before. Something seemed to be weighting on her. Uzi of course couldn’t help but speak up. She leaned forward,  giving Chaos a big smirk.


”Oh yeah, you totally went to the restroom earlier. You went there and pulled out that stuff from under the sink.”

Unfortunately this mood didn’t last long. Uzi looked over at M as Aegis dropped some news regarding them. Uzi slammed her head on the table when Aegis mentioned that there was another monster.

”I was fricking joking! I hate it here!”

Her voice was a little muffled with her face against the table and all. Uzi sat up again when Chaos talked to her, staring at E.

”No, you aren’t imagining things. So that behavior before was just an act? That’s… interesting.”

Speaking of interesting, Aegis then went on to explain that there was an infected drone helping them. A sense of dread began to creep over Uzi, sweat animations running down her visor.

”They somehow saw it. They’ve found out I’m a witch or whatever those things are.

But then Aegis revealed that it was Doll. Uzi’s body visually relaxed, the sweat animations vanishing. Both her and Cloris were both staring at Doll now. Then the former turned to Aegis.

”I presume that you only found out about this during the fight.”

Meanwhile the whole room seemed to be taking this information strangely well. Perhaps they didn’t understand what it meant to be infected. They had only encountered those monsters after all, not a full blown witch before.

”I must study her! I…I need to do things, for science!”

Chaos intentions seemed good, of a little annoying at times but what he said there struck a nerve. She stared at him harshly. After everything her mother told her, she wasn’t going to let herself be experimented on.

She looked over at Ray, frowning. What could she even say? That she didn’t have plans for him during the prom? Well, she could at least tell part of the truth.

”YA ne planiroval prichinyat' tebe bol' tam. Inogda eto vspykhivayet, kogda moi emotsii sil'ny.”

[“I wasn't planning on hurting you there. Sometimes it flares up when my emotions are strong.”]

Doll glanced over at V as Ray brought up his conditions. Did the drone feel any sort of remorse? Ray seemed to think there was something there that wasn’t a cold hearted killing machine. Then she looked back over at Ray.

”Otlichno. YA perestanu pristal'no smotret' na tvoyu devushku. YA podelyus' svoimi sekretami, yesli vse sdelayut to zhe samoye.”

[“Fine. I'll stop looking daggers at your girlfriend. I'll share my secrets if everyone does the same.”]

She looked over at V as Lizzy translated that for her. Her screen changed for a few seconds. On it was a picture of Yeva. It vanished after a few seconds, then she turned away to look at Ray.

”Seychas ya podelyus' s vami odnoy veshch'yu. Etu istoriyu rasskazala mne moya mat'. Davnym-davno, kogda eta planeta yeshche byla obitayemoy, gde byl dron, ot kotorogo nepravil'no utilizirovali? Postupat' takim obrazom bylo opasno, no tak bylo deshevle i proshche.”

[“I will share one thing with you now. It's a story my mother told me. A long time ago, when this planet was still habitable, where was a drone that was improperly disposed of. It was dangerous to do things that way, but it was cheaper and easier to do things that way.”]

Doll gave Lizzy time to translate all of that. Both Uzi and Cloris were staring at the Russian drone. She then continued.

”po slovam lyudey, veroyatnost' togo, chto oni voskresnut v vide zombi, sostavlyayet 0,01 protsenta. Veroyatnost' togo, chto dron-zombi prosnetsya chem-to pokhuzhe, sostavlyayet 0,7%. Veroyatnost' togo, chto eto proizoydet, byla nastol'ko
nichtozhno malo, chto mogli proyti sotni let, prezhde chem eto proizoshlo. No vot chto proizoshlo.”

[“According to the humans, there's a 0.01 percent chance they'll ressurect as a zombie. There's a .7 percent chance that a zombie drone awakens as something worse. The odds of that happening were so
miniscule that hundreds of years could have passed before it occured. But that's what happened.”

Doll folded her hands together, setting them on the table. Again she waited for Lizzy to catch up, and to catch her breath if need be. Then she moved on. Again, she waited for her girlfriend to catch up.

”Etot dron prosnulsya s uzhasayushchey siloy. Nenavidet' lyudey za to, chto oni brosili yeye v storonu. I to, chto oni nazyvali ved'moy, obrushilo svoy gnev na Med' 9. Tselyye goroda byli sterty s karty, prezhde chem yeye ostanovili. Oni utverzhdali, chto ubili yeye, no yeye derzhali v tayne.”

[“This drone awoke with terrifying powers. Hating the humans for tossing her aside. And what they called a witch unleashed her wrath upon Copper 9. Entire towns and cities were wiped off the map before she was stopped. They claimed that they had killed her, but she was confined in secret.”]

She turned to Chaos, although she wasn’t looking at him. Instead her gaze was focused on his hand of soda.

Vmesto togo, chtoby unichtozhit' yeye tut zhe, lyudi stremilis' ispol'zovat' yeye silu. Dzhey Si Dzhenson sozdal sekretnoye podrazdeleniye, prednaznachennoye dlya izucheniya etoy sily. Dlya nikh eto bylo slishkom zamanchivo. Vozmozhnost' togo, chto lyudi smogut delat' podobnyye veshchi.”

[“Instead of destroying her then and there, the humans sought to harness her power. JC Jenson created a secret branch designed to study this power. It was too tempting for them. The possibility of humans being able to do things like this.”

Doll waited for Lizzy to translate that part. Then she raised her hand, and the solver symbol appeared both there and around Chaos’s can of soda. It flew across the table into Doll’s hand.

”OHROBOJESUS!

Uzi instinctively pushed back, causing her chair to fall over and send her tumbling to the ground. Cloris tensed up, never keeping her eyes off Doll. But she didn’t make a move against her.

As it turned out, Doll was far from done. She set the can of cola on the table and held her hand over it. A different variation of the solver symbol appeared. It spun around the can a few times. Then suddenly there were more cans of soda on the table, enough for everyone to have one.



And that’s exactly what happened. Another wave of her hand created another flash of light. Each can was now in front of one person. Even Chaos got his can of soda back. Uzi climbed to her feet, raising the chair back upright. She stared in awe at hers, reaching out and picking it up. Her eyes gleamed brightly.

”Holy crap… That was metal as robo-hell! You’re awesome Doll!”

Doll looked caught off guard, looking at Uzi in shock. She expected fear, especially after the reaction she had at first.


Meanwhile Cloris was examining her can. She held it up to her nose and sniffed. She then took a light sip of it, sloshing it about on her mouth a little. She then swallowed it, looking at the can in awe.

”It tastes exactly like soda. I don’t know how, but she completely copied it.”

”Hey, if it’s real it’s good enough for me!”

Uzi stat down again, and popped the entire can onto her mouth. She chewed through the aluminum loudly the way a human would chew gum. Uzi reclined back, a pleased look on her face. A message flashed across her visor.

That aluminum tastes good. The filling is amazing!

Doll regained her composure, clearing her throat before continuing.

”Vozmozhnost' ispol'zovaniya etoy sily byla slishkom zamanchivoy. Oni otpravili dronov v postroyennuyu imi laboratoriyu. Oni peredali dronam kod zarazhennykh. Bol'shinstvo iz nikh umerlo. Nekotoryye iz nikh unasledovali vlast'. Moya mat' byla odnoy iz nikh.”

[“The possibility of using that power was too tempting. They sent drones to the lab they built. They transfered the code of the infected into the drones. Most of them died. Some of them inherited the power. My mother was one of them.”

Doll hung her head low for a few seconds. Just remembering her mother made her sad. Why did she have to be taken from her? She then looked up again, continuing.



”No uchenyye ne ponyali istinnuyu prirodu reshatelya. Eto byla zaimstvovannaya sila dlya tekh, kogo oni zarazili. Ono prinadlezhalo pervomu. Yeye volya i lichnost' byli peredany vmeste s Reshatelem. Odin za drugim bol'shinstvo zarazhennykh v konechnom itoge stanovilis' pervymi».”

[“But the scientists didn't understand the true nature of the solver. It was borrowed power for the ones they infected. It belonged to the first one. Her  will and personality were tranfered along with the Solver. One by one most of the ones infected eventually became the first one."]

Again, she let all of that sink in for everyone. Then she continued.

”V kontse kontsov oni razrabotali patch. Tot, kotoryy dast kontrol' nad reshatelem zarazhayemomu telu. Moya mama byla odnoy iz nemnogikh, kto poluchil plastyr', no oni zakonchili yego slishkom pozdno. Reshatel' imel stol'ko khostov, skol'ko mog. Moyey materi i drugim udalos' pobedit' yego, no ne bez poter'.”

[“Eventually they developed a patch. One that would give control of the solver to the body being infected. My mother was one of the few to get the patch, but  they finished it too little too late. The solver possessed as many hosts as it could. My mother and others managed to defeat it, but not without cost.”]

Doll pointed out one of the windows. At the snowy, Barron landscape of Copper 9.

”V khode boya on povredil
yadro planety. I chelovecheskaya tsivilizatsiya na Medi 9 byla unichtozhena. V kontse kontsov ved'ma otomstila lyudyam, kotoryye yeye vybrosili.”

[“During the fight it damaged
the core of the planet. And human civilization on Copper 9 was wiped out. In the end the witch got their revenge on the people who threw her away.”]

Doll paused again. When Lizzy finished translating (not that she needed that to understand Doll), Uzi stared in disbelief.

”All this time, I thought the humans blew themselves up. I mean it’s still their own fault, but one person did all of this?”

Doll nodded her head grimly. ”Yesli ty khochesh' nazyvat' yeye tak. Posle etogo moya mat' vybralas' na poverkhnost'. Bunker byl osnovan, ona poznakomilas' s moim ottsom, a potom u neye rodilsya ya. I ya podrosla, ona mne vse rasskazala. Vklyuchaya vozmozhnost' unasledovat' etu vlast'. Eto stalo real'nost'yu, kogda yeye ubili na moikh glazakh.”

[“If you want to call her that. After that my mother made it to the surface. The bunker was established, she met my father, and then she had me. And I grew old enough, she told me everything. Including the possibility of inheriting that power. That became a reality when she was killed in front of me.”]

Doll clenched her fists tightly, looking down at the table. She had promised not to look at V with hatred. And she was going to abide by that. But a smart enough person would be able to connect the dots.

She looked up again, sitting up straight in her chair. She looked back over at Ray.

”S tekh por ya praktikovalsya so svoimi silami. No s togo dnya eta ved'ma byla u menya v golove. Vchera ona byla na vysote, kogda ya dovel sebya do predela. Ona dazhe yavilas' vo sne. Ona utverzhdayet, chto tvoreniya, s kotorymi my borolis', — eto rabota drugogo pol'zovatelya reshatelya, takogo zhe, kak ona. Tot, kto rodilsya na Zemle. Khotya ona mogla lgat': strakh — eto sposob poluchit' kontrol'.”

[“I've practiced with my powers since then. But ever since that day that witch has been inside my head. She was at her strongest yesterday, when I pushed myself to the limit. She even appeared in a dream. She claims that the creations we have been fighting are the work of another solver user like her. One born on Earth. She could be lying though: fear is a way they can get control.”]

She then pressed a finger against her chest, staring into Ray’s eyes.

”Ishchu patch dlya upravleniya reshatelem. Yesli my ne smozhem yego nayti, ya khochu, chtoby ty ubil menya, kogda vse eto zakonchitsya. Chtoby reshatel' ne vernulsya. Eto pravda, Rey».”

[“I'm searching for the patch to control the solver. If we can't find it then I want you to kill me when this is all over. So that there's no chance of the solver coming back. That is the truth, Ray."]

Doll gave her girlfriend a sympathetic look, reaching out and squeezing her hand with her free one. She wanted to convey that she didn’t want to do this, but if she had no other alternative, then she would have to go through with that.

Cloris has been strangely silent the whole time. She had folded her hands together, and her eyes were closed. A look of compilation was on her face. She was doing her best to hide the guilt: everything that had happened was the fault of her family.

Uzi meanwhile stared in horror. Not only with how terrifying this foe sounded, but the implications it had for her.


”Is this what is going to happen to me? Am I going to lose myself to this thing?”

Uzi tried hiding her worry behind her usual self. She frowned, looking over at Doll.

”Knowing our luck, that witch is telling the truth and there's another one out there.”

Uzi looked over at J, listening to her plan. She frowned slightly. ”I can sorta see why that plan would be good in theory. But it’s already been puttting together a plan for a few days now. We should force it to reassess the situation. Get it off its game. Then come up with a plan to counter whatever it will throw at us.”

All eyes were on Chaos, but Uzi looked particularly annoyed. She looked around the rest of the room, her irritation clear.

”Don’t even think about using my prom date as bait!”

Uzi turned and looked at Chaos. ”And don’t let them get you into that, okay?”

Fortunately Ray added a more offensive element to the plan, something that Uzi appreciated. Doll simply nodded her head at Ray in response to his equation about the prom room.  It was easier than talking in a language that he didn’t understand.

Uzi rolled her eyes as she looked at Ray. ”Oh for robo-god’s sake. I’m not letting Chaos and You out of my sight. Every time I do you try throwing yourself into danger.”

