A/N: Mmm! Blue crystals that make you feel funny! No, it's not blue meth, it's 059. I knew you were thinking of Walter white...
Sorry in advance for when Tessa and the gang meet up, the introductions and stuff are choppy- i did it late at night
Shoutout to the band sabaton for keeping me awake at night their songs are absolute fire 🔥
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===Somewhere on Copper 9===
A mysterious spacecraft, from JCJenson, landed with a quiet thud. A worker drone nearby searches for his glasses.
The door to the spacecraft hisses open, and a female astronaut and a DD walks out.
The astronaut has a name tag, Tessa, pinned on her suit. The shiny metal of the name tag reflected whatever light could reach it.
Tessa, apparently, was a JCJenson technician. She notices the worker drone, who has found their glasses.
"Ah! That's where I left my excuse to be outside!" He exclaimed, putting his glasses on after polishing the lenses. Tessa uses her broadsword and decapitates the unsuspecting worker.
"Righty-oh. Let's get going, J, we have work to do." Tessa clicks a button on her keys, and the spaceship makes an oddly similar sound to that of a car.
"Where is that fermented idiot Uzi? I would die (not really) to rip out Uzi's cords one by one, and barbeque her own head on a rotating spit," J says as she drains the worker's body fluids. (Nonono pls dont say anything about my mental health. It is in shambles before this already)
"That's why we're here, J. Plus the foundation has accessed our database and is about to leak out information about how broken our company is, so we got blackmailed. The only way to back out of this is to 'recontain' the anomalous objects remaining on this planet that have just been rediscovered," Tessa explained.
J groans and then replies, "Oh, great." There was a hint of sarcasm in J's voice. "I was expecting better orders from corporate themselves, but I guess I'll have to do this slightly tedious task."
After cloning J, her attitude towards things changed a bit, with a bit of hesitance towards company orders that would be really annoying to carry out.
Tessa started walking towards their supposed meeting spot with one of the solvers, who apparently was russian. Kind of funny, now that she thought about it.
J followed behind Tessa, hoping for Tessa to restate the mission plan. Not J's fault that J didn't listen to the mission briefing. They had even MORE BRANDED PENS that J had ever seen in her whole life! The boss had given her a gold and platinum branded pen, which was really expensive and had an excellent click to it.
She had spent the whole meeting clicking away at it, rather than listening to corporate. The new pen was a lot better than what she had received prior to being rebuilt. Tessa had even ordered a special branded case for the pen, only adding to J's endless enthusiasm and positivity towards the pens. PENS! PENS! PENS!
That's really all she cared about now. While being rebuilt, J's pen-loving part of her memory drive was accidentally amplified by 200%, leading into a never-ending obsession with branded pens.
"So, Tessa, what were the mission plans again? I was - distracted, to say the least," J asked Tessa, who let out a muffled groan.
"I knew I should have given it to you after the briefing," Tessa then lit up and added, "Oh well, I guess I could repeat it."
"So basically, we're supposed to go down to this 'abandoned' containment facility, dubbed Site-12B, or Prometheus Labs, the very place where the Zeta warhead supposedly killed all the anomalies, and then try to capture or kill the remaining. Also, the solvers were actually escaped D-Class personnel who had been tinkered with by - " Tessa racked her brain for the right anomaly, "- 079 and some random computer virus the researchers had found and tested on them. Cyn also had something to do with it because Cyn had created that virus chip."
"So we're going to capture/kill the anomalies and then try to track down and wipe out the solvers, right Tessa?" J repeated, hoping to get the full confirmation that it was the right information.
"Yep. Now where is Doll, that solver?" Tessa said.
Tessa hummed a small tune while waiting for their 'guest'. What Tessa really wanted was the keybug, which the Russian worker Doll currently had, which secretly had 005 (skeleton key: can unlock any door lock, digital or regular) inside of it.
"Я здесь, идиот. (I'm here, idiot.)" Doll teleported in front of Tessa, making Tessa jump a bit.
"Oh god! Didn't see you there. Now where is this little bug friend of yours?" Tessa and J asked Doll, to which she replied by bringing out the keybug with an obvious key shaped thing inside of her. It is a key, after all.
"А что насчет нашей сделки? (What about our deal?)" Doll asked Tessa and J, handing over the keybug.
Tessa knows exactly what Doll means, but she can't give Doll whatever she requests, or something really bad might happen. Hey. If I can kill Doll right here and now, I might be able to keep the keybug without giving anything in exchange.
Tessa fires a shot with her pistol, and Doll deflects it with her absolute solver powers.
"Just testing," Tessa nonchalantly says, while J hovers in the air above Tessa, keeping lookout. J doesn't notice the group walking towards them, though as she was facing the other direction.
A handful of drones and a single human stood still, and then J noticed and alerted Tessa.
—--Ivan's POV—--
Holy cow. Is that another person? Do I finally get to go home? There really is only one way to find out.
"Oh my god! A real human! Are you here to save me from this planet?" I asked, hoping to get an answer. That's what I need. Answers.
"Oh! A person! Wasn't expecting you here! What happened?" Tessa leaned in a bit, curious about how and why I came here.
"Crashed landed onto this planet, but that's a different story," I brushed that away, and then made the statement, "It's so nice to see a real person for once." (ouch. Sorry N!)
