In the basement of an old Savannah home, the gang had rented through Airbnb, sat Ellie and Boyd. They were locked in the room, but there was no one in there with them, nor were they restrained in any way. Tina and Dingles must have been confident enough that they couldn't escape or overpower them in an attack. They had good reason to think so. Boyd wouldn't hurt a fly and Ellie had no weapons.
Ellie scanned the room multiple times and there was indeed no way to escape either. It seemed to be they were just in another hostage situation with little hope. Something everyone in the Glomsquad had grown used to. And it probably wasn't the last time this would happen either, as painful as that was to think about.
As soon as the two were left in the room alone, Boyd sat as far away from Ellie as he could. When Ellie sat next to him, he simply moved to the other side of the room. Ellie got the message and didn't bother him after that. Their relationship at the moment was sharp and tense, expectantly since they hadn't spoken after their fight only two hours ago. Ellie had tried a few times already only to be met with no response.
She decided to try again, but to take a different approach this time around.
"Technically you are more of the adult here considering you were built years before me." Ellie attempted to laugh but it came out robotic and unnatural as usual. There was no malice or anger in her voice as there was during the fight. After sitting in silence, Ellie had realized that Boyd was right about everything. She was the one in the wrong for certain. "Now that I look back on everything, I understand that we do not know each other that well. I may be your caregiver but it ends at that, doesn't it?" She didn't expect a response and kept going. "We may have 'hung out' before but I never made an attempt to get to know you on a deeper level. In fact, we do speak to one another that often other than in a mother and son manner. You are not just a child, you are an intelligent and an independent definitely real boy with his own thoughts, opinions, and feelings. You even have quite the strong and feisty personality." She awkwardly laughed again before clearing her throat. There was an uncomfortable pause."I apologize for not seeing that sooner, Boyd. I should have made more of an effort to get to know you and your opinions rather than simply treating you like an organic infant. You were right about everything. I should have asked what you wanted to do for the summer all that time ago."
Boyd didn't respond to her which Ellie expected. She wasn't offended in the least bit. But it did hurt that her child hated her so much.
She let the silence sit for a little while to let the air cool before she continued.
"We do have very different morals. Do you know why that is?"
Boyd still didn't respond.
"We were built for different reasons. You were built to be the defender and hero of an entire city while I was simply built to be a villain; to blindly follow commands from Uncle Glomgold. My morals were not wired to be correct and I have always been ashamed of that. My programmed beliefs only seem to have become stronger over time. I do not know why, but it is most likely because my programming has settled itself over a prolonged period." Ellie said, "I may be horrible now, but I cannot imagine how horrible I would have become without you. You stabilize me, Boyd." She smiled but Boyd didn't see since he still was looking away from her.
Her tone became more somber. "I have wanted to change and I still want to, specifically for your sake. But I cannot be reprogrammed without losing all of my data. I have tried to overcome my programming myself, but there seems to be some hurdle I simply cannot cross. At a certain point, on the cruise ship actually, I just gave up. But I will now keep trying again for you. I will attempt to be less violent and more morally correct. The terrible thing is that I cannot make any promises with how strong my programming is. You may not agree with anything I do, which you should not, and I do not expect you to ever look up to me, or love me... or even like me, but I hope that is something you can understand at the very least. I am stuck in a mindset that I never wanted to begin with."
Ellie wiped her eyes like there were tears streaming down. There obviously wasn't but she tricked herself into thinking there was with how emotional she was getting.
"Boyd, I know I am a horrible mother. You have no idea how long ago I realized that. I was hoping you would never view me that way or realize that yourself, but it was only a matter of time and now we are here. Just a lot sooner than I had expected." She now looked away from him too. She couldn't bring herself to keep staring at him. It only made her confession harder on her. "You deserve a way better family and a normal life. I will never be able to provide that. To be honest, you should not even call me your mother. I mean that. You never asked for me in your life, I just showed up against your will and adopted you without you even knowing me when all you wanted from the very beginning was Dr. Gearloose to be your true family alone. Not me and definitely not Mark. That was very wrong of me to do that to you. I was just desperate and I never think about how another person feels." She paused because she had to get herself under control. She didn't want to start sobbing in front of him. "All I can say is that I am so sorry. About everything. There are too many things for me to apologize for separately. But I am especially sorry about the way I spoke to you earlier."