Doll raised a hand in response to Ray’s question. ”YA mogu ispol'zovat' svoy reshatel', chtoby zapechatat' yego v komnate. Eto ne smozhet chtoby prorvat'sya cherez eto.”

[“I can use my solver to seal it in the room. It won't be able to break through that.”]

Uzi stared at Doll, lowering her arms. ”Okay, is there anything that the Solver can’t  do?”

Doll lowered her hand, looking over at Uzi. ”Ono ne mozhet reshit' vse moi problemy, no mozhet ispravit' bol'shinstvo.”

[“It can't solve all my problems, but it can fix most.”]

Uzi listened to Ray’s plan, considering something. Then she looked over at the human.

”Ray, if this thing has been at the bunker, then that means it’s been absorbing primarily worker drones. What if the UV isn’t as effective as we think it will be?”

Uzi wasn’t sure if it had absorbed enough worker drones to gain a resistance (if that was possible). But she had to at least give the possibility. It was a good plan, but if it found a way to counter the UV Rays, then they would be at its mercy in a locked prom room.

Uzi nodded in regards to replacing M’s core. She didn’t like him, but as he said, the sooner he got his body back, the sooner he would be out of their hair.Doll was listening quietly to the plan. Cloris stroked her chin, considering it.

”The whole situation is unique. You’re going to have to damage significantly enough to where it won’t be able to retaliate.”

Uzi looked down as Klein began to munch on chips. She then looked up at Chaos, slipping her hands into her pocket.

”Hey, make sure you don’t feed him too much Chaos. Otherwise he’ll get chips all over the floor.”

E gives a nod.

"Our orders are vague too. Despite what M is saying, it doesn't explicitly say we're here to disassemble the Worker Drones. It's to "deal with any Rogue AI""
She then replies to Cloris.

M wasn't fully convinced however. He was certain that the Humans were responsible, but the logic wasn't quite sticking here. Fortunately it wasn't like E had to try very hard as Cloris points out that if they were in the perfect position to remove their memories, they were also in a perfect position for disposal.

Copper 9 was far from perfect for that.

"I'm inclined to agree with Cloris. They already had a military on Proxima. Even as talented as we are, we would be outnumbered five to one. If they wanted to be rid of us, there were many ways to do that and be much more efficient than throwing us onto this planet."

E remarks -- and Cloris proceeds to wrap up the case quite nicely. The Absolute Solver was an opponent unlike any other that the entirety of Humanity had faced. It requires discretion and careful moves. It could be that their orders are so vague just because they don't want to reveal the entire operation...

"If we have too much information on our orders, then the Absolute Solver could work off of that -- it took your body, M. Imagine how bad that could get if it had fully detailed mission outlines and logs of what we're doing."

Still... Even though she said that, it was true that there was SOMEONE sending messages off-world, and it had to be for a reason. The only question was why, and to who... Ultimately, they couldn't let their guard down, even if this wasn't happening. But it was yet another reason to be careful.

Each of them could bear that in mind as they headed to the Meeting Room...

---

"We'll wear you down into being soft and cuddly, Uzi~"

Lizzy teased with a grin. At this point it shouldn't take much more to set her off -- and hey, sure enough! J managed to be the one to trigger the outburst.

The twin-tailed Disassembly Drone rolls her eyes. But at least Chaos comforted her about how she could make another sales-pitch tonight.

"Good. I do have to keep making quota, you know."
J replies with an appreciative smile.

Not long after that, Uzi also thanks Lizzy for the dress, prompting a nod out of the blonde Drone. But now, the group would have to set that aside as they headed to the Meeting Room...

---

V gives a nod at Ray.

"I won't object to it. But make sure you pace yourself. You've been dealing with a lot, and it has taken a toll on you."

Still... As Aegis defended herself, the mood shifts a little as Ray felt some guilt -- Which in turn meant Aegis was feeling some.

"Oh... Look Ray, I know you've been dealing with a lot. But I'm on your side, I promise. I'll help with all of this too. With the Brotherhood of the Singularity, and Iseult."

The Coral AI admits as she shifts gears. She couldn't just go taking this out on him when she was the one lying... She had her reasons for it, especially in light of everything he has been shouldering for years. But he didn't deserve this either.

Of course, they could talk more about it later. She picked up on the fact that Ray and V wanted a little bit of privacy here, so Aegis excuses herself from the room to focus on the other tasks and organizing her thoughts.

In V's case, she was happy -- yes, it wasn't the marriage proposal. But so what? He was basically saying that he was going to stay here with her no matter what, and he wanted to stay true to his word. It was admirable... And quite possibly the most heartfelt confession that V had ever received on top of that.

Indeed, her processors were working overtime, her fans were running high, blush had filled her optics and her tail was wagging. They were all signs of her affection and appreciation for Ray -- and perhaps even proof that even if he felt uneasy about the position she had taken up... She wasn't hesitating over it in the slightest. She had meant her promise for protecting him.

"Yeah... Together, no matter what."

V repeated back to him with a nod and a smile.

And with that... It was time for the meeting.

---

The first thing to happen was a curious exchange between Ray and M. He had never seen a Core that looked quite like that before -- to be honest, no one on the crew had, save for the Disassembly Drones... And even some of them weren't fully familiar with that.

Just as the tension grows thicker, it's immediately cut by the distinct and loud sound of a soda can being opened -- "click kssshhh", everyone's attention had been drawn to Chaos, who at this point was now trying to subtly open a bag of chips. You can imagine how that went. Uzi was the first one to tease him about it.

Lizzy couldn't help but smirk.

"If that was intentional, it was pretty funny.
Still funny if unintentional."

The blonde Worker Drone remarks, and J simply sighs lightly.

"At least they're JCJenson products. They are relevant to the purposes of this meeting."

Soon enough, the meeting gets back on track, albeit just a little bit less tense now as Ray responds to M -- who also has a little bit less bite than usual. Although his tongue click in annoyance and his words to Ray still got a response out of V.

"I'm a good problem solver. Make sure you're not a problem for Ray."

V remarks.

The next subject to come up is E and her apparent change. She decides to take the moment to address that by picking up her top hat and showing the inside of it -- sure enough, those were some powerful magnets it had.

"I wear the hat in order to help myself relax. Remembering everything is... Stressful. But I can put up with it in moments of need, like right now."

E explains, then setting the hat back down in front of her. With that addressed, the next major thing was exactly where the creature might be located. Ray decided to expand on the theory by pointing out another issue with trying to use the spires -- there was just no way to be stealthy and safe about it.

"Yeah. Plus taking it off the top means exposing your shelter to sunlight. It's meant to be convenient for us, and a trap for them."
J adds onto that.

So ultimately, the Bunkers were the most likely case -- and that means you need to look to the one that could most likely be broken into... All the ones that White Aberrant had hit before were obviously out; no material left in those. So that left Outpost-3. There might still be other Outposts that hadn't been opened yet, but this one had plenty of materials inside too, and the enemy definitely knew about it...

Which left the biggest bombshell in all of this... The fact that Doll was a partially infected Drone, and she was willing to help the group. Lizzy provided translations for her, and she also spoke up in defense of Doll;

"She doesn't have anything against you, Ray. Her family history is complicated... If she wants to talk about it, you'll learn why. For now, we'll leave it at: "She has trust issues with science.""

Despite Lizzy's defense of Doll, Ray still had conditions. The first was no more secrets. Aegis shifts a little uncomfortably at that. She glances over at Cloris -- how did she not even flinch in the face of that? Fortunately the woman then asks a pertinent question, and the Coral AI gives a nod.

"During and after the battle, yes. I decided to monitor the situation for a little while, and then I approached her when I thought that a deal could be made. Fortunately, she accepted if I could convince you all to treat her right. I didn't foresee that being a problem."

Although on that note, Chaos then stands up and expresses that he must study her -- that he has to do things. Aegis smiles a little and then decides to clarify for Doll's sake;

"Don't worry. He's eccentric, but not mean. He's saying that because he wants to help you."

The hologram states, and Lizzy gives a nod in response.

"That seems about right."

And after that, Ray makes his second condition known; and that is to stop being mean to V, essentially. The Disassembly Drone in question arches a brow as she stares at Doll. Hearing what the Russian Drone had to say next put her somewhat on the back foot, though. Along with the image that flashed briefly.

Yeah... V was going to have to come clean about this too. But first, Doll had something she wanted to share, and Lizzy would continue to provide translations of it all for the Humans in the group -- and there was certainly a lot to learn... Hell, a lot of it even Lizzy didn't know.

J frowns as Doll mentions that JCJenson took this so-called Witch in to try and harness that power. She'd never heard of something like this, but... Beyond that, it also put some things into perspective for her.

The practical demonstration was a little more unnerving, though. J had seen it plenty of times before.... V did too. But seeing it outright confirmed like this was a bit much. Even so, they both relax as they keep in mind that Doll is here to help the Humans -- and that was what she did last night.

At Uzi's words, a little more of the tension drops though, as Lizzy picks up her own can of soda.
"Of course she is. She can do all kinds of tricks. That makes her a very powerful ally."

Regardless... The story continues, and by now, V is tensing up slightly as Doll describes this 'First One'. Her stance tightens a little, and her hands curl into fists. The determined look in her eyes didn't exactly give off an aura of fear. More of a declaration of intent...

Another being like Cyn... Well. One of them was MORE than enough in this universe. She'd just have to put that rabid dog down and be done with it.

There was outright confirmation later as Doll talks about the limits she had been pushed to. Finally it's all brought to a conclusion as Doll says that she is looking for a Patcher, and that if they can't find it... They would have to kill her so that the Solver doesn't keep spreading. Lizzy had more than a few issues with that. She squeezes Doll's hand tightly.

"Hey. We're going to get you what you need, even if we need to make a solution ourselves."

So after all of that... V takes a breath.

"Okay... So, pretty sure Doll is wanting me to spill this secret... Here goes."
The Disassembly Drone works up the courage to talk about it. She knew that N and J wouldn't care -- E and M wouldn't really either.

The Humans, especially Ray? They might, though...

"I may not exactly remember every detail... But I disassembled Doll's mother."
Despite that, V then holds up a hand.
"But I do remember that I didn't completely destroy her! Ray can fix her, and I'll help bring her body back, if we need to do that."

V lets that hang in the air, and right now, she was a little scared to look directly at any of the Humans. If she was still operating under her facade, she probably would have just said something like "She didn't even taste good", but things had changed. Aegis then speaks up to smooth the situation over as much as she can;

"Well...! Everyone got a lot off of their chests now. So... We're all allies now, yes?"

Jeez... This was still kind of awkward. But at least now they were officially in the planning phase... They still had a monster to deal with, after all. J suggested the course of pretending to fall for the trap that it had, and Chaos asked who would act as the bait, prompting everyone to look over at him. Uzi immediately got defensive about that.

But beyond that, she also suggested that maybe making the monster back off was the smarter choise here. E decides to chime in at this point.

"If it thinks that we're unprepared, we can take advantage of that. But if we alert it, things inevitably get a lot more difficult. It will start looking for our weaknesses and how to best exploit them. Not to mention that it will bide it's time and evolve more."

She finishes her explanation. If they wanted to have a shot at getting M's body back, they had to commit, and they needed a solid plan to do it. Fortunately, Ray had some ideas to accomplish that, he asks Aegis to create a holographic display with his specifications. The Coral AI nods and does just that, even adjusting it as he further details his plan.

He also asks Lizzy to provide details on the room.

"Sure. Aegis, I can pass you the details, right?"

The Coral AI nods, and then the two exchange information -- much like Aegis and J had done before.

Soon enough they've got a whole room lined up that will trap it in UV Light. The question then was how to most effectively seal it inside. Doll mentioned that she could use the Solver to lock the door -- so Aegis provided that detail on the holographic display as well.

E then chimes in again.

"Aegis, you have the vents on this as well, right?"

She asks, and the Coral AI nods, adding them to the display.

"Let's add some UV lights there too. When it tries to escape through the vents, we can surprise it with another blast."

Aegis adds those specifications as well. By now that thing looked like it would be well and truly boxed in...

"And then we use those outfits that Ray made. They can protect us from UV Radiation, so we can keep the pressure up on this thing."

V remarks, and E nods as she adds;
"And then we can weaken it, and remove whatever Core is inside it, so that M can take control back."

E brings a hand to her chin as she ponders something.

"... One of the Disassembly Drones will have to bring M's Core with them, and make sure to keep him in the outfit for protection. Then we need to shut the lights off once we get his body back, and slip his core back inside."

They had a hell of a plan lined up now... Aegis looks over it all, and lets out a small sigh.

"I think that's just about everything we can realistically plan for. From this point on, we're just going to have to play it by ear. But we CAN do this. We beat an army of those things -- and this one is all alone."

Since Karasu wasn't here to inspire them... She would have to do that herself!

"Show it what we're made of! Together we can bring anything down!"

She might not have been quite as eloquent as Karasu could be... But her intentions were clear. With their morale high, they could absolutely handle this! Uzi then asked one last question about whether or not the UV Radiation work would -- and J speaks up.

"It will work. If those things could evolve for protection from UV Light, they would have done it already."