Tessa gives a weak chuckle, and then says, "If you really wanted to know, I was given vague instructions to pick someone up from this place back to Earth." I pump a fist in the air for victory.
"OhmygodisthatyouJ? Ihaven'tseenyouinforeverwhathappenedtoyou?!" I blurted out, just realizing that J was there. I really hadn't seen her annoyed and defiant expression in such a long time, and it was kind of - refreshing? A break from all the beaming positivity radiating from N. Not that I hate his smile and positivity, but I just need a little rest from it. It's kind of headache inducing, how happy he can be in the most dire of situations.
"T-Tessa?" N's voice quivered, finally speaking up.
Hol-ey! How did N just see Tessa, or whoever she was? We were like this for so long now!
Not really, but more like several seconds, but back to reality...
Tessa goes up to N and grabs him by his head playfully, and tries to swing him around. "N! You remember–"
Tessa starts to cough, even though she has a freaking spacesuit on. Kind of weird, why is this happening?
"Tall, handsome... Air's toxic..." Tessa stops the coughs, since they were probably fake anyways to make the moment oh-so more dramatic. Tessa turns to Uzi, who is crossing her arms like the little annoyed worker she is.
"Who is this little–" Tessa reaches out her hand towards Uzi, hoping to get a small intro of sorts. "Ah!" Uzi bites her finger, making Tessa pull back her hand. (the quote 'bite me' getting a little more ironic now that uzi is more 'bite you')
"That was Uzi," I informed Tessa, who looked at me in interest. She nods.
"She's usually like that," I added quickly.
"Why, aren't you one odd worker," Tessa commented on Uzi.
I facepalm, realizing I hadn't introduced myself. "Oh, I am so idiotic. I haven't even introduced myself. Name's Ivan, Former Child." (real statistic)
"Oh, I'm Tessa, if you haven't figured out already," Tessa introduced herself.
"I already found out because of your name tag," I said, just standing there while N and Uzi were kind of fidgeting around, hoping for us to stop talking. I pause intentionally to let Uzi talk, and the Uzi takes the chance.
Uzi asks Tessa, "Why are you here, human?!" Uzi looks around, and takes notice of J. "Real tired of killing this one." Took you long, enough Uzi.
J brushes her hair back and then smugly replies, "Effective drones were cloned more." Damn girl, she got some sass. (IRL: i have a classmate that thinks she is a model or something, she literally uses her chromebook's camera to record herself and applies lip gloss every millisecond or so)
N chuckles, and then says, "It is you." Yeah, no crap. J is J.
"Classic J," V says to J, and they both start to have a staring contest of sorts.
"Cyn disappeared on Earth–" Tessa starts, and then gets cut off by J.
"Boss ran away," J said. J's expression looks stone cold, which is both usual and unusual. Last time I saw her usual expression looked - different? I just can't put my finger on it. Of course I can't put my finger on it, expressions are a non-tangible thing.
Tessa, who is annoyed, continues, "We mutually disengaged. Her last known act was siccing you lot on the human exoplanets."
"Why?" N asks, curious. Good ol' N.
J lands and retracts her wings and says, "That's what we're trying to figure out, bozo." That not nice bro, that not nice! (non middle school translation: that's not nice x2)
Suddenly, Doll activates her Absolute Solver to snatch the bug on top of Tessa's head into her hands and teleports off to kingdom come.
"Was that bug important?" I asked Tessa, who's body posture and hand placement reflected that of a pissed off person.
"That's... kind of a big piece," Tessa told us.
What was in that bug that was so important to Tessa? And the last time I took a look at it, there was a - key - shaped bulge on it? Ohhhhh- a key. That's what Tessa needs.
"Say, by any chance, was there a key inside of that bug?" I asked Tessa, who turned her head away from N to me.
"Yeah... we kind of needed that key," Tessa explained, and then asked us, "Where are you off to?"
"Why should I trust you?" Uzi asked, and N shushed her.
"Uzi, that's not nice," N apologized to Tessa, and then I answered Tessa's question.
"There is this place, utilized by the SCP Foundation, I believe, that is supposed to contain documents of the absolute solver tests and information surrounding the solvers themselves, with the list of the solvers," I told Tessa. I quickly added, "Which Uzi wants."
Tessa stood there in shock, and then asked, "How do you know that much? I thought this info was confidential!"
"I have my ways," I replied smugly, slightly grinning. Tell no one how or where you get sensitive information.
"Well, since you told us your mission, we'll tell you ours, I guess," Tessa hesitantly replied, before realizing that this team was composed mostly of trustworthy individuals. "We have to do the same as you guys, but with an extra step - to 'neutralize' those on the list, or at least hand the list over to corporate. Wanna tag along?"
"Sure!" N said, beaming with excitement.
"Fine. Just because N wants to," Uzi groaned as she reluctantly agreed. V gave Tessa a thumbs up, and then Tessa turned to me.
"What about you?" she asks. Should we? I mean, N and V seem pretty okay about it, and J, J's just there.
"Okay. I mean, I don't want to be left in the dust," I said, chuckling. No one laughs or says anything about it. God I suck at making jokes and stuff.
"Alright now, let's try to find Doll and get that keybug," Tessa says to us all, and we all nod.
V, N, J, and Uzi open their wings to start looking for Doll. N makes a gesture to me that I should go fly with him but I disagree.
"Best to have two people on the ground rather than one, and besides, I will just slow you down," I say.