Ellie ended her rant there and let the room sink into silence once more. Whether Boyd was going to respond or not was his choice and she wasn't going to ask him to.
The room was silent for a while. Ellie could tell that he was coming up with something to say. His eyes suggested he was in deep thought while occasionally darting back and forth as if he was reading. He soon closed his eyes and sighed before opening them again only to stare at the floor. "Back at that camp Glomgold put us in...I- I don't think I was thinking clearly because of how scared I was. Dr. Gearloose pretended that he didn't know me and you, a stranger, adopted me without any question. It's strange to think about it that way but I suppose we all weren't in the right frame of mind at the time." He paused again "I know you mean well. I know you want what's best for me and you are only looking out for me but you always turn around and bring out the worst of yourself in front of me. I know you kill people. And I know you've killed more than I can remember. Probably because you had Dr. Gearloose erase some of my memories. You took my own memories away without asking." That last statement Boyd assumed to be true. Really, he wasn't sure if he gave them permission or not to erase his memories because he forgot. "I just- everything that has happened... I only want people to listen to me. I want to be able to make my own choices." He finished on that note because that was what he truly wanted Ellie to know.
It was a damning feeling; the guilt that had started to crush Ellie was something she never felt before, and it felt very literal.
"I did ask Dr. Gearloose to erase most of your traumatic memories, Boyd. All ones caused by Mark and I."
Ellie figured he deserved to know the memories he lost if he was aware. And she wasn't going to dare refer to Mark as his father when explaining anything. Nor was she going to refer to herself as his mom, because it wasn't true.
"I am not sure of all the memories Dr. Gearloose erased, but I do know the ones he did erase were when we had to take down more gang members on the ship, gang members that had kidnapped you and Gloria. Also there was another time when Mark took you to a strip club and I ended up tackling him right in front of you. There is more but those are the only two examples I can think of at the moment." It was true. Too much shit had happened to remember everything. Not to mention her memories of Steelbeak were erased so she wasn't even counting that. "Oh. I also attempted to kill Glomgold by shoving him overboard in front of you while you were having a mental breakdown so..." She paused. "There are also a lot of organics I have killed either before I knew you or when you were not present. But you already know that."
She tried to think of anything else she had to confess to him, but that was honestly all she had. He knew pretty much about everything else.
"I have said this already, but I am programmed to be a dreadful person. And perhaps it is not all my programming's doing, maybe I am just naturally abhorrent. I am sure that would not be a surprise if that were the case." Ellie was staring at the floor along with Boyd. "You may stabilize me Boyd, but that does not mean you should be around me or that I should force you to be around me. When we get back to Duckburg, if we do, you need to get away from me. I know you want to live with Dr. Gearloose and I am definitely not someone a child should be around to begin with. Even if you are not much of a child anymore. I was never your mother Boyd and I am sorry I called myself that."
"It's okay..." he muttered. It really wasn't okay but he wasn't sure what else to say to that. "There are some more things I think we should talk about but we should probably figure a way out of here first." He gestured to the room they were locked in.
"There is not a way out of here that I can find at the moment." Ellie sat up to walk across the room and sit down next to him. He didn't move this time around, but he wasn't too happy. "You know they are going to torture us, correct?"
He nodded "Yeah, I know."
Ellie sighed because she knew damn well that Boyd wasn't going to agree to this. "I do not want you to go through that pain, Boyd, so I am going to shut you down and remove your flash drive so whatever they do to you, you will not die. I will have your memories on hand at all times."
His eyes widened and he scooted further away from Ellie "What?! No! You can't shut me down again!"
She held her hand out to try to calm him down. "Boyd, I promise you would rather have me shut you down than go through that pain."
"Did you not hear what I just said?!"
"I heard what you said, I just need to protect you!"
Ellie didn't necessarily tackle him but she moved quickly to hold him down. He started struggling immediately as she tried to find the shutdown button on the back of his head. Apparently Boyd was a lot stronger than she first realized.