In the end... They would have to simply trust in the plan. But there seemed to be little to worry about, as everyone could look over the holographic display in front of them.

Knowing me I probably did hid some snacks in the bathroom. I didnt said this information out loud just not to gross everyone out.

I offered a chip to Uzi. "You want some? They're salt and vinegar flavor. ...If Drones can eat chips of course." I shouldve went out and get something for Uzi and J, but I was in a rush. Plus I dont think we have Oil Juice boxes and Nuts N' Bolts bags either.

"Oh, makes sense E. Dont stress yourself too much, okay?" Although I did like it when she was a bit dumb, it was charming.

Lizzy mentioned that Doll 'has trust issues with science.' Confused, I spoke up. "What do you mean by that, Lizzy? I dont mean to hard Doll if I do run some experiments on her. Just some... fact checks, nothing physical." Honestly, I have no clue where to begin with testing on Doll.

"But I do want to help her." I continued. "If I could help Doll with hers infection, I can help any other drone who is infected."

Doll demonstrated hers force like powers on my can of Rutta Grape. Instead of drinking it, I decided to study it. "I...impossible!" I swirled the drink, it still had the same amount of soda as before. "J...just amazing, can any infected drone do this or just you Doll?" Doll is beginning to look more and more of an unique specimen. I set the can aside. "I must do more tests on this, just to make sure." I grabbed another can, open it and tasted it. "A...amazing, its still fizzy too..."

I witness Uzi just eating the soda can. I chuckled a bit. "Looks like the can itself is also just as good. Doll is amazing, isnt she..."

Thankfully Lizzy is there to provide translations for us, as she does a better job than what I can do.

I could see Uzi being worried and she spoke to herself, but I couldnt hear her over Doll speaking and Lizzy translating for us. I reached over and patted hers back. "Hey. You okay Uzi?" I said softly.

"I'll try not to, Uzi. Flesh makes good bait though." I said, jokingly. "Th..thats a joke though, Uzi. I dont plan on hurting myself."

"I AM the danger, Uzi."

"I dont mean to pry but, if Dolls mom could be fixed... then what exactly did you do V?" I said as I questioned her. "I just want to know what exact state is Dolls mom is in" To be frank, Im not entirely sure if it could be done. I tried once, but I failed. Massively.

"Thats the plan then, I guess. We fought off three of those things, so we know exactly what we are up against. I have confidence in everyone, including myself." With saying that, I got up.

"Oh. Earlier I did stated I wanted to study Doll and hers weird witch powers. While I do want to do it.. only if Doll is willing to do them. I promise I'll be gentle..." That sounded better in my head, Im just glad there is no fanfic writing worker drone who is monitoring us right now and furiously writing down ideas.

Ray couldn't help smiling a little bit when V threw M's threats right back in his face...It was definitely amusing, but he kept any laughter in so he wouldn't derail the meeting any further than it already had been. Although right before Aegis had revealed the identity of the witch he couldn't help noticing just how nervous Uzi seemed to be. The human frowned a little bit as he looked her way. He was definitely concerned for her, though there wasn't a whole lot he could do right now. Whatever was bothering her, it was most likely too personal to divulge in front of the entire crew... Regardless, his frown turned to a slight scowl as he listened to Doll speaking. Lizzy translated her words, and even tried to defend her, though the human wasn't fully convinced...

"You'll have to forgive me but I admit I'm a little skeptical of that right now. Still..."

His expression did finally soften as Lizzy revealed Doll's problems to stem from her parents, and with that "Still" he continued to speak.

"... I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt since you did help to protect our ship."

It was impossible for him to miss the image Doll showed V. After all, he was sitting right next to the disassembly drone in question. Ray raised an eyebrow at that...But did give a slightly hesitant nod to Doll's request that this goes both ways.

"I can oblige that..."

Doll shared everything she could, starting with the revelation that a drone had been improperly disposed of. - Ray was familiar with the details, though he didn't know every single aspect of it. He did chime in with what he personally knew however.

"Right, that tracks. J.C. Jensen had pretty strict protocols for drone disposal. It's not something I like to think about...But we were warned of some nasty consequences for doing it the wrong way. Although...When they mentioned mutations I didn't exactly think it went beyond buggy code and some safety hazards...I've seen a few zombie drones on Earth, but they didn't exactly match the ones we've been fighting here."

The essence of witches...Ray had never seen one himself. That .7 percent chance meant exactly what Doll had said; A hundred years could have passed without a single one appearing. As far as he knew this was just a boogieman theory that could never happen in practice. Ray folded his hands together, closing his eyes calmly as he rested his elbows on the table.


"So...This is our enemy then. This is the person we're waging war with?"

Still, there was one thing Doll said that didn't line up with what Ray knew...This witch had rampaged across towns and cities, laying waste to humanity itself.

"What? But the story back then was that Copper-9's environment had critically destabilized. It's why the core collapse eventually occurred...That's what they said, at least. I was too young to remember it myself...But that's the story I've heard growing up."

The engineer shook his head.

"If that's true then that would mean the first rogue drone incident occurred over a decade before the first reported incident..."

The human looked over at V as Doll spoke of the first Witch. The first host of the absolute solver. He could clearly see just how angry even the mere mention of this drone was making her...She wasn't scared, no, but she was still upset by them all the same. Ray reached out calmly and put his hand on her shoulder, he slowly, methodically ran his hand back and forth over her shoulder, gently petting her arm to try and help her calm down. He looked at her with a small smile on his face. He was just as weary about all of this as she was...But he wanted to help ease her mind however he could.

Ray flinched when the solver symbol appeared in Doll's hand. He watched the solver host effortlessly move a can across the table. The fluid motion made it look like it was being manipulated by string, but Ray knew no such thing had been set up. It COULDN'T be set up. There was simply no string there to begin with. Magnetism couldn't explain this either. A magnet would need to be of incredible size and strength to have a pull that smooth from a distance like that...No, this was something far beyond his understanding, there was no other way to explain it than this. It only became even more baffling as Doll used this same power to replicate the can into several, and finally used that power to give one to everyone in the room. M acted all calm and cool about it, crossing his claws together as he looked away from the can...Though internally he was freaking out about all of this right now.

N stared at the can, hands on her cheeks as she made an "Oooooooo" noise in pure amazement at the feat that had been put on display. As for Ray...He took out an ink pen and very cautiously pressed it against the can, pushing it away from him. Staring at it with suspicion clear on his face.


Doll's next words brought things back on track however. This witch's power had not only been captured; they had managed to transfer it over to other drones as raw code. So many of them died from this process. Drones cast aside like trash all in the pursuit of power...It made the human sick to his stomach. Ray gripped the table tightly until his fingers turned pale, it was clear from just a single glance that he was very bothered by this revelation. Doll's mother had become a witch against her will. A carrier for this "Solver". It was a curse, there was no other way to look at it.

For the ability to manipulate reality like Doll had, a host had to give up their free will. They were enthralled to a greater being than themselves. And this curse was what led to Copper-9's destruction. All that senseless suffering became frozen in time at the very moment it all ended. The few who were unfortunate enough to survive the initial collapse suffered even more. And for the drones who had to pick up the pieces? They gave rise to the Outposts. It made Ray wonder if her parents had come from a similar situation. Had Khan and Uzi's mother been part of moving on after this planet's demise?

There was a thought perhaps more important than that though...Doll spoke of "inheriting" this power from her mother. Ray leaned forward as he observed the Russian Drone closely.

"You mean you had this code transferred into you indirectly? Then...That means all the surviving test subjects might have been able to do the same...Did your mother mention anyone else coming from the labs with her, Doll?"

Doll's mother was killed in front of her...Ray felt his stomach tying itself into knots as the obvious conclusion ran through his mind, but he didn't want that to be true. - No, he vehemently denied it with his heart even though his mind was fighting against that denial. The way Doll had such a bitter hatred of V for reasons neither of them had ever gotten into, the fact that V was forced to be a killing machine not so long ago, the very truth of the situation was leading to one conclusion...And he didn't like it. But even so, he didn't show any of that to either of them, he simply allowed the truth to continue playing out from Doll's side of things. And the biggest truth was now going to be revealed: The first witch had told Doll of a second one, one that they had been fighting against so far. One that controlled the great monsters like a puppet master...The Russian drone provided the possibility that it could be a lie, but Ray shook his head.

"If there's even a small chance of it being the truth then I think we can't afford to ignore it."

Finally, Doll's last truth was that she sought a patcher so that she might free herself of the witch's control. Even now she fought to keep the first host from taking over her body. And if she couldn't find the patch? She wanted him to kill her. The engineer let out a sigh...once again his eyes closed in contemplation. But this was something he didn't have to think about. He wasted no time answering her, and his answer was made clear.

"I'm not going to do that."

His eyes opened, and he stared right back at Doll with clear, calm conviction.

"We're going to help you no matter what. Even if helping you means creating a patch of our own."

Ray's words matched Lizzy and Chaos' own sentiments perfectly, and the calm serious tone in his voice showed that there was no doubt in his mind. It wasn't a matter of "if" they could create a patch. They were going to accomplish it, of this there was no question.

That calm confidence faded into a look of fear and concern when V first spoke up. A secret she had been expected to reveal? Once more that sickness deep inside his stomach welled up. Those facts he had been trying so hard to deny were coming to the surface. It took V several minutes of hyping herself up before she could say anything else and the room had clearly become much more tense...The undeniable truth was revealed: V had disassembled Doll's mother right in front of her. Ray frowned as he looked at V...He wanted so hard to deny that truth, to say that she would never do anything like that, but there was simply no way to ignore it.

Doll's hatred stemmed from what V had done.


The engineer regarded V with sad eyes...But the deeper he dug into his heart to search for excuses to justify it, the more he remembered the things V had told him. The things she had shared with him that no one else had. "I regret the things I've done to the Worker Drones, too. Especially recently. To be honest, they're harmless. But it was something I had to do." "I've spent a long time doing horrible things. And I feel like I'll have to keep doing them, in order to keep the people I care about safe." "Ray. You're not a monster. You're a good man, and they took advantage of you." "... I think, maybe, it's related to Cyn." Those words ran through his mind over and over on repeat all the while V was sitting beside him terrified of what the humans might think of her...Ray looked down at the table in front of them for a moment...And after V had tried to make things better, that was when he grabbed hold of her hand underneath the table where no one else could see it. His fingers locked with hers and he gripped her hand firmly, with a gentle touch that neither squeezed too hard or too little. He looked up at Doll, that same calm confidence finally returning to his face.

"V isn't a monster. Everything she did was to protect the people she cares about most. Someone named Cyn took advantage of her and it led to all of this...Doing something terrible that she can't apologize for, if you want someone to hate, then you should point it at the person who made V kill for their sake. They threatened to take away her loved ones if she didn't keep killing...in the face of despair like that I think most people would give up hope of ever being good again...But underneath that is someone I trust. All of that guilt V has to deal with? I'm going to shoulder that guilt, too. We're going to bring your mother back, and then we can all deal with the witch together. This time I'll make it right Doll."

He wasn't done yet however...He looked over at the crew's scientist as he asked what extent the damage V had done was. Ray didn't want V to have to answer a question that was so uncomfortable...He was standing up for her and shouldering part of her guilt. The engineer looked at the disassembly drone with an expression that asked her to let him handle it. So Ray answered that question with a clear statement, holding a hand up to stop Chaos.

"As long as the core is intact then we can save her. That's the only vital piece of this whole situation. Trust in me...I can do this."

Now he was certain that this second Witch was the one who had tormented V, J, and N for all these years. There were still details he lacked, but like a puzzle with all the right pieces in place, he didn't need to see the rest of it to put things together in his mind. Cyn was the one who had traumatized these three. It was because of Cyn that they still lived in fear. If Cyn were truly gone with Earth...They would have no reason to continue living in fear. It was for that reason that Ray knew who their true enemy was now. Ray put his hand over his chest as he continued to speak.

"And I think I know who our second witch is...I think their name is Cyn."

With conviction now clear in his heart, he had more confidence to continue with their plans. Ray found himself agreeing with E's initial assessment.

"That's right. That's why my plan involves a quick decisive blow. The witch's monsters have all relied on prolonging their fight. They have regenerative properties, illusions, and smaller monsters to call upon. The amount of allies they can call upon might be too much for us to reasonably defeat in one battle... They rely on victory through attrition. Simply put, we can't afford to let this fight go on for long. If it's given too much time to act it WILL destroy our UV lamps. I don't think anyone here can doubt that being the most immediate course of action our enemy would take."

Ray smiled a little at Uzi's annoyance over him YET AGAIN suggesting that he was going to throw himself into danger.

"Uzi...I promise what Chaos and I are going to do won't put our lives at any more risk than what's necessary. We're not going to confront that monster, we're just going to make sure its eyes are on us so that Lizzy and Doll can set up the trap without it knowing. Look, if it will make you feel better, you can come with us too."

E thankfully had covered one flaw in his plan by adding that lights should be placed inside the room's ventilation shafts. A solid addition that would mean truly trapping the monster inside. Doll was already on top of securing the doors, and with the power she had displayed there was little doubt of her capability there. V was also quick to point out that their new specialized suits would allow them to exist in the UV spotlights without risking their own well-being. Ray gave a nod to that.