N nods, and flies off with the rest of them.
Tessa and I look at each other, wondering where we check first.
"So, where should we look?" I ask.
"Hmmmm, the rest of them will look if Doll is out in the open, so we should look inside of buildings." She says.
I nod and she goes into one building and goes into another.
For safety, I take out my gun, before remembering I am all out of ammo and take out my knife instead.
I walk towards a building and see N hovering above me.
He then points off into the distance and says, "Hey, guys I think-" But then his eyes flash blue, and a glow comes out of his shoulder and he falls to the ground near me.
I run over to him, worried about what was wrong with him, but by the time I got to him, he was fine, or looked fine.
"What happened? Why do I not remember what happened for the last 30 seconds of my life?" He asks, confused.
"I don't know, you tell me," I say, helping him up. "I'm sure it's fine though."
"Hey, there she is!" N says pointing off into the distance, forgetting about the whole ordeal.
I turn around and see Doll looking at us, then starts running away.
"HEY, GET BACK HERE!" I yell and start running.
Tessa comes out of the building she was in and starts running with me to try to catch Doll.
Me and Tessa run, and V and J fly out of nowhere and start shooting unguided rockets at Doll, but she just uses her AS to make them pull a 180 and go right back the way they came.
We get closer to Doll, until she notices us and jumps down. But how? Not really sure. As we near the edge of the crater, we see a small hole near the middle. Probably an underground bunker or that site or something.
"Ivan! Come here!" N gestures to me to come closer to him, which I do. He grabs my shoulders. I know exactly what he wants to do. He's going to jump in with me, and before we hit the ground, he's going to let go of my shoulders, which in turn will keep me from getting squashed by him.
"Ready now?" V asks everyone. V looked like, 'I don't really trust Tessa'.
Tessa pauses before saying, "J, look after my spaceship for me." J nodded and said, "Of course, boss." before taking the keys before flying off.
She audibly grumbled, "I flew all the way here for nothing."
Tessa gave everyone a thumbs up, and everyone gave her a thumbs up. I guess that means everyone is ready to jump in.
Tessa jumps first. Then V, N and I. Uzi jumps in last. We landed on a solid concrete surface, luckily, without me going splat all over the floor.
"You have a leg brace that protects you from a fall at a good height?" I ask Tessa, her legs still intact.
"Yep. It's great, isn't it?" she replies, starting to walk down the hallway.
"Oh, so this is the site?" Uzi asks Tessa.
"No, this is just the main entrance hallway. We have to take a couple flights of stairs to go in later," Tessa says, holding out her broadsword just in case something happens. That confuses me. Why a broadsword when you can have a gun?
Oh, right. Probably because a gun has limited ammo. Speaking of ammo, my gun is out. I need to find a new one soon. That shouldn't be too hard, considering this was once a foundation site with a buttload of security guards.
We walk down the hallway in peace, and luckily, nothing jumps out of corners. Eventually, we reach a large locked vault door.
"Hang on, I have something for this. Real quick," Tessa uses her left hand to pull something out of her right hand glove. A small card, specifically a keycard of sorts. Tessa hummed a tune as she slid the card into the scanner device, which emitted a series of low beeps, before beeping loudly and sharply.
The room surrounding us groaned, as if the inner mechanics were finally coming to life after eons of not being used. At long last, the vault door creaked open, and we walked past it. The bolts were rusted, which was why it took so long to open. Another door stood in front of us.
"My dad would have been proud," Uzi commented, shaking her head. Tessa taps her keycard on the receptor once again, and the blast door opens.
A dusty smell filled the already stale air. My mask must not have been completely airtight, allowing me to smell the disgusting odor. Sure smells like decaying bodies down there.
Wait. There probably are bodies down there. I mean, they're probably ashes - from the explosion...
What if this isn't dust? What if —
No, I'm not going to be going there.
"Alright. This is where the lights kind of died out, so we're going to be using a flashlight," Tessa interrupted my thoughts. I took my phone out, since it has a light, and turned it on. The small light next to the camera that could work as a flashlight wasn't as bright as Tessa's but it was manageable.
V, N and Uzi, however, didn't need it because they were all manufactured with night vision. Wasn't very surprising, considering they were robots.
We walked down the hallway in silence, checking corners and making sure there were no creepy things. Up ahead, there were lights. Lights.
"That's weird. If there are lights, surely there is something or someone. But, I mean, what could go wrong?" I took out my pocket knife as I talked. Just in case.
A desk and a computer monitor with a printer come into view. Uzi and N start to murmur about the various drone parts scattered across the floor, and Tessa walks right up to it.
There is a skeleton in the corner with a gun and some magazines, so I head over. The others see it, and then leave me to it. The gun is in pretty good condition, but it's a little scratched. Luckily, it's minor enough to not render the gun useless. I pick up the magazines, and stuff them into my vest. I pick up the gun, and drop my MP5 on the ground.
No need for that gun since the mags are compatible with the MP5. I know a lot of gun types since I went to my nation's military before college, it kind of was required. With that knowledge, I can tell that the gun is an AK-12. Kind of the Russian staple of weapons beside the AK-47.
I picked up a handgun, this one being a Sig p226 (Tstorm64m requested btw). Perfect - for Uzi. She needs a weapon, since she doesn't really have one...
Except for absolute solver, or whatever that bullshit is.