"PLEASE DON'T SHUT ME DOWN!"
She found it and his eyes closed immediately just as he finished his pleads. Ellie sniffled before turning him around to remove his core processor as well as his flash drive, shoving them into her pocket. That way she not only had his memories, but they also wouldn't be able to power him back on for torture at all.
After she had finished everything that needed to be done she hugged his unconscious body and started sobbing. He wasn't going to die, she wouldn't let him, but she did lose her child in a similar way because of her actions.
It was then the basement door opened and Tina waltzed on down, with Dingles behind her to guard the stairs that led up to the exit.
Tina walked towards Ellie who was still sobbing on the floor with Boyd in her arms. She crossed her arms and glared at her "What happened to the kid? Don't tell me he died." Nothing in her tone resembled sympathy. It was almost like she was disappointed in the fact that he was dead before she couldn't do anything to him.
Ellie deemed it better if they thought he was dead so she simply nodded.
They were most likely going to strip Boyd for parts either way. Everything was fine as long as she had the flash drive and the core processor. Gyro would be able to rebuild him. But that made another problem arise; she would have to make sure they didn't search her pockets as well as make sure they didn't kill her. What a goddamn pickle.
"Hmm" was all that Tina had to say about that. She snapped her fingers to alert Dingles to get involved with the current situation rather than just stand there. He did and forcefully separated Ellie away from Boyd's body, leaving him alone on the floor. There was some struggle on Ellie's behalf but she eventually gave up knowing there was no point in fighting him without any of her knives at hand. Dingles held Ellie's hands in place behind her back while Tina left the room long enough to come back with a rusty meat cleaver. She smiled "I can't wait to start repairing my new bike tonight!" She held up the meat cleaver so Ellie could catch her drift.
Ellie indeed caught that fucking drift.
Her eyes widened and she started struggling to get out of Dingles' grip. "No! Get away from me!"
Ellie continued to struggle but she had stopped sobbing. She was tired of giving people that satisfaction of seeing her in pain. It was no use so she stopped struggling and looked up and Tina. It was time to stop begging like a pussy. "Do what you will but you are not going to get away with this. I have taken down plenty of organics and you are going to be next." She bit.
Tina laughed "Okay, sure. We'll just see how that works out for ya. It'll be quite hard to stab people without any hands." That was the signal for Dingles to force Ellie's hands flat on the ground while still restraining her arms so she couldn't move them away. Tina walked around behind Ellie and crouched down. "This may hurt but I don't believe robots have feelings so maybe it won't. Either way, I don't care."
Unbeknownst to Tina, it was going to hurt like hell, but Ellie wasn't going to let her know that.
"Fuck you."
Damn. Ellie was getting spicy up in here.
Tina didn't respond to that and she didn't have to. She was getting her revenge. Tina raised the meat cleaver high above her head and straight down onto Ellie's wrists in one clean motion. Sadly for Ellie, the meat cleaver was old and dull so Tina had to repeat this process a couple more times before both hands were removed from her arms. The first thing Tina did was grab Ellie's left hand and snatch her engagement ring off of her finger. It would be great torture for Mark in the future. She stuffed it in her pocket and walked back around to look at Ellie. Dingles released her and did the same, standing behind Tina.
The screams Ellie let out during the entire process was a dead giveaway that she could indeed feel an immense amount of pain, much to Tina and Dingles' surprise.
It was somewhat funny that Ellie had sworn to herself she wouldn't let them know she could feel pain when she ended up giving it away less than a minute later. Man, she really was never going to be good at acting.
She looked at Tina again, gritting her teeth. That pain was severe and constant; definitely not going to go away anytime soon.
"Too bad you cannot put Boyd through the same thing as me." As soon as Ellie opened her mouth she indeed started sobbing, especially through her sentence, so it didn't sound as badass as she wanted it to.
"Ha! Oh don't worry. Boyd might not be alive anymore but he will be getting his fair share of torture as if he was. We still need parts for five motorcycles, remember?"