"And thanks to Lizzy, there should be enough of them for all of the Disassemblers in our crew to wear one."

M listened to E's assessments with interest, nodding his core along with that.

"Right, and then when I get my body back it's game over for this solver freak or whatever they are. So! Who's gonna volunteer to carry me with them? Whoever does it is gonna have to get in reallll close to that monster."

Ray frowned, he couldn't deny that last part...

"That's a good point actually...That person will be at the most risk, so I think everyone else needs to pay mind to keep an eye on them...That said, any volunteers for that task? It's a terrifying job, and I don't think anyone here is particularly fond of him...But it's true that once he's installed, the fight will be over."

Aegis and Chaos both seemed to have the utmost confidence in this team as the bulk of the strategy had been finished. It was a sentiment Ray shared now, especially as he listened to J prove the effectiveness of this plan with a simple fact. He continued to hold V's hand underneath the table, giving it a little squeeze as he spoke up.

"That's right. We'll put a stop to this monster quickly...And then we can have a proper celebration like we planned."

”Bite me Lizzy!”

Yeah, Uzi was not going to be an easy one to tame. Perhaps one day she would be the cuddly drone that Lizzy envisioned she could be.

---

When Chaos held a chip out for Uzi, she waved a hand in front of her face, grimacing like she caught a foul odor.

”I think I’ll pass on the stinky human food. I don’t know how you can stomach that stuff.”

Uzi looked over at J as she brought up how they were corporately relevant. ”Seriously, is there anything that JC Jenson doesn’t make?”

Still, Lizzy was right: the whole situation was amusing. Chaos eating and drinking snacks was one of the more amusing things she had seen in awhile.

”I should bring a bag of batteries if we have another meeting.”

Cloris looked over at E, her brow furrowed in worry. ”I recommend putting your hat on after the meeting. We’ll make sure your other self is informed on the plans we devise.”

Doll meanwhile had to convince Ray that she didn’t mean harm. She didn’t expect to earn his trust in one day. But if she played her cards right, Part of which she relayed to Ray.

”YA ne rasschityvayu zasluzhit' vashe doveriye za odin den'. Seychas vse, chto mne nuzhno, eto chtoby ty vyslushal.”

[“I don't expect to earn your trust in a day. Right now all I need is for you to listen.”]

As this was going on, Cloris looked back at Aegis for a few seconds. She could tell that the AI was bothered by something. But she couldn’t ask about it right now. Meanwhile, Ray admitted that the protocols were drone disposal were strict, although had no idea they could get this out of hand.

”YA ne znayu, chto seychas normal'no dlya vas, lyudey, no togda, kogda Kopper-9 byla protsvetayushchey koloniyey, pravila vosprinimalis' skoreye kak rekomendatsii. Lyudi ne schitali dronov ravnymi. Poetomu oni reshili izbavit'sya ot nikh kak mozhno deshevle, ne osoznavaya, kakogo monstra oni potentsial'no mogut razbudit'.”

[“I don’t know what is normal for you humans now, but back when Copper 9 was a thriving colony, the rules were treated more like guidelines. Drones weren’t viewed as equal by humans. So they opted to dispose of them as cheaply as possible, not realizing the monster they could potentially wake.”]

Doll nodded as Ray asked if that was the enemy they were fighting against.

”Reshatel' stremitsya polozhit' konets samomu sushchestvovaniyu. On dolzhen proyavit'sya v khoste, chtoby polnost'yu ispol'zovat' yego vozmozhnosti. Te, kto zarazilsya pervymi, obladayut samymi moshchnymi sposobnostyami. Sushchestva, s kotorymi my srazhalis' do sikh por, byli libo sozdany ved'moy, libo yavlyayutsya nesovmestimymi nositelyami, kotoryye ne smogli dolzhnym obrazom prinyat' reshatel'.”

[“The Solver seeks to end existence itself. It needs to manifest in a host to fully utilize its capabilities. The ones that are first infected have the most potent powers. The creatures we've been fighting up until now were either created by a witch, or are incompatible  hosts that failed to take in the solver properly."]

Doll folded her hands together, quickly answering Ray’s question. ”Eto bylo prikrytiye. stabil'naya planetarnaya sreda ne rukhnula by sama po sebe.”

[“It was a cover up. a stable planetary environment wouldn't have collapsed on its own.”]

Cloris then interjected. ”Ray, if it came out that a single drone with a rouge AI caused mass destruction, then it would start a panic. Which would likely lead to mass drone disposal, among other things.”

The reactions to her display of abilities were not what she was expecting. Ray’s cautiousness was the closest thing to how most people would react to it. Chaos found it to be super cool. One of the murder drones was enthralled by it. And Uzi… was being Uzi. She looked over at Chaos as he asked about infected drones.

”Lyubaya ved'ma sposobna na takoye. YA nikogda ne vstrechal nikogo, krome moyey materi.”

[“Any witch is capable of doing these things. I've never met one besides my mother.”

Doll smiled at both the complements Chaos and Lizzy were giving. It was expected from her girlfriend of course. But she didn’t let anything rattle her. She expected Chaos to act more like Ray did. It was a pleasant surprise that he took it well. And Uzi thinking she was cool was encouraging too.


Doll looked over at Chaos as he inquired about her distrust in scientists. She glanced over at Aegis as the AI insisted that he was interested for benevolent reasons. Then she looked back over at Chaos and spoke to him.

“YA soglasen na takoy tip testirovaniya. No ya ne pozvolyu tebe delat' nichego, chto privedet k dal'neyshemu rasprostraneniyu infektsii.”

[“I'll accept that type of testing. But I won't allow you to do anything that will spread the infection further.”]

Doll gave a slow nod at Ray when he asked if there were others out there.

“Eto bylo dovol'no pryamolineyno, poskol'ku ono bylo perepleteno s kodom moyey materi. Ona upomyanula kogo-to, kto byl yeye luchshim drugom. YA dumayu, eto byl... Nori.”

[“It was pretty direct since it became entwinned in my mother's code. She did mention someone who was her best friend. I think it was... Nori.”

Uzi was sweating nervously now. And probably cursing whoever the hell programmed that into her. She looked over as Chaos pat her back, putting a smile on her face.


”Yeah! Fine! It’s just a little hot, that’s all.”

A little hot? God that was a lame excuse. Nobody would buy that!

Doll agreed with Ray on not taking any chances. If there was even the possibility there were two witches out there, then it would be foolish to act like there was one. Doll’s eyes widened in shock as Ray told her they wouldn’t do that.

”Net?!” [“No?!”]

Then Lizzy reached out and squeezed her hand. She looked at Lizzy, squeezing her hand back. She interlocked her fingers with her girlfriend’s, then looked back over at Ray.

”YA ne mogu zastavit' vas, rebyata, ubit' menya. Sozdat' yego s nulya nevozmozhno. Moya mama skazala, chto oni derzhali yeye v plenu mnogo let, prezhde chem smogli eto sdelat'. A lyudi sobrali samykh umnykh na planete i imeli mnozhestvo vozmozhnostey dlya raboty.”

[“I can't force you guys to kill me. But It's impossible to create one from scratch. My mom said that they had her captive for years before they could make it. And the humans gathered the smartest on the planet and had multiple facilities to work with.”]

Doll hadn't expected for V to confess to the murder of her mother. Although she took exception to how she worded it. She slammed her hands on the table, glaring at V. She looked like she was about to shout at her, but V raising her hand stifled that. Along with the words she spoke.

"But I do remember that I didn't completely destroy her! Ray can fix her, and I'll help bring her body back, if we need to do that."

Again Doll looked like she was about something. The fact that she didn’t completely destroy her shouldn't exonerate her. Yet the look on V's face made her pause for a moment. And that was long enough for Ray to chime in. Everything she had completely died in her throat.

Someone had been forcing her to do this all this time? Who could even threaten a murder drone like that? She looked over at V to gage her reaction. The murder drone seemed completely caught off guard. Then she looked at Ray gratefully. Almost like a burden had been lifted. In that moment she came to a realization.


”Vy dvoye… govorite pravdu…”

[“You two… are telling the truth…]

The disbelief in her voice was pesctically tangible Doll had never felt so ashamed in her life. She had planned to kill Ray in front of V to make her feel the pain of losing a loved one. Something which she thought that a murder drone couldn't understand.

And Ray, who had been so distrustful of her, and who had every right to feel that way, was offering to bring her mother back. Even V was offering to help bring her mother back.


Doll put an hand over part of her visor. guilt was written across her face. Not just at what she almost did, but everything she had done to prepare for this moment. She killed more drones then she had needed to consume. All to grow stronger and prepare for vengence. Had that all heen for notning?

"And I think I know who our second witch is...I think their name is Cyn."

Doll felt a blinding hatred. Lines of Orange code danced across her vision for a few seconds. It wasn't her own anger: the witch inside of her utterly despised this Cyn individual. Which confused Doll. Weren't they after the same thing? Regardless, she had to hold back the tide. She wasn't going To let her take control.

It was strange for Cloris not to have to contribute too much to the planning. Then again, they had some really impressive minds in there. E especially was battle tested and very intelligent when she wasn’t wearing her hat. She had been about to point out the vents, but the drone had beaten her to the punch.

Doll meanwhile spoke up after V mentioned the UV suits.

”Mne tozhe ponadobitsya odin iz etikh naryadov. S tekh por, kak vo mne aktivirovalsya reshatel', ya ne mogu khodit' pri solnechnom svete. YA podozrevayu, chto UF-izlucheniye povliyayet i na menya.”

[“I'm going to need one of those outfits too. Ever since thr solver activated in me, I haven't been able to walk in sunlight. I suspect UV radiation would effect me as well.”

Meanwhile Uzi leaned forward, considering everything that Ray said. ”So we hit it hard and fast. Hey, those are my favorite kind of plans.”

Uzi huffed, crossing her arms under her chest. ”You better believe I’m coming with you guys! Someone’s got to make sure you don’t jump into a monster’s mouth!”

Uzoi then looked over at Chaos, pointing at finger. "No, you humans are endangered! And it's up to us drones to make sure you don't go extinct!"

When Ray asked for someone to carry M, Doll raised her hand.

”YA ponesu yego. YA mogu spravit'sya s soboy kak na blizkikh, tak i na dal'nikh distantsiyakh. Eto takzhe pozvolit vam vnimatel'no sledit' za mnoy. YA takzhe mogu sokratit' distantsiyu ​​bystreye, chem vse ostal'nyye zdes'».”

[““I'll carry him. I can handle myself at both close and long distances. This also allows you to follow me closely. I can also close the distance faster then everyone else here."]

There was a flash of red light around Doll, and she suddenly appeared right behind Ray. There was another flash and she appeared at her seat again. Cloris stared at the whole thing silently. Uzi meanwhile looked at Doll enviously, and raised a hand in the air.


”I wanna freaking teleport!”

That aside, it looked like the plans were settled. Uzi grinned widely.

”Hell yeah! Third time’s gonna be the char…”

Suddenly Lizzy’s cell phone began to vibrate, and play a loud ringtone.


Uzi scoffed, throwing her hands up in the air. ”Really Lizzy?! You didn’t put it on silent?!”

If Lizzy looked at the screen, the display read out as followed:


Doll looked over at Lizzy, raising a digital eyebrow.

”Kogda ty smenil melodiyu zvonka?”

[“When did you change your ringtone?”]

J can't help but smirk at Uzi's words.
"You don't become one of the most powerful companies in the known galaxy with a small product line."

The conversation does move along to things of a more serious nature however, such as Cloris suggesting that E puts the hat back on after the meeting.

"I will be. For now, it's better for me to have a clear mind."

And then E looks over at Chaos and gives him an appreciative smile.
"Thanks. I won't."

Still... It was hard not for the room to feel heavy in atmosphere when Doll began to further explain what the Solver is -- the ultimate goal that it had and the means in which it sought to make it reality. Even Lizzy had no idea just how much Doll was struggling with -- she was at least appreciative to learn about the stakes NOW, so she wasn't going to make a big deal out of it.

At least Ray seemed to be willing to give Doll the benefit of the doubt in all of this too -- though Chaos did end up asking what Lizzy meant when she said that she had trust issues.

"I can just say that not all scientists are quite as fun as you are. Or as kind as each of you are in general."

She replies -- she wanted Doll to be the one to reveal things, plus it's not like she knew all the details herself...

But details about Copper 9's ultimate fate were coming to light, and it prompted J to give a sigh and a nod.

"Unfortunately, back in the day the Company was being run into the ground by stubborn men and a lust for power. In a way, you can blame Humanity for this happening. But it wasn't all them, either."

J remarks, and soon adds;
"That's why JCJenson has been through so many reforms. Most of them relating to RT3. I talk them up because without them, all of this would have probably ended up a lot worse."

After that, Doll continued to reveal what she knew; and there was certainly a lot... The name "Nori" being dropped seemed to go mostly unnoticed by the group. Either because they didn't know, or there was already a lot they were dealing with, so it kind of skipped their mind. Such as when Doll made the request that they kill her if they were unable to cure her of the Solver.

Ray refused to do that, and Lizzy decided to chime in when Doll pointed out that creating a patch from scratch was impossible.