I take a good look at my surroundings, and then I finally notice all the limbs and hands laying around on the floor. Not human, of course, but oil-slicked and rusted drone hands.
Slightly concerning to see so many pieces of disassembly drones here, and disassembly drones can put up a hell of a fight, so that means that whatever killed them is not a force to be reckoned with. I walk back over to the group, where Tessa is walking around the computer.
"Here, Uzi. Catch," I toss the handgun at her, and she catches it.
"Uhh- Thanks?" Uzi replied, not really sure how to react. I gave her a thumbs up. Poor kid probably doesn't even know anything about gifts and whatnot.
"Alright, let's see if the list is here-" Tessa whispers to herself. She goes up to the monitor, clicks a bit. She hums a cheerful tune, and announces, "Done!"
She then gets up and kicks it across the room, making it smash into the other wall and completely obliterating it. She had definitely finished what she was doing.
"Human-made security that a human can control!" Tessa laughs nervously and then she yanks a piece of paper out of the printer. I look at the reflection on her helmet and it states, in big bold letters, ACCESS DENIED. How the printer still has paper that isn't completely destroyed, ink that isn't frozen, I don't know. Probably the only thing keeping the computer and printer on is the auxiliary power supply.
"Maybe," She adds.
According to the paper, it looks like she was denied entry to the foundation database. Tessa hastily shoves the paper back in, crumpling it as goes.
We continue walking, and come across a major fork. N points at the overhead hanging sign, excited about something. The sign hangs on the left hallway that divides from this main hallway.
I look up, and follow N's finger to the text and the arrow pointing straight ahead. It simply read, "Secret Elevator".
Very straightforward. Also not very secret as well.
"That was oddly easy," I said, as Tessa took a couple of steps forward.
"Huh. Righty-ho. Sources say that way–" Tessa says, but stops as soon as she steps in between a rope/lasso thing. It grips her leg, near the ankle, and all of us look at it.
We stare at it for a good couple of seconds before a sharp tug yanks Tessa off her feet and she gets dragged around the corner in the opposite direction of the 'secret' elevator.
"Except I'm going this way, so save me if you can, THANKS!" Tessa says rapidly, as she disappears around the corner.
"Uhhh..." N looks down the hallway where Tessa has been dragged down. "Should we-"
"GO! WE NEED TO SAVE HER, IDIOT!" V starts to run, with us following closely behind. The hallway lights flicker on and off, which is slightly uncanny.
I jump over boxes and random equipment lying around, hoping not to end up with a frozen shard of cardboard through my skull. The others slow down, seeing another fork in the hallway.
I see a small baby drone up ahead. There's a small note on it that reads, 'Beau'. I guess that's its name.
"Shoot the baby immediately?" Uzi asked, slightly confused about why it was there. I am too, just way more confused.
"That's not soon enough!" N turned his hand into a gun and started to fire at it. I fumbled with my gun a bit, hoping to turn off the safety. (i almost cut off my leg on 11/10/23, 1:37 PM with an electric saw)
After a bit of cursing, I managed to, and open fire. But as soon as the bullets started flying out of my gun, the mutant baby drone ran away. It swiftly dodges all the bullets, which is just crazy. What does it take to actually land a shot on this thing?
"Uhh- Do we just follow it?" Uzi asked, unsure of what to do next, her gun hanging by her side, confused.
Clunk.
The sound was from behind us. My heart jumped into my mouth. Random things from years ago rusted onto each other can't really just fall.
We turn around, and there is a disassembly drone arm in front of us. I swear that wasn't there earlier. It turns into a detonator device of sorts, before flashing blue on and off.
"Heya, surface slickers," a worker, or what looks like one anyways, chuckled. It had antler-like things on its head, with several knobs and switches attached to it. The weird mutat baby demon was next to him, waving. The name tag hanging from one of the antler-like objects protruding out of their head, simply read, 'Alice'.
The object flashes bright blue on last time, matching the shade of blue on N's faceplate - wait. N's faceplate? There was no time to react to that newfound observation, since a bright flash of blue enveloped the room.
My ears are ringing, I feel disorientated. What was that? A flashbang? But that wouldn't really work with drones though.
I hear several clunks as several heavy metallic objects fall to the ground, presumably Uzi, N and V. I can't hear them, so that means that they are the objects on the ground, or my hearing just sucks after this explosion of sorts.
Or it could be an EMP. A modified one that also doubles as a flashbang. There wasn't much time to speculate, as a solid object struck the front of my head, knocking me out.
-------
I woke up. At first glance, I would guess that I am laying down on a table, but it's too - soft?- to be a table. Which is weird, considering that my hands are tied down and my backpack is all the way across the room.
That's not good. Maybe this was the DD killer? Probably. My ears still sting, but my vision has cleared up a bit. My nose isn't helping, profusely bleeding like a river.
I shake my head for good measure, and notice that I am laying down on the table next to Uzi. I try to wave, but I can't because of the rubber straps. And she grumbles at my feeble attempt. A magnet is stuck on her head, for whatever reason.
Alice raises an ax, and slams it down. Luckily, it wasn't for me, but rather for another poor dead worker on another chair or something. The head rolls onto the floor, I mean, bucket, full of oil and robot guts.
I can't read the label on the bucket, but it probably reads, 'Heads'.
I try to tug my hands and get free, but the rubber straps are preventing me from doing so.