Dingles was the first one to leave the room with Tina following behind him. She stopped at the door frame to say one last thing. "Gotta run. We need to pick up your fiancé." She gave Ellie an evil laugh before slamming the door behind her and locking it. Ellie could hear two sets of footsteps fading down the hall above her until there wasn't anything else to listen to.
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"No fucking way! Jojo Siwa followed me back! #goals!!!!!" He immediately started to message her, hoping she would be able to do some sort of tik tok collab dance or something similar to the sort. He looked up from his phone for a second to make sure he didn't run into a pole in public like he did five minutes ago. Hopefully no one would see that on security cameras and upload it to the internet. That would totally ruin his image.
Wait. What was he walking around for again?
"Oh shit..." Right. He was looking for Ellie because she was supposedly kidnapped. That slipped his mind for a second. "Man... now I gotta put away my phone..." He muttered to himself, shoving it into his pocket. This fucking sucked; why'd she have to go and get herself kidnapped again? His updates on every one of his social media accounts had been lacking the past few months as is. "Yo! Ellie! Boyd!"
There obviously wasn't an answer, except some strange looks from art students across the street. Whatever. They were the weird ones, not him.
It was then he noticed a vending machine; he checked the time. 2:15. Yep, he needed a drink for sure. Sparkling water it was.
Mark shoved his hands into his pockets and walked over to the machine to look at the options. He blinked slowly when his brain comprehend what he was seeing. "NO SPARKLING WATER?!!! WHAT THE FUCK!"
"Hey, buddy! Couldn't help but hear you call out for Ellie and Boyd. You looking for them?"
Tina and Dingles turned the corner, approaching Mark.
Mark, being the fucking idiot he was, didn't recognize they were the gang members. He didn't really pay that much attention to anything. But if they had a social media account, that'd be an entire different story.
"Ugh yeah. They went missing again. You know where they went or something?" Mark wasn't looking at them anymore. He was still mashing the buttons on the vending machine thinking that sparkling water would just randomly show up.
Tina smiled. "We sure did!" That was all she said.
Mark settled on getting a PEP. He grabbed the can from the small door at the bottom of the machine before giving Tina all of his attention. "Oh lit. Could you, like, tell me where they are or something? Kinda in a hurry here."
"Yeah yeah. They went to the Girl Scouts' museum." Tina waved her hand like that was something that he should've already known. "Want us to take you there? We parked nearby." She pointed to the back van across the street.
You know, one thing a parent teaches their child is to not follow strangers into a van. Especially when they mention something about cookies or candy. In this case it's about Girl Scouts. Mark, however, is a very very special case. Instead of being smart he shrugged, chugged the PEP he just bought for himself and walked alongside Dingles and Tina to their van. He thought nothing of it nor did he think anything was sketchy.
Dingles even helped buckle Mark in, nice in tight, to make sure he wouldn't be able to undo the belt.
Dingles proceeded to start up the van and once they were on the street, Tina turned around.
"You know we're kidnapping you, right?"
Mark looked up from his phone "I'm sorry, what?"
"We kidnapped your fiancé and now we're kidnapping you." Tina turned back around in her chair. "God, you're a fucking idiot. I didn't even have to pull out my gun."
"Oh..." He started to tweet about how he was just kidnapped and may be MIA for a while online. "Well could we stop at Leopold's or something before you do? Marky wants ice creeeeaaaaammm."
Dingles beamed "Ooooh! Good idea! Can we Tina?! Huh?! Can we?!"
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Gloria finally made her way back to the hotel. The first place she checked was their hotel room. No one was there. She tried searching around the lobby and around the outside of the hotel. Still nothing.
After searching for what felt like hours, Gloria made her way back into the hotel room again. She flopped down on the bed and checked her phone to see if there were any new notifications. There wasn't anything except a notification from Twitter letting her know that Mark posted something. Yeah, she was still following him on Twitter. She opened Twitter and read his update on how he was currently being kidnapped. Writing about who was kidnapping him and where he was were not mentioned. Now that Mark was gone, Gloria was the last one left. She had no leads on where T-bag and the others were keeping them so there was nothing for her to do but wait for her turn to be kidnapped. It wasn't a great plan by any means but there was literally nothing else she could do.