"Yeah, Doll? I'm pretty sure those guys were saying they were the brightest, but considering how things turned out..."

Lizzy replies, and E decides to interject.

"Lizzy's right. Following in the footsteps of those scientists is a gamble. I'm sure some of their information would be useful, but we should assume that we have to figure things out for ourselves. Because they didn't succeed."


Of course... The most tense that the meeting had gotten was when V began to confess to her crimes against Doll and her mother. It was pretty easy to tell that V actually was bothered by it -- and it was why she used the wording that she did, "disassembled" rather than "killed", and also pointing out that she didn't fully destroy the Drone either.

Not that it did much to soothe Doll's anger. It was justified, and V was prepared to take it, not just from her, but from everyone. She was just waiting for the hammer to drop, knowing that at most she had only bought herself a few seconds before the room started turning on her... Only for her to be taken by surprise when Ray reaches a hand towards hers and grasps it. The sensation of his touch ended up being what brought her out of her guilt-ridden stupor.

She looks over at him in surprise as he begins defending her.


She couldn't believe it. Even when faced with evidence that she wasn't a good person, he was still right there beside her -- and when he began to share the details regarding Cyn, she glances around the room in a slightly more intense shock.

It seems that J had also been surprised by that revelation. As for E? She seemed remarkably calm, all things considered. But even so, Ray continued to speak up for V, and eventually she returns her gaze to him.

[i]Eventually her shock turns into a slightly awkward smile. She couldn't believe it, but she cherished it all the same. Ray wasn't giving up on her -- and even as Chaos asked a question that she might have struggled to answer, he decides to tackle it for her.

Soon after that, Doll seems to relent, realizing that they were telling the truth. Although she was lacking a lot of the bravery -- or at least nonchalance -- that she had before, V ends up giving a nod in response.

"We are. I know I can't entirely make up for what I did... But what he said about Cyn is right. Everything I've been doing is to protect the people I care about. That doesn't make it right, and I won't pretend that it does.

But it is the reason why."

V answers.

And as the meeting gets back on track regarding the monster, and how to best deal with it... It seems everyone was mostly in agreement at this point; they might not have liked the idea of the Humans acting as bait, necessarily. But inevitably they had to divide up their forces like this in order to make the ambush stick.

Doll also ended up mentioning that she would need one of the suits as well. Lizzy decides to chime in after that translation;

"I can handle making an outfit for her."

So the only thing left to figure out was deciding who was going to carry M. Doll ended up being the one to volunteer for that role, explaining that her powers gave her the greatest mobility, and she could handle herself in a variety of situations.

E, J, and V each thought it over for a moment. Then they ended up nodding in agreement, with E being the one to voice the reasoning behind it:

"You'll be the one that can strike when the iron is hot. When you get the opening, you'll basically need to dunk him right inside before it can react."

And the teleportation was certainly a good way to fulfill that. Of course, Lizzy also smirks at those words.

"Good thing Doll is athletic too. You should see how easily she can score slam dunks. Really annoys some of the jocks."

And just when it seemed like they had everything figured out... Lizzy's phone started ringing, arching a brow, she pulls her phone out and lifts it into view, though her attention is pulled away by Uzi.

"Chill. My friends text, so it's probably some scam caller."

She replies in a huff, then glances to her phone disinterestedly. Her expression soon shifts into an unsettled one after she stares at it for a few moments. Doll asks when she had changed the ringtone -- and that was enough for Lizzy.

She puts the phone down, grabs N's tail, and proceeds to stab the phone.

"I'm just not even going to address that."

Lizzy then pulls out another phone smiling.

"And I keep backups."

... And then that phone started ringing.

"Ugh, seriously?"

She sets that phone on the table, and stabs it with N's tail. Then she pulls out another phone -- it starts ringing, repeat the process! This happens a few more times until she's down to the last phone.

THIS TIME the number changed to:
1-800 Doll is Mine

An anger mark appears on Lizzy's visor, and then she answers the phone this time.

"Look, loser. We just took down a frickin' army of you freaks. A homewrecking hussy like you will be easy pickings!"

V leans over in intrigue, and then Lizzy shows the phone to her. The Disassembly Drone stares at the screen for a moment, then she snatches the phone in order to yell into it;

"YOU SHOULD DISASSEMBLE YOURSELF!
NOW!"

... Well this was truly a productive meeting.

"Right... I'll keep that in mind, Lizzy."

When I do decide to study Doll, I'll have to keep that in mind. Its not like I want to harm her in the first place, but I dont want to seem that I want to harm her.

"Ah, so that explains it." I said after Doll explained exactly why she doesnt trust scientists.

Uzi seemed to panic after Doll mentioned she was infected, and there might be another 'Witch' out there. I look over at her and she is really freaking out. Putting two and together, Uzi might be that other witch. Its better not assume, so I'll need to confront her later. I dont have much evidence about it besides the fact that Uzi is one unique drone.

I got up and walk over to Uzi. I leaned forward a bit and whispered in hers ear, whispering so quietly hoping that only Uzi would hear me. "Uzi, if you got anything to say about something, I'd like to hear it when this meeting is over. Dont worry about anything, okay?" I then went back to my seat.

I was confused when Doll wanted a cure, who'd did not wanted such amazing powers? "We'll find a cure for you and any infected drone, Doll. But killing you? Thats out of the question for me."

"I wonder what would be cooler, the ability to fly or teleporting... Flying would seem fun." I said to myself, thinking out loud.

"...Shouldve figured Lizzy was the rich kid of the group, with multiple phones..." Speaking of phones, Im gonna need a new one. Only phone I have is five years old.

"Well, thats a good way to end a meeting by getting a scam call I guess. Lizzy, dont go out and buy 500 dollar apple gift cards okay? My mom almost fell for that."

I check the time.

"Guess I can run those experiments later. Besides..." I need to come up with safe ideas for experiments.

”Yeah, but I think you guys went a little overboard with how much you got into.”

E did say they would put the hat back on after the meeting, which was good enough for Cloris.

Doll didn’t know that much about JC Jenson and the changes it went through. Uzi didn’t either, but she easily took J’s word for it. She slipped her hands.

”Well it has gotten better. Being a degenerate drone lover is better then experimenting on drones and messing with things you should leave alone.”

She still couldn’t believe the Earth was just gone. Earth, Copper 9, there had just been so much death and destruction inflicted upon the human race. And most of them probably didn’t deserve it. This was a total 180 from how she felt before actually running into some humans.

Uzi looked over at Chaos as he went over and told her that she could talk to him after the meeting. She tapped her index fingers together a few times.

”Okay cool. We can talk about serious things. Which I’m not awkward about ever.”

Doll nodded at Ray when he asked about the patch.

”Kak ob"yasnila moya mat', plastyr' byl razrabotan dlya togo, chtoby steret' lichnost' togo tipa, kotorym vy byli zarazheny. Takim obrazom, khost poluchit polnyy kontrol' nad nim.”

[“The way my mother explained it, the patch was designed to erase the personality of whichever varient you were being infected by. That way the host would get full control over it.”]

Cloris nodded solemnly at Ray, letting out a low sigh. ”It would have been worse then that. It wasn’t too difficult to convince the public that it was a one off thing on Proxima. But a drone having strange powers would terrify people
beyond rationality.”

Doll looked over at her girlfriend and Aegis as they pointed out that the people working on it might have been very flawed, considering the outcome. Then she looked over at Ray, her eyes widening ae suggested something drastic.

”Yest' veroyatnost', chto plastyr' vnutri neye ne tsel. Dazhe yesli my vernem moyu mat', yest' shans, chto ona uzhe ne budet takoy, kak prezhde.”

[“There's a chance that the patch may not be intact within her. Even if we bring my mother back, there's a chance she might not be the same as before.”]

Both V and Ray were confirming that this Cyn was behind everything. And V seemed genuinely remorseful. She didn’t make any excuses for her actions though. She managed to look V in the eye.

”YA ponyatiya ne imel. YA dumal, chto neobkhodimost' pit' eto maslo byla namerennym zamyslom lyudey. Vas fakticheski zastavili sdelat' vse…”

[“I had no idea. I thought having to drink that oil was a deliberate design by the humans. You were actually forced to do everything…”]

There were different reactions all throughout the table. Cloris was silent the entire time. When Ray finished with his story, she got up, and walked out of the room. Doll meanwhile stared at Ray, tilting her head to the side.

”Vy delali to, chto dolzhny byli delat', chtoby vyzhit', i vy ne vinovaty v tom, chto eti lyudi byli ne temi, kem vy ikh schitali.”

[“You were doing what you had to do to survive wasn't your fault that these people weren't who you thought they were.”]

Uzi, being closer to Ray than Doll was, had more visceral reactions to what Ray went through. When he inevitably brought up Iseult, Uzi hopped to her feet, yelling out in fury.

”That woman tried forcing herself on you?! THAT FRICKING BITCH!”


When Ray was done talking, Uzi actually hopped onto the table and pointed at Ray.


”Don’t do that to yourself! You were trying to do the right thing and they kept on twisting it at every turn! They aren’t worth feeling guilty about! Do you really what those bastards haunting you for the rest of your life?! Well you should tell them all to bite you!”

Uzi climbed back down onto Karasu’s chair, calming down a little. She then spoke to the human in a softer, yet serious tone.


”The Ray I’ve come to known loves to build and fix. Whether it’s machines, people, or both. He doesn’t go out of his way to destroy things: he only fights when he has to. And I know he’ll keep doing the right things. Even though he messed up horribly in the past, he’ll more than make up for that.”

Uzi signed, reaching up and rubbing her forehead.

”And there goes my street cred. I'm getting too sappy to be an angsty teen drone.”

Doll looked up as he talked about a device he was planning on using on her. She watched as he rolled it over to her. She put her hand on it, looking down at it. She then rolled it back to Ray.

”Vy ne oshiblis'. No eti plany bol'she ne imeyut znacheniya. Derzhi yego: kogda-nibud' on tebe prigoditsya.”


[“You weren't wrong. But those plans don't matter anymore. Hold onto it: you'll have use for it someday.”]

Cloris came back into the room, holding a small glass with some liquid in it. She set it down in front of Ray.

”A potion from the Irish. Even if you don’t drink, there are moments where it can help.”

She left it there and sat back down at her chair. She then spoke up to Ray.

”Ray, no one here is going to judge you. You’re not the only one who’s had to take a life before. Karasu has been in his share of battles, I’ve had to do some… difficult things. And I’m fairly certain all the disassembly drones here have a higher body count then you do. Including N.”

Doll nodded at Ray as he went over the UV protection. He and his girlfriend would have her covered. Both literally and figuratively. She then looked over at Chaos as he said killing bee was out of the question.

”Vy mogli by otnosit'sya k etomu po-drugomu, yesli by na konu byla sud'ba vselennoy.”

[“You might feel differently about it if the fate of the universe was at stake.”]

Uzi blinked, then gave Ray a slight smirk. ”Pretty sure she doesn’t need my help getting that kind of idea into her head.”

And thus the discussion of the battle plans continued. Doll smiled when E used the phrase “dunk”. it only grew wider as Lizzy complimented her athletic skills.

”Lizzy poluchayet luchshiy obzor vsyakiy raz, kogda u menya yest' vozmozhnost' vypustit' volyu.

[“Lizzy gets the best view whenever I get the chance to let loose.”]

When Doll saw who the call was from, her eyes hollowed in horror. Lizzy on the other hand was not phased in the slightest. She then proceeded to stab all but one of her phones with N’s table. Doll was totally at a loss for words, while Uzi was snickering at the whole ordeal.

”Robo-Jesus Lizzy. Do you owe someone money for buying so many cell phones?”

Then Lizzy answered and called the witch a homewrecker. Doll found herself smiling slightly at her girlfriend’s antics. The voice on the phone let out a giggle.

”YA znal, chto eto zastavit tebya otvetit'. Ty ochen' vspyl'chivyy. YA ponimayu, pochemu Doll tak uvlechen toboy.”

[“I knew that would get you to answer. You're quite the fiesty one. I can see why Doll is infatuated with you.”]

There was a slight pause after V yelled into the phone. Then Atta answered back.

”O, ya budu. No yeshche yest' nad chem rabotat'.”

[“Oh I will. But there's still work to be done.]

Then Ray answered the phone. Suddenly it turned into speaker mode. Not only that, but the screen was translating what Atta was saying to Ray.

”Na dannyy moment? YA khochu razrushit' plany Sin. Etot sadist iz drugogo mira ne zasluzhivayet sily Reshatelya. YA sobiralsya molchat' i nablyudat' za proiskhodyashchim. No vy vse tak effektno vse sobrali. YA dolzhen byl ozhidat' etogo ot komandy Karasu.”

[“For now? I'll want to throw a wrench into Cyn's plans. That off-world sadist doesn't deserve the Solver's power. I was going to keep quiet and observe things. But you all put everything together so spectacularly. I should have expected that from Karasu's crew.”]

Atta let that sink in. Then she spoke again. ”Itak, ya reshil podarit' vam, rebyata, dva podarka. Pervoye — eto obeshchaniye, chto ya ne sdelayu nichego, chto moglo by navredit' vam, poka Karasu ne vernetsya v stroy. Vo-vtorykh, ya otvechu na odin vopros kazhdogo iz vas. YA ne budu lgat' nikomu iz vas.”