"Sentinels picked at this one. But I try not to damage good parts. Of course, some parts are more valuable than others, ain't they?" Alice said, looking past me, with a creepy smile.
A curtain parts to reveal V on the other side. V, with a smug grin, says, "More valuable."
I think she misunderstood what Alice meant about 'more valuable than others'. I feel really tired, which is weird, because I was awake before we came here. Slightly numb too. Something is kicking in that wasn't affecting me yet earlier.
I look next to the table I'm on, crossing my fingers it's not an IV fluid drip.
Spoiler alert: it is. What could possibly be in it? Usually it's painkillers-
I read the tag on the small pouch of fluid, and in bold, it reads:
MORPHINE; 25 Mg
Not for recreational use
Good god. I don't even want to think about why I'm being drugged.
Alice raises the ax and looks like they were going to chop off V's head right before Uzi interrupts.
"Careful! Cut that thing up and you will get a big worm thing. An improvement," Uzi half warns Alice, both hoping and not hoping that Alice will slice open V for her core.
V rolls her eyes, annoyed.
"Nah, heat keeps' em' sluggish," Alice says as she crawls over to, an oven!? She squats down on top of it, opens it and makes the horrifying statement, "This ain't our first rodeo."
The oven had many of the small weird three-legged fleshy things, with a single yellow eye placed randomly on the fleshy mass. The red heat of the oven combined with them being placed in jars made their small movements incredibly slow. My reaction time is getting slower, as the morphine is taking effect.
Luckily, I can't see any human body parts or bones on the ground or countertops, so I think that Tessa and I are the first. That probably also means more extensive experimentation on both of us, so that's not too good.
I look over to Uzi and see looks both terrified and confused before muttering out, "Okay, that-t-t enoug-h-h o-f this-thi-s-s," she says while seemingly trying to use her AS but just glitches and gives her a killer headache - processor pain. Alice slams the oven door shut, stopping the wave of heat from reaching us in this chilly room.
"Dealt with witches 'fore too," Alice adds to the horror, getting on the table Uzi is on and looking at her collar, "Though I haven't seen 002 since she left us to die."
Uzi looks unnerved being so closer to a killer, or rather, a genocide generator. My palms are getting sweaty, because my table was right next to Uzi's so Alice was more or less in the middle between Uzi and I.
My vision does a little dance, and everything becomes slightly distorted. That's morphine for you. My mind is foggy now, and I can't really think straight anymore. I can make out some faint, quiet voices past the curtain though.
"Little buddy, you're gonna get red and sad if you try that with me," Tessa's muffled voice comes from across the room, behind the curtain.
N, giggling, manages to say, though strewn with laughter, "It tickles! The bad version, though!" The sound of a mechanical saw buzzes through the room, before pausing. It's probably Beau or some other freak.
"...Doing great, dude," N continues, and a silhouette of a thumbs up is seen on the curtain.
—--Narrator POV—--
"N, whose side–" Tessa quiets down, hoping not to upset N with his oddly enjoyable 'session'.
"Try sawing there?" N suggested. Good lord. N seems to like it as much as a normal person would like gaming. In the main room section, Ivan drifts in and out of light sleep every minute or so, causing great discomfort.
As Beau lowers his saw to a spot in N's chest, N shakes his head. Beau moves the saw a little bit to the right. N winks, and Beau turns on the saw once again.
Just before Beau can get back to work, Alice's command pierces the disturbing silence with a crackle on Beau's radio. It's not really silence, with Uzi and Alice over there, though
"Beau, we've got Nori's kid here!" A loud crunch permeates the divided room, along with a little cackle from uzi. Alice adds, "Need more sedatives. It's bitey."
Beau turns off his saw once again, this time replacing his single DD hand with a regular hand, which grabs a pair of extremely long tongs. Beau goes over to a bucket containing magnets, and grabs another for Uzi.
N waves to Beau, who waves back and goes to attend his new task, leaving N, V and Tessa in silence. Besides the noise coming from Uzi.
"Ugh, finally, the code. Lordy..." Tessa uses her chance unsupervised to pull out the needle from the IV after yanking herself loose from the things binding her down, which had deteriorated from use more than any other tables' binds. "Walk and talk?"
Unlike Ivan, Tessa isn't tired or such because none of the morphine actually got inside of her, Beau had done a lousy job and had poked it into the second innermost layer of Tessa's suit instead.
Tessa frees N, taking the magnet off his head, before sneaking out, leaving V behind. N and Tessa's goals are to free the others after getting rid of Alice. V rolls her eyes, having already known that Tessa would choose her favorite, N, over V.
Back with Uzi, she spits Alice's finger onto Beau. "How'd you know my mom? Was she cool? She didn't suck, did she?" Uzi pressed Alice for answers whilst Ivan groaned in discomfort. Uzi now had three magnets on her head instead of one.
Alice doesn't answer any of Uzi's questions, but instead focuses on screwing on a new finger from other unfortunate souls - or sentient toasters (glory to all toasterkind) that had stumbled upon this place.
Alice barks at Beau, "Back to the others!" Beau gives a small nod like motion before heading back to the curtained off section. Unbeknownst to him, Tessa and N had already escaped.
On the security monitor behind Alice, Uzi notices N and Tessa sneaking out of Alice's horrid testing grounds. That's all Uzi can see before Alice flashes a bright light on Uzi. Alice had turned on her lamp on one of her antler's inspecting Uzi.