Her phone started ringing; it was from Ellie, or rather Mark now that he took her phone. And yes, after all this time, her ringtone was still Megalovania.
But she knew the call itself wasn't exactly from Mark.
She sighed and answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Looks like you're the only one left, huh?" It was none other than, ya boi, T-bag.
"Yep looks like it..." Gloria's tone suggested that she didn't care. She didn't want to give T-bag the satisfaction of him knowing how scared she actually was.
He laughed. "Man, you really don't care about anything either? You're turning into Gyro. Guess I know why you two are dating." There was a pause before he continued. "So... you want an update on what's going down?"
"If you're going to tell me the truth, then yes."
"I have no need to lie to you, Gladis. But there is a chance you won't believe me anyway." On the other end, he was leaning against an old desk in one of the airbnb's the gang rented. "The kid shut down, permanently. The mother confirmed it. I don't know how but I guess he's dead, or as close to dead as a robot can get. We're forcing Gyro to take him apart against his will so we can use the parts for our new 'cycles. They're going to be killer." He laughed. "Then we'll probably force Gyro to kill some other people for us. Ya know, give him some more PTSD. As for the other robot, we already chopped off her hands so she's slowly being disassembled. Turns out she can feel pain which was surprising. And as for Mark, to be honest I have no idea what we're going to do with him. But he's still on the way so I have time to think of something."
Gloria was silent. She didn't want to believe T-bag but he was right. There would be no reason for him to lie about anything he just told her and it hit like a ton of bricks. From Boyd to Gyro to Ellie. She couldn't believe that all of this was happening to them with Mark soon to follow the same fate. It drained her chance of her not coming off as scared while on the phone with him. Her voice became shaky "Listen. Let's come up with a deal or something. If it's the bikes you're pissed about, I can sell more drugs and give you all the money I make. I'll pay for replacements, spare parts, anything. Just let them go. Please."
That got another laugh from T-bag. "Nah, you know it's too late for that, Gloria." He used her actual name that time. "Besides, you're the one who pissed us off the most, remember? Us messing with your friends is just another way to get to you. Why on earth would we spare them if that's what you want?"
"Heidi wanting to leave was her choice! You and the rest of your gang treated her like shit and she had every right to bounce! I don't see why torturing me and my family is payback!"
"She wouldn't have left in the first place if you just agreed to be with her, whore! She owed us a lot of money too, but you know what? We thought about just having you and your friends pay us back every dime and force one of you to be in our gang, but there was no fun in that. So here we are." He spat. "You're next and we already have a plan for you. You won't make it until the end of the day a free woman."
Yeah, Gloria already knew that it was only a matter of time before they come after her. As much as she would love to fight them and stand up for herself, she was severely outnumbered and one wrong move on her end could mean something fatal for anyone she cared about. She couldn't fight T-bag on this and it made her mad that she had to give up so easily. The best she could do was keep her hotel room locked and hope it would hold them off as long as possible. "Let me talk to Gyro."
There was no answer, but Gloria could hear the phone being moved around.
Eventually, a weak voice responded.
"Hello?"
"Oh my god, Gyro." Gloria sighed in relief. "Listen, I know it's scary right now but you're going to have to fight and overcome whatever they might try to do to you, okay? They're trying to break you down but you need to make sure that doesn't happen. T-bag said that they're getting me tonight... I love you." She had to be quick with her response. She had no idea how long T-bag would allow them to stay on the phone.
"Glo-"
Gyro couldn't even finish saying her name before the phone was ripped away from him.
"Alright, I'm sure whatever you said was very sweet. Toodles!" The line went dead.
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Tina walked into the living room with Boyd over her shoulder. It was a different Airbnb and she had to drive over after they had picked up Mark and dropped him off someplace else.
She dropped the kid on the floor.
"Here ya go, T-dawg!" She winked at him. "Like I said earlier, I guess he's dead or something? Dunno how that happened."
Gyro was sitting on the couch in the meantime, along with Vic, while Tina and T-bag were having a lovely conversation.
Oh yeah, C-note was in the corner but no one cares about him. He was just there.