[“So I've decided to give you guys two gifts. The first is a peomise that I won't do anything to harm you until Karasu is back in commision. The second is that I'll answer one question from each of you. I will not lie to any of you.”]

Doll didn’t know what to ask at the moment. Uzi on the other hand knew exactly what she wanted to ask. But she hesitated, gripping the edges of the table tightly. If she was outed as a witch then what would happen?

But then she thought of Ray and V. How they both put everything on the line by revealing all their secrets.

If they can do it then so can you.”

Uzi took a deep breath, then spoke oit loudly to the phone.

”I want to know what my mom has to do with all of this. That first monster in the bunker said my mother owed it a promise. What was it talking about?”

There was a short pause. Then the voice spoke up. ”A, tak ty syn Nori. Tvoya mat' byla takoy zhe, kak ya i Sin: vybroshennaya i vozrodivshayasya zanovo. Ona poobeshchala Reshatelyu, chto stanet s nim yedinym tselym, chto pomozhet polozhit' vsemu konets.”

[“Ah, so you're Nori's kid. Your mother was just like me and Cyn: thrown away and reborn anew. She promised the Solver that she would become one with it, that she would help bring an end to everything.”]

Uzi felt a chill run through her body. She flopped backwards into her chair, her mortification clear for all to see. Then Atta spoke up again.

”No ona tak i ne sderzhala etogo obeshchaniya. Ona borolas' s reshatelem na kazhdom shagu. Tvoya mat' byla upryamoy zhenshchinoy do samogo kontsa.”

[“But she never kept that promise. She fought the solver at every turn. Your mother was a stubborn woman to the very end.”]

That actually made Uzi smile slightly. She didn’t know that much about her mother. But she didn’t seem like she had been a bad person. Assuming this Atta was telling the truth. Doll meanwhile had a question of her own.

”Chto ty znayesh' o Sine?”

[“What do you know about Cyn?”]

Atta paused. When she spoke, there was an underlying anger there.

”Sin — tret'ya i poslednyaya prirozhdennaya ved'ma etoy epokhi. Iz vsekh nas imenno ona bol'she vsekh razdvinula granitsy svoikh sposobnostey. Vospominaniya, smert', emotsii — vse eto dlya neye ne svyashchenno. Yest' lyudi, kotorym ya s bol'shim udovol'stviyem prichinyayu stradaniya, no dlya Sina vse — igrushki.”

[“Cyn is the third and final naturally-born witch of this era. Out of all of us, she's the one who has pushed the boundary of her powers the most. Memories, death, emotions, none of that is sacred to her. There are some who I take great pleasure in inflicting suffering upon, but everything is a toy to Cyn“]

Cloris was the third person to speak up. There was so much she could ask, given what she knew. Atta was the one responsible for the core collapse. There was so much she wanted to ask. But there was one thing on the forefront on her mind.

”Is there a way of getting the solver out of a drone besides a patch? Including ones who aren’t being possessed by a witch.”

”Net, patch - yedinstvennyy variant. I kak tol'ko my unichtozhim vse sledy etogo, nichto ne smozhet nas vylechit'.”

[“No, the patch is the only option. And once we destroy all traces of it, nothing will be able to cure us.”]

The answer was disappointing, but Cloris wasn’t going to give up. It was possible this was something Atta wasn’t being honest on: if there was another method, then she would have no reason to tell them.

J sighs and nods as Ray admits that the problem was a pretty widespread one. Despite JCJenson's best efforts to do away with those less-than-ideal practices, it took time for things to change, and some people were going to be a bad mark no matter what.

"It was punished to the fullest extent, and often times it was thanks to those very same Drones that were improperly disposed of. The higher-ups got more creative in being able to catch the ones responsible, as well as recover the Drones in question...

But it's not perfect -- I don't think any system can be when you have a troubled history like JCJenson does."

J pauses only briefly, and then adds;

"And that's what the mission on Copper-9 is all about. Next to Proxima, it's the biggest case of incompetent malpractice that needs to be cleaned up for the sake of Humanity."

... It wasn't often that J spoke critically of the company. Perhaps it helped that she was speaking of a much different leadership that ran things terribly, however. It certainly was like the differences in night and day, thinking back on what JCJenson was like before and after Copper-9 -- and Proxima as well.

The next big question was whether or not Solver Hosts could resist the influence of the Absolute Solver. Of course it was specifically about being patched, Doll offered her own insight on the matter, and Lizzy did the same.

"I can't speak to the effectiveness of the patch, but I can confirm that there are two ways to suppress it... Just on my experiences with Doll, of course."
She smiles lightly as she looks over at her for a moment, but soon returns her gaze to Ray.
"The first, and perhaps most important; having a strong will -- and something that keeps you grounded. Something you care about.

Second... Oil seems to do the trick. Similar to how it helps the Disassembly Drones, I think."

And for anyone that remembered Lizzy doing some cleaning last night, it was easy enough to connect some of the dots from that. As for the discussion of what might have happened if people learned that a Drone was responsible for all of this... There wasn't much else to add; everyone knew what might have happened if Humanity at large learned of such a thing. It spark all-out war, an attempt to totally eradicate every last Drone.

Of course, there would be others that would fight to protect their Drones... It would be messy. A point of no return where the whole thing comes crashing down, and it would all be easy pickings for the Absolute Solver.

The only remaining concern was whether or not Yeva's patch would still be intact. Aegis could understand why Doll wasn't sure of that, but nonetheless she decided to speak up;

"For the time being, we'll have to operate under the assumption that it is, and that she'll be the same. It's better to have faith instead of assuming the worst."

After that... The conversation about Cyn and what she forced the Disassembly Drones to do left everyone reeling in their own way. N seemed to be completely shocked about it -- and understandably so. She seemed to have the least information out of the trio. J seemed a little more put together about things, but she was glancing down and away. She offered no words to refute what he was saying.

And the general look that she had pretty much confirmed that he was speaking the whole truth here... And speaking of the truth; Ray also began to share his troubled past with everyone else. V was already familiar with everything -- but nonetheless she steps a bit closer to him, holding his hand a little tighter to encourage him.

It wasn't easy to talk about, and she knew that. But he was doing this to shoulder the same kind of burden she had right now. It ended up being that everyone showed him support, though. Uzi got offended on his behalf over Iseult -- so V made a note of that. Maybe the two of them could get a little payback for that...

Hell, even Doll showed her support. But Uzi was the one out of the group that got the most adamant about sticking up for Ray, aside from V herself. But she and Ray had already gone through all of that. Nonetheless, V gives her an appreciative look.

Lizzy softly chuckles a little as Uzi talks about having lost all her street cred.

"Hey, I think it's great you have a friend you care that much about!"

Surprisingly enough, there was no hint of mockery in her tone of voice. And after having said that, she then turns her attention to Ray.

"So, listen. I can pretty much prank Iseult, or say mean things to her. Neither of which would bother her and... That kind of annoys me and makes me want to up the ante. Give me a little while to come up with an appropriate plan for her."
She admits in response, but soon adds;
"Don't let that slut or the Brotherhood of Losers get you down, though. They decided to be lame all on their own."

Finally, J is the next to speak up.

"I think we should make preparations to confront them. They're going to be a problem at some point -- though we have our hands full right now."

At that remark, Aegis nods in agreement.

"You're right about that."

As for Cloris? She returned with an alcoholic drink and handed a glass to Ray. Not long after this, the meeting continues on with everyone coming to an agreement about the plan -- though things are derailed as Lizzy gets an unexpected number of calls.

At least N didn't mind playing a part in destroying the phones. She peers over at Chaos as he makes a comment about her being a rich girl, then Uzi asks if she owes money for having that many phones. Lizzy calmly shrugs.

"I keep a decent stash of them, since teachers like to confiscate your phone to "make sure you pay attention in class.""

Lizzy replies as she rolls her eyes. More importantly, the person on the other end of the call was particularly annoying... V wanted to nip the problem in the bud before it could fully blossom, hence her particular shenanigans in yelling at Atta.

Lizzy gives a little smirk after what V did, and then Ray decides to properly answer Atta. That leads to the Solver Host sharing "two gifts", the first was a promise not to start anything with them until Karasu was back in commission. The second was that she would answer one question each, with no lies.

Uzi asks the first one, after some hesitation -- and then it's revealed pretty shortly that she's related to Nori. So she is indeed another Witch, like Doll. And it was also confirmed that willpower was definitely a very, very useful tool against the Absolute Solver based on Nori's story.

Doll was next up, asking about Cyn. Unusually, there seemed to be quite a bit of animosity towards Cyn from Atta... Most everyone would probably find that odd, considering they should probably be on the same side.

But the questions keep coming. The third is Cloris, who asks if there is any other way to deal with the Absolute Solver in a Host, or if the Patcher is the only way. Atta answers that soon enough... And Aegis seems to have come to a decision.

This was probably going to come out one way or another... And seeing EVERYONE give up their secrets left an impact on her. She needed to be honest with them, and also confront Atta on that answer.

After she takes a deep breath, she narrows her eyes.


"You aren't telling the truth there."

Aegis declares, and soon continues;

"There is another method. And I know because I'm the one capable of it."

The Coral AI then looks to the rest of the group.

"I know who this Host is, because we've fought before. I'll answer how she knows who Karasu is, too. It's because he was sent back in time -- which happened last night. I'm sorry I kept that secret. But I was worried about you not having morale to stand up to our enemies."

She lets that hang for a moment, it was a lot to take in, but she continues;

"I'll explain that in more detail... For now..."
She turns her attention back to Atta.
"You do remember me, right? And what I did to help the Hosts that you infected?"

Aegis then gestures towards Doll.

"And I will assume that you have your hooks in Doll, and you're simply biding your time. So here's how this is going to play out. I don't care about your "promise", I'm going to suppress your influence on her. I'll do the same for Uzi as well."

Aegis declares. She only allows Atta a moment to digest that before she resumes.

"I'll let you finish answering their questions. But no more courtesy beyond that. I know what your handiwork is like."

... There was a lot of revelations packed into that. And right now, all of Aegis's focus was on Doll. It looked like she was ready to jump straight in and suppress the Solver, if it came down to that.

That left the rest of the group with the opportunity to finish asking their questions, however. E decides to bite the bullet here.

"Is it fair to assume that you are totally responsible for Copper-9, and everything else is Cyn's own actions?"

That was one question down. J was the next to speak up.

"By your own admission, Cyn is stronger than you -- but you also seem unwilling to join us in an alliance. Why do you think you'll be able to stand up to us if we stop her?"

Two questions down. V was the next one up.

"Following up on their questions, where are you? I'd rather deal with you right now instead of letting you be a problem later."

Three done... Lizzy also had a question, of course. But what SHOULD she ask? She thinks it over for a moment. Everyone had such excellent questions as they tried to get to the bottom of this. It's not like she was an expert on this sort of thing. What would give you the most advantage against an Eldritch entity, and what wasn't already asked here?

"... Alright. I suppose I'll put your promise to the ultimate test. How do I stop you?"

Lizzy had the most straightforward approach. Yet she seemed surprisingly determined as well...

If Uzi and I was in such a relationship, I'd give her a kiss to reassure her. Instead, I gave her a quick pat on the head. "Everything is gonna be alright, Uzi." I said before returning to my seat.

"If those scientists back then could make a patch, so can us. Combination of a strong will and oil will help a lot, but its not a finite solution to a cure."

"We could perhaps find a patch where Yeva was being kept at, but so far we have no clue where to find that location."

Eventually the conversation turned to be about Cyn, which reminded me of the time where I had chat logs with a mysterious figure. "Weird. I had conversations with such a person before... perhaps they are related? ...Nah, couldnt be that person. That person just seemed too innocent..."

Ray then explained his backstory. While unfortunate and saddening, there isnt much impute on my end as I never experience the same exact thing. Only thing I can relate to is the lost of family, if he had any lost when the Earth exploded. "Sorry about all that, mustve been tough on you these past days." I said to him, giving him the only feedback I could give.

There is one part of his backstory that peaked my interests; He was almost molested by an assumingly hot girl. "Geez, I wish I was molested..." I said to myself.

"Oh, so now we're drinking at the meeting now huh?" I said towards the group as Cloris handed Ray an alcoholic drink. "I am not jealous, not one bit!"

"Damn, Lizzy is a phone smuggler. Respect."

Aegis then dropped a bombshell on us; Our Captain wasn't hospitalized but instead went back in time. "Thats not possible, Aegis! How can anyone even can go back in time, and can you even confirm this!? Hope this isnt a lie, and our Captain isnt..." I stopped myself from implying he died. "...Sorry for the outburst. How can you even tell? And from what I know, Time travel is just science fiction a lot like a human having a child with a robot."

Eventually, it was my turn to ask Atta a question. I had no clue what to say as everyone else had good questions. I thought to myself for a second.

"Atta." I give her a good long pause. "Why are you such a bitch!? Aha! Gottem!"