"You're a lot like her, I'll say. 'Cept her yellow eyes," Alice notes, pulling out a heavy-duty hand-held bush pruner. Alice starts to close it on Uzi's finger, probably as a test or payback for Alice's lost original finger.
Ivan, who's drunk, incoherently mutters, "Ooooh! Sausage cutters!" Alice rolls her eyes a bit, returning to Uzi.
Uzi, using the same hand, bats the pruner away, and says, "Easy, creep. You've got the wrong–" Uzi gets interrupted oh-so rudely by a blade sinking into Uzi's dorsal side of her hand.
"Nori, right? Sure though imploding all them folks was pretty slick," Alice unnervingly says, calmly, twisting the blade, which earned a small gasp from Uzi. Oil now stained the part of the table black. ('MERICA! FUCK YEAH! *eagle screech* *gunfire*)
Alice grabs the pruner, and slowly closes it onto Uzi's finger once again.
Uzi, whose voice is glitching begs, "Wait-t, st-op! Seri-iously, wh-a-t are you talk-ing abo-u-ut-?" Uzi attempts to use her AS to stop the blades from closing fully.
Alice ignores Uzi's question yet again, and pushes on the handles. An even louder CRACK than last time permeates through the room. V winces, knowing what had just happened.
===With N and Tessa===
"They've gotta be in there, right?" N worrily asks Tessa about Tessa's important mission documents to retrieve.
"No worries, we'll save V and Ivan," Tessa reassures N, whilst searching the office cubicle.
Tessa offers N a chair, who promptly kicks it away.
N adds to Tessa's previous statement, "And Uzi."
Tessa sighs, reluctantly agreeing, before turning towards the monitor. She clicks some keyboard keys several times before a yellow glow comes from the monitor. The computer turns on, revealing a pleasant beach landscape.
"Wanna take a gander at Earth, N?" Tessa asks N, opening up an application.
"No, Tessa, we don't have time–" N refuses Tessa's request, before turning towards the computer with interest, having something catch his attention.
===Back with Uzi and Ivan===
Beau looks at the security cameras with intense furiosity, trying to find N and Tessa, but to no avail. Ivan is properly asleep now, but writhes from time to time.
Alice shoves Beau to the side, and then tells Beau, "They can't leave the office, idjit!" Alice turns back towards Uzi, and an idea comes across her processing unit. "Can't get back in our rooms, neither."
Alice looks to the right, where the control panel resides. She goes over, pressing the first two, which slams 2 HCZ doors close, effectively blocking off all access to the operating room(s). Alice treats herself to a small giggle as she pushes hard on the final button.
Uzi struggles to see, but on the last screen, all of them see a series of large containment doors open, releasing instances of SCP-745-J (made up for plot lol), more commonly known as 'Sentinels'. (sentinels are close enough to scp 745)
(scp 745 resembles velociraptors but with a glowing white bulb like light on their heads. They hunt in pairs to mimic car headlights, effectively producing enough light to hide their bodies, chase after real cars and as actual cars swerve the to the side or slow down and stop, the creatures consume the occupants of the vehicle)
"Wait... What is that...?" Uzi asks, terrified.
No one answers Uzi's question, but Alice does reach over to a shelf to grab some batteries in a popcorn container. Alice pops a few in her mouth, letting the acid sink in a bit before swallowing the snack. Alice and Beau watch as the Sentinels search and roam the underground office-like complex. Which used to be the research department of the facility, of course.
While Alice and Beau are distracted, Uzi tries to get out of the binds, wanting to be free. She gets a quick glance at Ivan, still asleep and muttering something incoherent and unintelligible. As Uzi's camera vision sweeps over the room, she notices that the curtains separating V's room from hers are open.
===Back with N and Tessa===
After a small discussion, an image of the destroyed once thriving Methamphetamine-21. N collects his courage and asks Tessa, "Then Uzi... You can fix her, right? That's why you're here?"
Tessa gets up and holds N's hand, hoping he would understand. "I'm here to find which drones were infected. When we get to the labs and find that list, I'll need you to choose the universe over one little drone, N. Before she's not herself anymore..."
N thinks about it a bit, and after realization of what Tessa just said sinks in, N's eyelights hollow out, and show expressions of sadness soon after. That's short-lived though, because a Sentinel appears in front of him, and boot loops N.
===Back with Uzi yet again===
Alice gives a small laugh as Beau watches silently, after seeing N getting bootlooped on the security feed.
Out of the low quality speakers, Uzi picks up Tessa's voice. "Hey, fella. Me, human, order you to be a nice dingo, please?" She extends her hand out for the Sentinel. It seems to have a change of heart... and then it bites her.
Tessa yanks her arm out of its massive jaws, before reprimanding the Sentinel, "Bad, dingo! Bad, dingo!"
It goes crazy, because it detects blood instead of the usual oil. It waddles around for a few seconds before smacking the wall and collapsing to the ground. Tessa's celebration is short-lived, though, because more Sentinels appear around the corner.
Alice and Beau continue enjoying the live 'show' as they take notice of the floating batteries. Alice looks to her side, and sees Beau and other pieces of valuable equipment floating. Alice starts to panic, trying to grab Beau from floating away too far. She finally gets a hold of him, gripping him tightly.
AS Uzi, in a monotone Cyn-like voice, tells the duo, "Oh, don't mind m-e-e."