T-bag looked down at Boyd before back up at Gyro. "Who gives a shit. Anyways, the first thing we're going to have you do is take him apart. We could use his parts for our new bikes. I'm sure you can manage that can't you? He's already dead so that takes some of the pressure off of you."
Gyro gulped and started shaking uncontrollably. He gripped onto the bottom cushions of the couch to try to go unnoticed, but it was obvious how unnerved and horrified he was either way. He looked up at T-dawg and Gyro was ashamed that he would see how glassy his eyes were. "How did he- how did he die?"
He knew Tina already said she didn't know, but he still hoped for some sort of explanation. She shrugged "Like I said, I dunno. He was dead when I showed up."
Gyro paused before looking over at Tina since she was the one who answered him. He gripped the cushions harder. He had a feeling he knew what happened. "... Ellie killed him, didn't she?"
"Probably? She was crying over him. Didn't know robots could do that but I also didn't know robots could feel pain so yeah. There was no one else around him. Maybe that bitch cracked."
He stood up and bawled his fists. Tears were running down his face but he didn't let out any sobs.
Damnit! He knew Ellie was a loose cannon but this was insane! She must've tore out wires from within his head and made sure he went through tremendous pain like the monster she was!
He looked at T-bag while his fingernails dug into his palms. His voice remained emotionless despite him crying. "Where are the tools?"
T-bag looked over at C-note "C-note! Do something for once and get the tools out of the closet will ya?"
"Oh? I'm being useful to the plot for once? That's new." He walked over to the closet that was literally 5 feet away and took out the tool box before slamming it down onto the old, wooden coffee table. "There ya go. I assume that's all I'll be doing for the next few chapters?" C-note didn't sound too happy.
"Yeah pretty much. Just go stand in the corner like you always do." T-bag shooed him away.
C-note scoffed but did what he was told. It sucked he was the character that was forgotten about. Why couldn't it have been Vic? He was just a twink!
Moving on, Gyro grabbed the tool box and slowly walked over to Boyd before getting on the ground to sit beside him. At a certain point, his emotions just shut down, but he was shaking more and more by the moment. It made it immensely hard to go through the tools properly but he eventually got what he needed and got to work.
While he was removing limbs, with sickening cracks coming from the tools, he spoke up. "Are there any specific parts you need?"
"Nope not really."
That sickened Gyro. They truly were getting a kick out of this.
It only took an hour to take apart mode, but quicker than Gyro had expected, but maybe it had been more than that. Time seemed to be just an illusion to him at that point.
He looked up at T-bag, with reddened eyes and Boyd's parts scattered all around the floor.
"Is that all you need?" He spat. It was the most emotion he had shown all day.
T-bag walked back over to where Gyro had been working and looked over all the metal scraps on the floor. "Yeah pretty much. We'll give you something to do tomorrow." He looked over at C-Note again "Take the tools and carry them out with us, will ya? You're not too busy to do that, right?" He laughed at his own joke.
C-note wasn't amused and snatched up the box Gyro was so kind to pack up. "Fuck you, dude. I dunno why the authors give you so much attention." He muttered swears under his breath and exited the house to wait for T-bag to follow after he was finished doing whatever the fuck he was doing.
There wasn't anything T-bag wanted to say to him. He kicked a piece of Boyd out of the way when he walked past and headed to the exit. He turned around and looked over at his girlfriend. "Tina, keep watch. Vic? You're a twink so there's no reason for you to be here. C'mon."
"O-okay..." That actually hurt Vic's feelings, but he got up and followed T-bag out the door.
Tina didn't say anything. She just rolled her eyes. Man, T-bag always gave her the lame jobs.
She watched Gyro who was still sitting on the floor, in a ball, staring at all the 'work' he just did.
His eyes widened and Tina could tell it was because he realized that he did all of that for no reason at all. T-bag didn't even bother to go through the parts for his motorcycle, he simply watched the kid be destroyed and left without a word. Not to mention he took the tool box with him.
It was that that broke Gyro and Tina saw it happened. His face morphed into one of disgust with himself before he broke out into a sob, burying his face into his hands.
Tina smirked.
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