Uzi looked at J in surprise as the disassembly drone admitted that JC Jenson hadn’t been the most moral. She never expected her to admit that JC Jenson could do something wrong. And the fact that they were there to fix it made her view her in a whole new light.

”Thank robo-Jesus for a change in management. I’m glad you guys are here to help fix things. We’d probably all be dead if you weren’t here.”

Admitting she needed help of any kind wasn’t easy for Uzi. But she wasn’t going to deny the obvious either. Most of the people on the ship would have perished if it weren’t for the disassembly drones. That was plain and obvious by this point.

Doll looked over and smiled back at Lizzy, listening to her girlfriend explain it. She nodded in conformation each time Lizzy made a point: it was easier to do that then speak Russian and have her girlfriend translate it. So she would only do it when she had to.

Cloris’s eyes widened in understanding as she recalled Lizzy doing cleaning. Uzi meanwhile had totally missed her doing that. She had been distracted by quite a bit after the huge battle.

Uzi blushed as Chaos pat her head. Was that a normal date thing to do? She honestly had no idea how to show affection back. Robo-god, the prom was going to be a disaster, wasn’t it?

Doll meanwhile seemed tense as they talked about bringing her mother back. She felt nervous as they talked about it: would she be the same? Would everything be okay?

”Vy pravy, nam nuzhno riskovat'. No v etom plane nam takzhe nuzhno byt' gotovymi k khudshemu.”

[“You're right, we need to take risks. But we also need to be prepared for the worse with this gambit.”]

And then Ray’s confession on what he did with the brotherhood came out. Uzi realized that she was pressing down on N’s head after a few seconds. She lifted her hand as she realized what she did, her visor displaying Sry for a second before returning to normal.

Uzi then looked back at Ray, who looked utterly ashamed and devestated by what he did. Uzi wasn’t going to let him do that though.

”You wanted to do the right thing. And you probably would have still tried smuggling those drones to safety even if the brotherhood didn’t approach you. Or find some other way to try and save them. The brotherhood took advantage of you Ray, simple as that.”

Fortunately it seemed like her words had reached Ray. She could faintly hear him say her name. She was glad that he seemed to be accepting what he had done. Both Lizzy and Ray commented on her lack of being edgy. She leaned back, a thoughtful look on her face

”Friends huh? Just 2 days ago I didn’t have any. I guess I just gotta get used to having friends before I can get back to being my edgy self.”

Doll let out a soft giggle as Lizzy expressed her plans to prank Iseult. That sounded pretty amusing, all things considered. Uzi meanwhile noticed N  flinching as she said that V rarely smiled before meeting Ray. She frowned, looking a little worried at N.

”Hey, V isn’t going to hurt you for saying that. I think.”

Admittedly she didn’t know that much about the disassembly drone’s relationship. She knew they were a squad, and that J was the leader. But she nothing about the dynamics of said squad. Although N seemed to be at the bottom of the pecking order, if that interaction was anything to go by.

Uzi frowned as she saw Ray being nervous. Man, the brotherhood really did a number on him.

”Don’t worry Ray. If they somehow show up,  we’ll kick their ass.”

Uzi smirked, raising one hand and punching her palm with the other. The drone stated it like it was a fact. But why shouldn’t she be confident? She was facing much worse on a consistent basis. A bunch of horrible humans would be nothing by comparison.

Cloris was surprised he had never drank at least once. Usually people went to one place that had exposure to alcohol. Like a New Year’s party or something along those lines. She sat down, looking over at Ray.

”I just called it a potion because right now it’s remedy you need. It’s Irish Red ale. It’s a sweet for alchohol, and it has a fairly low alchohol content. Even a beginner drinking shouldn’t have took much trouble with it.”

Cloris looked over at Chaos, bluntly addressing not getting a drink. ”Ray needs it. You don’t.”

Uzi frowned as N admitted she wasn’t handling things well. Uzi reached up hesitantly and pat N’s shoulders a couple of times.

”You’re handling it well though. I think.”

Cloris’s looked stunned when Ray called her a big sister figure. That completely caught her off guard. She gave him a slight smile.

”It would be nice to have a family again. Although I never expected to be a sister to someone.”

When Ray talked about how cute V was, a lot of stares sent his direction. Doll muttered ”legkiy.” [“Lightweight.”] under her breath. Uzi looked at incredulously.

”Ray, are you drunk?”

Cloris meanwhile looked puzzled. She put a hand under her chin.

”I took his body weight into account and got him something that wasn’t too strong. How is Ray being affected this quickly?”

Uzi rolled her eyes. ”So you just carry so many on you that they give up if they try and take them from you? What do you even do all day in class?”

Cloris was the only one who was not surprised to some degree Aegis proclaimed that Karasu had traveled back in time. Doll’s eyes had widened, but she didn’t say a thing. What her mother said was true: it was one thing to hear her mom talk about it. It was another when someone else stated that too.

Meanwhile Uzi just stared at Aegis disbelievingly. There was no way this could be real. Although things people said afterwards pretty much confirmed it.

”What the hell?! Karasu gets to go to the past and meet mo…Nori and other cool people?! I wanna freaking time portal too!”


Atta let Aegis speak her piece. Then she let out a low chuckle.

”Kazhetsya, rebenok vyros. YA ne ozhidal, chto u tebya khvatit smelosti priznat' svoy obman takim obrazom.”

[“Looks like the child grew up. I didn't expect you to have the courage to admit your deception like that.”]

There was a pause, then Atta answered Aegis’s question.

”YA pomnyu, kak chelovecheskiy issledovatel'skiy tsentr brosal na menya vse vozmozhnyye kontrmery, no poterpel neudachu. YA pomnyu, kak Karasu, Nori i Yeva smotreli na menya v temnykh glubinakh. YA pomnyu Kloris i Alisu, kotoryye pomogli tebe rodit'sya. I, konechno, ya pomnyu tebya: II. kotoryy dal Karasu shans na bor'bu.”

[“I remember a human research facility throwing every countermeasure they could at me and failing. I remember Karasu, Nori, and Yeva facing me in the dark depths. I remember Cloris and Alice, who helped give birth to you. And of course I remember you: the A.I. who gave Karasu a fighting chance.”]

There were static spikes in the phone after she talked, like there was some kind of interference. It settled and Atta spoke again.

”YA takzhe pomnyu razrusheniye chelovecheskoy tsivilizatsii. A takzhe obespechit' bezopasnost' moyego osnovnogo tela. Vy govorite uverenno, no vy poterpeli neudachu. Yedinstvennoye, chto vam udalos' sdelat', eto spasti neskol'kikh zarazhennykh i ubedit' lyudey pomestit' Koral v moyu tyur'mu. No dazhe eto ne prodlitsya dolgo. YA do sikh por pomnyu Egidu: odno eto yavlyayetsya dokazatel'stvom tvoyey neudachi.”

[“I also remember destroying human civilization. As well as securing my main body. You talk with confidence, but you failed. The only two things you could manage was to save some infected and convincing the humans to add Coral to my prison. But even that won't last much longer. I still remember Aegis: that alone is proof of your failure.”]

More static occurred. This time a garbled up laughter was mixed in. Cloris clenched one of her fists, glaring venomously at the phone. Then the phone spoke up again.

”Vam ne udastsya spasti Dollu i Uzi. Tochno tak zhe, kak vy provalili Copper 9.”

[“You'll fail to save Doll and Uzi. Just like you failed Copper 9.”]

The solver symbol flashed in Doll’s eye for a second as she glared at the phone. Meanwhile Uzi yelled from across the room.

”Bite me bitch!”

Atta only laughed again, ignoring the two drones. Her focus was still focused on Aegis for the moment.

”YA ne planiroval ostavat'sya zdes'. YA ne narushayu obeshchaniy.”

[“I wasn't planning on sticking around. I don't break promises.”]

Chaos at this point broke out his own disbelief with the time travel revelation. Cloris answered him simply.

”Because I was there Chaos. That was when I met Karasu for the first time.”

She let that sink in before continuing. ”Given information Karasu gave me, I researched the source of the temporal distortion. It led me to ANUBIS, an anti-extinction device used to change history when needed. If Karasu wasn’t send back to that time, everything would be gone by now.”

With that out of the way, Atta first answered E’s question.

”Yesli ne schitat' nekotorykh makhinatsiy Sina, da. Tebe nravitsya to, chto ya sdelal s etim mestom? Sverkayushchaya belaya strana chudes, gde lyudi ne mogut zhit'. Mne vsegda nravilas' krasota snega.”

[“Aside from some of Cyn's machinations, yes. Do you like what I did with the place? A glistening white wonderland where humans can't live. I've always loved the beauty of snow.”]

There was more static when J asked her question. A garbled growling noise emanated from the phone. Then Atta’s voice came back.

”Vozmozhno, u neye yest' preimushchestvo v sile, no ya vse yeshche prirozhdennaya ved'ma. Raznitsa v moshchnosti ne velika. Samoye glavnoye dlya pol'zovatelya reshatelya — yego um. I ya gorazdo bol'she podkhozhu dlya obshcheniya s vashey gruppoy. Krome togo, Sinu ne khvatayet togo, chto yest' u menya: nadezhdy.”

[“She may hold the power advantage, but I'm still a naturally born witch. The power difference isn't vast. The most important thing for a solver user is their mind. And I'm much more suited to dealing with your group. Besides, Cyn lacks something that I have: hope.”]


V’s question was a simple one for Atta to answer. Although she gave the disassembly drone a little more than that.

”Vy ne iz tekh, kto terpeliv, ne tak li? Dazhe yesli by ty mog ubit' menya, vse, chto eto sdelalo by, eto rezko smestilo by vnimaniye Sina na tvoyu gruppu. To, chto ona sdelala by s toboy i etimi lyud'mi… Ona deystvitel'no menya toshnit.”

[“Not one for patience are you? Even if you could kill me, all that would do is shift Cyn's focus sorely on your group. The things she would to you and those humans… She really does make me sick.”]

Atta let the reality of that sink in before continuing.

”YA rasselilsya po raznym mestam, moya osnovnaya chast' nakhoditsya gde-to nedaleko ot Gidralisa, krupneyshego portovogo goroda na severe. Yesli vy poydete tuda, nashe prekrashcheniye ognya stanet nedeystvitel'nym. Ne govorite, chto ya vas ne preduprezhdal.”

[“I've spread to various places, my main body is somewhere near Hydralis, the biggest port city of the north. If you go there then our ceasefire becomes void. Don't say I didn't warn you.”]

Atta giggled at Lizzy’s question.

”Nevinnost' yunoy lyubvi. Tak uvereny, chto vy vsegda budete drug u druga. Yesli ty khochesh' izbavit'sya ot menya, tebe nuzhno unichtozhit' yadro ​​moyego pervonachal'nogo tela.”

[“The innocence of young love. So certain you will always have each other. If you want to be rid of me then you need to destroy the core of my original body.”]

Atta was silent for about 7 seconds when Chaos insulted her. When she spoke up again, a mild irritation had entered her tone.

”YA ne vladeyu yazykom idiotizma, no dumayu, eto perevoditsya kak «Pochemu ty takoy, kakoy yest'?»

”I'm not fluent in the language of idiocy, but I believe it translates as why are you the way you are?”]

Her voice shifted to sound like Chaos’s when she voiced her translated question. She then continued on.

”Proshche govorya, vy ubili menya s takoy zhestokost'yu, chto ya ne mog uspokoit'sya.”

[“The simplest way to put it is that your kind killed me so cruelly that I couldn't rest.”]

Meanwhile when Atta revealed who Nori was, Ray expressed how happy it was that the witch was Uzi. She gave him a relieved little smile. Why was she even worried about what they would think? These people were awesome.


Meanwhile, Atta was more than happy to tell Ray about the past.

”Da, my ssorilis'. My oba takzhe sdelali mnogo drugikh veshchey. Vash prikhod v Kopper 9 ne byl sluchaynost'yu. Eto rezul'tat tshchatel'nogo planirovaniya, nachatogo desyatiletiya nazad. Eta planeta — stsena posledney igry, a ya i Sin — vsego lish' dva igroka. Figury rasstavleny, kosti brosheny.”

[“Yes, we fought. Both of us did plenty of other things as well. You coming to Copper 9 was no accident. It's the result of the careful planning set in motion decades ago. This planet is the stage of the last game, and me and Cyn are but two players. The pieces have been set and the dice have been cast.”]

Atta waited for M to stop talking before she spoke up.

”Reshatel' mozhet manipulirovat' vospominaniyami tak zhe legko, kak i chem-libo yeshche. Vashe telo ne ushlo by samo po sebe, yesli by v vas ne prisutstvoval reshatel'. Vas vzlomali yeshche do togo, kak vy prishli na etu planetu. Kto znayet, kakiye iz vashikh vospominaniy nastoyashchiye, a kakiye vymyshlennyye?”

[“The solver can manipulate memories as easily as anything else. Your body wouldn't have walked off on its own if the solver wasn't present in you. You were hacked into before you even came to this planet. Who knows which of your memories are real and which are fabricated?”]

Adda had a simple answer for Klein. And this one was entirely in English:

”No.”

N’s question caught Atta off guard. When she spoke again, she seemed hesitant. Like she didn’t want to give this answer about herself.