"Oooh! Cheese..." Ivan sighs in relief, still dreaming about random crap.
Uzi uses her AS to twist the buttons on the console, ripping a fabric in reality as she does so. A small fleshy abomination lines the massive hole in the wall as a small mini black hole pulsates in the center.
Beau has sweat drops on his visor, clearly distressed by this new thing. Uzi smiles a bit, but then falls unconscious, having used up all her energy for that one move.
The HCZ doors leading to the room opens, which directs all attention to the small group, away from N and Tessa. The Sentinels rush towards this new unlocked area, and Alice leaps from her spot, dropping Beau. She runs to one of the doors, attempting to close it. But she struggles, and calls out to Beau for help.
"BEAU HELP ME WITH–" Alice asks, before being flashed by a Sentinel. V swore she saw Ivan flash the finger at Alice just before she got boot looped.
It's too late. The Sentinels are here. Alice is flashed and paralyzed as the Sentinels enter the room, crushing Alice under their feet, getting rid of her for good, along with a satisfying crunch. (think of eating chips; but 10x louder)
Beau frees V with a laser, whilst tipping his hat, before getting mauled by a Sentinel. V goes over to Uzi's table and gets cornered before she could save her. Just as V tries to fight back, the Sentinels have already left, not noticing V, Uzi and Ivan. V looks over to a sleeping Uzi, before freeing her and Ivan, after removing the needle in his arm and putting Ivan's backpack back on his back.
V tries to wake up Uzi, who groans. V sighs, looking at a slowly waking Ivan.
—--
Tessa pokes N, telling him, "Wakey, wakey."
V runs into the room with Uzi on her back and a still sleepy Ivan trailing behind like a zombie, which interrupts Tessa, who was about to start telling N something.
"V! Is Uzi–" N concerned, asks V, noticing that Uzi was on her back, still in a sleepy state like Ivan.
"Hurt. We're leaving," V answers N's question, interrupting him as she does so.
"I can take a squizz at–" Tessa says, before yet again getting interrupted.
"You said you could control the Sentinels!" V threateningly said.
Tessa, who is at a loss for words, manages to say, "I... At least they can't boot loop me, but we'll just have to–"
V, who turns to leave, calls for N, "Do whatever you want. N?"
No response.
"It's okay, N. I haven't been honest with V yet," Tessa reassured N.
"...What did she tell you?" V concerned about what N had seen or heard. (Methamphetamine-21 thing, remember? Plot convenience: It was where N had his first birthday, so it was pretty important to him)
Uzi stirs, now having regained full consciousness. She groans a bit, then complains, "Ow... My freaking head..."
She lights up when she notices N. "N?"
N waves at her, smiling. Uzi runs and hugs him, and he silently returns the embrace. V stares at Tessa, her cold stare reflecting off Tessa's helmet. Ivan's hand rests on V's shoulders, asking her, "What time of the cheese is it?" Yep. Still drugged.
The group travels back toward the elevator shaft when in the distance, they see... Doll, stuck in a boot loop and holding the bug in her hand.
The key bug has a holographic message that says, "PLEASE PLACE ME ON PROXIMITY READER (PROMETHEUS LABS)"
"That's... convenient," Uzi takes a step forward.
Ivan stirs a bit, from drugged-sleepy to sleepy, his brain realizing that his great - I mean- bad supply of morphine has run out. Inside his mind, madness runs unattended, while his thoughts are tossed into a mental blender.
"It's a trap!" V realizes, bursting out. That gives a small scare to Ivan, who jumps a little.
"Yeah, no... Nevermind," Uzi says, about to use her AS once again.
"DON'T!" N and V stop Uzi before something bad happens. V and Tessa cautiously advance, closer and closer to Doll. The key bug hops over to Tessa, and into her hand.
Tessa, from afar, says, "Oi!" Tessa holds the key bug in her hands. "Bloody convenient, eh?"
The trio make their way towards Tessa. Uzi and N hold hands along the way. Ivan just calmly strides towards Tessa and V with his gun across his chest. N and Uzi briefly disconnect their hands by V's tongue sticking out at them, but reconnect after a few seconds. After catching up with Tessa, V notices this romantic sight.
"Ew," V is disgusted by N and Uzi's hand holding.
"Don't take my robot, please," Tessa tells Uzi, and 'my robot' is N.
Uzi says to Tessa, "He's his own person!" And then to V, "You, ew! You're mean!" Sounds like what a 2nd grader on a playground would say. ('this is my playground and you're banned because you're mean!')
Suddenly, the insect is lifted up and out of Tessa's hand. It flies back into Doll's hand, revealing it was, indeed, a trap. Doll uses her powers to call an elevator and open all the doors in the area. She falls down the shaft as the elevator arrives.
"Uh-oh, hope I don't human everywhere!" The group forms a small line, blocking off the hallway. Unfortunately, the elevator entrance is on the other side, so they will have to make a hole on this side to get in.
Tessa uses her left hand and dabs some blood from her right, before spreading the blood onto the ground in front of her to ward off the Sentinels, which aren't programmed to target humans. The red-eyed Sentinel (the one that bit Tessa) examines the scene. Most of the Sentinels turn their noses from the blood and walk away, uninterested. Tessa smugly leans on her sword, confident she's secured the team's safety...
...But then, after flashing at Tessa to no success, the red-eyed Sentinel slithers down. It licks the blood off its teeth, then roars a hearty roar and slowly advances—it's acquired a new taste for humans. Ivan laughs at it and says, "Haha! I bet my dino nuggies are more ferocious than you!" His mind is a little ~ erm ~ cuckoo at the moment.
"Uh oh," V says, sensing the danger towards Tessa.
"Nuh uh! You stay back, bud!" Ivan pointed his gun towards the Sentinel, as a threat.
Tessa is shocked out of her bliss and hurriedly readies her sword, while V crawls to the ceiling. Ready to aid in her friends' escape, Uzi begins to unleash her Absolute Solver to break a hole into the back of the elevator.
"Uzi, no!" N realizes what Uzi was doing, and tries to stop her.
Her AS suddenly glows yellow instead of the usual purple, causing her fingers to crack, bend, and contort in all the ways no finger should. It produces a black hole that blows a wide, oozing opening into the elevator. A fleshy substance lines the side of the hole, making it all but more creepier.
"Whoops, all mitosis!" Tessa says, not noticing the elevator issue, as her back is to the elevator.
Tessa sprays more blood in the way of the advancing red-eyed Sentinel. The Sentinel regurgitates out a severed Murder Drone arm and holds it firmly in its mouth.
It fires two bullets. Ivan lets loose several rounds of pure 100% Colombian Cocaine- I mean, LEAD, with muzzle flashes illuminating the room. V uses her claws to catch one of the Sentinels's bullets. She throws it back at the Sentinel at warp speed and it causes the barrel of the gun to break and fall off.
It turns out she's wearing her old, broken glasses, which sharpened her vision enough to perform such an incredible task. The Sentinel is stunned, and frozen for a second. Use this link to watch the Sentinel LIVE:
"Did I get it?" V asks, adjusting the glasses. She gets answered with a groan. V turns her head, and so does Tessa. Ivan's holding his left hand, soaked with crimson blood. It drips onto the concrete, staining it red.
"-A little- help- here?" Ivan trembles, now squeezing his wounded hand tighter than before, hoping to stop the flow. Ivan resumes screaming his lungs out, before he turns his hand over to access the wound. Some light reflected off of the metal bullet. His nerves are going haywire, not knowing what to do except to PANIC. V goes up to Ivan, pulls out a tweezer from god knows where, and pulls out the bullet.
It clatters to the floor accompanied by a howl from Ivan. More screaming. V swiftly wraps his hand up in a bandage, making sure to leave his fingers free for use. Even more screaming. Ivan gingerly
"Thanks, V," Ivan takes another deep breath as they look towards N and Uzi, with a tsunami of 'What the hell?' and/or 'Can I euthanize her?' emotion washing over their faces.
Uzi's AS is out of control, which now rips a fabric in reality. She panics, panting heavily as she tries restraining her glitched arm.
Left with no other choice, N quickly cuts the mangled hand off with his sword, and immediately sports a sad face. For a split second as she falls back, her head snaps towards N (CRONCH), eyes gleaming yellow and mouth twisted into a grin with sharp teeth, showing him a single message:
MISS ME?
N catches her in his arms. Uzi coughs up oil as her eyes switch between purple and yellow, her voice overlapping with the AS voice.
AS Uzi, voice glitchy asks N, "Wh-at th-e-e hel-l is going on-o-n?"
"Bugger, that's bad. Come on, team!" Tessa ushered everybody into the elevator, which was slowly descending, but luckily the makeshift entrance was still usable.
Tessa pulls Uzi and N into the elevator, only for it to get stuck.
"V, come on!" N begs V, who resumes fighting the Sentinel.
V isn't listening. Still clutching the severed arm, the Sentinel extends its blade and deftly swings at V. With her vision in peak condition, however, V's robo-dinosaur sword fight ends in seconds as she knocks the Sentinel to the ground.
Just as she readies her arm cannon at the Sentinel, another pulls out the power supply to the elevator, causing it to rise slightly. With both sides of the elevator wide open, the team inside are sitting ducks. The Sentinel flashes its lights which in turn V whips her head back to avoid the light, causing her glasses to fly off her face. Another Sentinel crushes the glasses beneath its foot. V is surrounded by the Sentinels.
"Hey, um–" V gets interrupted by N.
"DON'T DO WHAT I THINK YOU ARE ABOUT TO DO! DON'T TRY TO GO ALL SACRIFICY FOR THE GREATER GOOD THING!" Ivan yelled at V, trying to convince her to get in.
"NO, NO, NO! V, WE NEED YOU!" He begs desperately at V, hoping she will get in.
"...Nah," V responds to N. She snaps her attention to Uzi and calls out to her, "Uzi?"
Uzi looks over at V, with a grim expression painted on her faceplate.
"...I trust you," V admits, before using her laser to cut the cables that held the elevator in place.
"V, PLEASE!" N's on the verge of breaking down into tears, his own emotions barely able to suppress themselves.
MASSIVE SPOILER, V doesn't get in. With a smile, she gives one final salute as the Sentinels surround her and the cables snap, sending the elevator down...
Accompanied with the sound of several voices crying.
—= lyrics that match the mood of the chapter =—
Thousands of feet march to the beat
It's an army on the march
Long way from home
Paying the price in young men's lives
Thousands of feet march to the beat
It's an army in despair
Knee-deep in mud
Stuck in the trench with no way out
—=The Price of a Mile | Sabaton=—
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