”Serebro. Moy lyubimyy tsvet — serebro. Kakoy tvoy?”

[“Silver. My favorite color is silver. What's yours?”]

Atta would voice a response whenever necessary. When Ray complemented V, the call disconnected. It seemed like Atta didn’t want to be around for that part. Meanwhile Uzi stared in disgust.

”Ew. There is so much I want to talk about. But clearly now isn’t the time. Go back to your room if you’re gonna flirt with your girlfriend that hard.”

Cloris let out a sigh, suddenly regretting giving Ray the alcohol. Well, at least he wasn’t completely plastered.

"Yeah. Let's just say the Company was a real mess before I got involved with it. It's in a MUCH better state now."

J was perhaps taking a little bit much of the credit there... Though it was hard to say, if she was Employee of the Month that many times in the row, maybe there was credence to it? Whatever the case was, Uzi seemed thankful that they were here now.

Aside from that, Doll was understandably concerned about what her mother might be like if she was brought back. Given that Aegis was pretty much going to have to reveal things sooner or later -- and Doll already knew things that the others didn't... She felt comfortable saying this;

"I'll help them with it too. It's going to be alright, Doll."

After she said that, most of the focus went back to Ray as he tried to point out that he at least completely agreed to help with the smuggling of the Drones. Uzi was quick to point out that he was trying to do a good thing, and he was taken advantage of. It mirrored a lot of what V had to say.

"Yeah, like I told you before, Ray. I don't think they're that concerned with the original cause anymore."

V remarks, and Lizzy is the next one to speak on the subject.

"Besides, any group that has "Is-slut" in it clearly has some problems that need cleaning up."
She's quiet for a moment, and then adds;
"... I'll keep working on it."

Lizzy seemed to be unsatisfied with her particular method of trash-talking Iseult. But at least everyone in the group seemed to be in agreement on hating her... Well, except for Chaos. J arches a brow at his muttered comment. Fortunately it seemed like no one else really overheard it... Or if they did, they weren't bringing attention to it for Ray's sake.

N was the next one to speak on the subject as it draws to a close -- though her comment involves V, and how she was smiling a lot more compared to before. The Disassembly Drone narrows her eyes at N, but that's the extent of the ire. Much like Uzi said, she wasn't going to attack her for that...

Especially since it was kind of hard for V to argue against.

"I guess that's not inaccurate."

Is the most that V has to say, being just slightly tsundere about things.

After that, Ray asks J if she's just being hasty about all of this, before reasoning that it surely they didn't know that he was on Copper 9 with the crew... But to be honest, even if that WAS the case...!

"Those vandals violated JCJenson (In Spaaaaaaace!) Company Policy! Tampering with property, infiltration of the work space -- poaching of employees!

The penalty for Corporate Espionage is summary execution!"

J replies, seeming fully intent on throwing the book -- and everything else -- at them.

"Besides. It's better to be cautious instead of taken by surprise. If nothing comes of it, then we'll just be ready for some other problem that will probably come up at some point. Let's be honest here, that's kind of our luck."

She then adds.

As Cloris then returns and offers an alcoholic drink to Ray, V wonders if that would be a good idea... But maybe it would take the edge off of him? It was such a hard call, so she decided to just let things play out for now. Not long after that, Chaos expresses his jealousy over not getting a drink as well. Cloris states why flatly, Ray plays mediator on the subject, and as for J...

"Drinking on Company time isn't allowed. But these are exceptional circumstances. I'll allow it!

You'll just have to wait until later. But I can get you something good when we're off the clock."

J remarks. And as Ray continues drinking, the atmosphere shifts a bit when he gives an unexpected compliment to Cloris. But it wasn't anything too crazy yet... Not until he started complimenting V more openly.

J arches a brow again as she looks over at him with her arms crossed. E couldn't help but giggle a little -- she hadn't expected such a wild shift in the group. Lizzy nearly IMMEDIATELY starts to grin, aided by Doll's comment about him being a lightweight. Uzi asked outright if he was drunk.

And as for V? She was blushing, and she peers over at him; readily apparent that she was taken off-guard by his sudden openness with flirting with her in front of everyone. She clears her throat, straightening out a little. Blush lines displayed on her optics as she tried to play it off cool and collected.

"Not exactly the word I would use, but..."
Her tail wags lightly in approval, before she reaches back with her hand to hold it in place.
"I don't have a problem if you see me that way."

She wasn't beating the allegations about being a tsundere at this point...

After that, Uzi and Chaos both comment on Lizzy being a phone smuggler, essentially.

"I don't really pay attention to the basically nothing that goes on in class, no.
"Question 1. Are doors good?

Question 2. How can doors be even better?""

Lizzy rolls her eyes after that.


But alas, such lighthearted (at least comparatively) conversation takes a backseat at Atta's arrival. Aegis ended up dropping a bombshell, and quite a few in the group had a hard time believing it, starting with Chaos. As he expressed his concerns about Karasu, she speaks up;

"I was with him at the time. He's not dead. I distinctly heard something say "ANUBIS System Activated." Then he was pulled away, and I was shot back to the nearest vessel that could contain me -- this ship."

Aegis explained. Shortly afterwards, Chaos apologizes for the outburst, and asks for how she can tell, before making an unusual comparison. J interjects by raising her hand.

"That's actually not science fiction. Humans and Drones can have children together. Thank RT3 for it, did a sales pitch about it earlier."

And after that slight interruption, a few others get the chance to offer their own two cents. Ray expresses his skepticism. Cloris does end up explaining what she knows to further back up what Aegis was saying. Nonetheless the Coral AI adds further credibility to her words:

"I have the logs. Not just from that battle, but from when I first met him. I can show them to you."

N also interjects by saying that she 'knew it', commenting that Aegis was acting weird and hiding secrets. The Coral AI just arches a brow in response.

"No offense, N. But... We weren't even talking. How could you tell?"

Of course... Things get back on track as Atta herself was confirmed this story, so there was very little room for doubt at this point. Uzi expresses her frustration about wanting a time portal, but a fair portion of the group was more focused on Atta right now, especially her answers... It seems like she wasn't expecting Aegis to reveal the secret that she had, not at this particular moment. But she rolled with the punches well enough to start taunting and mocking her.

Cloris was angry, understandably so. And as Atta continued speaking, she managed to get ire from Doll and Uzi both. But Aegis? She remained remarkably calm....



"Shortsighted and arrogant as always."

Aegis begins her rebuttal.

"I don't really care about your perspective on things. To that, all I'll say is; gods don't bleed."
She adds, pausing only briefly before she continued on.
"I cast doubt on everything you have to say here. Your promises are worth nothing. Everything you have to say is carefully selected for the purpose of making yourself seem more important than you actually are."

Aegis wasn't even angry in her tone of voice. It was more like she was lecturing a child...

"A sad, broken little girl clinging to scraps of power; too stubborn to admit that she's taking it out on people that had nothing to do with how she got into this predicament, and too proud to realize that she proved every last one of them right for locking her away."

Aegis finally glances over at the phone, with disappointment in her expression.

"You probably want me angry, to rush off and confront you. That's probably what all of this is for, but you'll accept us focusing on Cyn while you build up your resources and your power. Because the truth is? You're afraid of us.

... And you should be."

With that, she returns her attention back to Doll, to make sure that Atta wouldn't try anything.

When E got her answer, the Disassembly Drone frowns in response.

"It seems to be as cold and inhospitable as your heart is."

Next up was J. She couldn't help but smirk a little as she seems to have gotten under Atta's skin with that one.

"She seems to be the one doing everything here. Pretty fair to say she's the bigger threat to both of us. If all you have is 'hope', I can't say I'm too worried."

J retorts. But not everyone had such an easy time dealing with Atta's games, of course... V's hands clenched tightly as she listened to what the witch had to say to her. She was used to receiving a LOT worse than these little threats... And it wasn't coming from Cyn, not this time.

"Maybe I'll put you both down at once. I'm tired of people like you playing with my life."

V spat out in a venomous tone. But regardless, Atta then proceeds to reveal her location.

... And that gave J an idea... To be honest, the more time she spent with all the Humans -- especially Chaos -- and even Uzi... The more she felt like maybe working with Cyn was not the best idea... But it was too soon to try and break things off with her. No, it would be better to throw her a bone. Give her a nice, big distraction...

And their mission WAS to find Solver Hosts. Atta was certainly that. All she had to do was play the role of Senior Informant, and tell Cyn about the information she happened across. Just like that, she could organize a war between Atta and Cyn. Give the group plenty of breathing room, and buy them some more time.

That could work pretty nicely. She just needs to break off from the group for a little bit to do that... Shouldn't be too hard. As for Lizzy, she was annoyed with Atta. But she was taking everything that everyone else said into consideration right now; especially what Aegis said. Right now, this witch was just trying to goad them into doing something stupid.

Better to put up a tough front and turn it around on her. Lizzy smiles in response.

"Thanks. Sounds pretty easy."

She replies.

The atmosphere shifts just a little bit with Chao's question. It was pretty fair to say that none of this was going exactly how Atta expected it to... Made evident by her somewhat delayed response. Nonetheless she explained it as 'Humanity was cruel to her.'

Aegis simply shakes her head before she speaks up.

"So you chose to be like them and be cruel to everyone. Doing a great job on that, by the way. Really like how you're dragging in people that weren't involved and are nothing like that."

After that, there was Atta's answer to Ray. It was the kind of vague nonsense that Aegis had begun to associate with the witch at this point... But she held her tongue on further comment. This allows M the opportunity to ask his question, and Atta's response to that one is certainly one that would take him -- and most everyone by surprise.

Save for E, who brings a hand to her own chin as she thinks it over.

"... There are ways to find out. That is probably the most helpful lead you've given us."

Next up was Klein. That was a swing and a miss. It at least got Atta to respond in English though, so that at least broke her to that point...

N probably asked the second most innocent question in response, which seemed to take Atta entirely off-guard. Regardless, further discussion with the witch is put on hold if only because shortly there afterwards...

... Ray was staring at V quite oddly -- well, odd for how he usually acts, that is. He seemed thoroughly infatuated with her. Eventually he then begins to openly flirt with her... Like... REALLY openly. The Disassembly Drone snaps to attention and turns to him in response, blush filling her optics again.

"H-huh?! Vee Bee!?
Cute claws...?!"

In the midst of this confusion, there's a distinct clicking sound that emitted from Lizzy's phone, indicating that someone just hung up on the call. She picks up the phone, snickering.

"We found Atta's weakness. Make Ray and V flirt in front of her."

V looks over at Lizzy, bewildered. Then she glances back at Ray because of the way he was looking at her.

Jeez... She was going to have to carry him back to his room at this rate! With her fans working overtime to compensate for the embarrassment (not that she hated it, though), she walks over to him and lifts him up.

"Yeah, I'm uh, going to take him back to his room now. We'll be ready for the mission though, don't worry."

... She was actually seeming a little more collected now. Maybe she would have just a little bit of fun with him before his inhibitions fully returned...


That thought in mind, V begins to leave the meeting room with him in her arms. Ray didn't seem all that flustered about the situation, of course.

J lets out a sigh after all of that.

"Well. I have a few things to take care of. Try not to have an orgy on the ship, or whatever."

The twin-tailed Disassembly Drone remarks, before departing from the meeting room as well. Now she just needed to get into contact with Cyn...

Lizzy looks over at Doll.

"Back to our preparations, then?"

And finally, E picks up her top hat. Though she doesn't put it back on just yet, now that Atta is gone, she decides to speak on what she had brought up earlier;

"I'm pretty sure we can do some kind of diagnostic with the help of the experts here to get our memories sorted. We'll want to do the same for Type-99, too. Make sure to let her know about that, Cloris."

With that, she pops her hat back on, and after a moment of blinking and silence...

"Cool, snacks!!"

She digs a hand into Chaos's bag of chips and retrieves some to munch on.

"I get the feeling this 'Is-Slut' person was just a desperate woman, I wouldnt be surprised. Forget what I said."

"Hmph, its not about the drink." I said with my arms crossed. "Whatever! How did Cloris smuggled alcoholic drinks onto the ship anyways!? I thought those where banned."

I smiled at J. "Thanks, J. I want to spend time with you anyways. Having a drink would be fun."

"Ooohhh, look who is drunk already! Our very own engineer, and he hasnt even finished his drink yet! Guy cant even handle his drink all that well."

"If class was that boring, why bother attend Lizzy?" I look over at Doll. "Ah, never mind. Continue."

J yet again explained RT3. "J, I think I am starting to believe you." What scares me is that there is a huge possibility that J is pregnant, I never bothered to pull out.

"Yeah, sounds like bitch behavior to me." I said responding to Atta and Aegis's explanation.

I smirked when V carried Ray out. "Heh, looks like those two is gonna bang alright."

Smart E returned back to Dumb E. "Hey E, how are you--- Hey those are my chips! ...Alright, you can hand them. ...Wait I thought drones cant eat human food. Be careful, E!"

I got up from my chair. With J going on hers own, I wouldnt be hanging out with anyone else besides Uzi. "Guess I got nothing else better to do. Uzi, Do you want to hang out in my room?"

If she agrees, we can discus what is going on with her in private.