Awakening

"Stupid Dad, stupid school, stupid ruins!"

A short humanoid robot known as a worker drone noisily complains as she lifts herself through a long ago broken window of a heavily damaged and dilapidated building. This drone was named Uzi Doorman, and she was going through a hard time being filled with angst, rebellion, and a craving to explore the world beyond the three doors keeping her colony safe.

"Just need a few more parts to finish this sick as hell railgun! Then I'll show them all!" Uzi cackles maniacally before looking around the frozen post-apocalyptic land and sighs. "What's the point in monologuing if there's no one around?!" In a fit of anger she kicks a nearby wall before grabbing her boot clad foot in pain.

"Ow ow ow! Stupid pain receptors! I keep forgetting to turn those off." She huffs, but her digital eyes widen as her audio receptors hear the wall she kicked begin to crumble and crack before collapsing all together, creating a large amount of dust.

"Pfft, bleh! I think some got in my mouth!" Uzi waves the dust out of her face, only to see an eerie light blue glow fill the expanded room. On the other side of the broken down wall was a room containing a vast amount of human medical supplies from non copyright green medical bags with a white cross, syringes, dusky cabinets full of medicine and sterilization alcohol, and even big tanks of oxygen hooked to tubes and a face mask. But the main attraction was the massive pod in the middle of the room connected to a standby generator, the pod more than big enough to fit a drone inside of, at least twice her size!

"...Jackpot! There's gotta be something here I can use!" Uzi quickly dashes closer to the eerily glowing pod. "Now where to start taking this thing a...part......" Uzi slowly trails off as she sees something in the pod. A black shadow shaped just like any drone, a head, body, two arms, two legs...but this didn't look like any drone. Not even like the murder drones attacking the colony. It had to be 6 feet tall at most, and wasn't made of metal at all. She's never seen one herself, but even she knows this could only be... "A human..."

In the pod, visible through the sturdy see-through glass on top of the pod, was a real life human body! Nothing like the skeletons she's come across, but a fully fleshy body. Only...it was cold. Not the body, she hasn't touched that yet, but then again it had to be freezing considering the pod itself felt cold to the touch!

"Cryosleep...I thought that was just sci-fi junk!" Uzi, the walking talking sentient robot commented. She didn't expect a human to actually cryogenically freeze itself to survive, but the evidence was here in front of her. She would never admit this out loud but, this was kind of scary. The last possibly living human on Copper-9, completely at her fingertips.

She could just walk away, let the generator eventually die out and pretend she never saw anything...but why choose such a lame option when she finally had a chance to change things up in her dull life!

"Now how do you open up this thing?" Uzi taps on the pod with her knuckles, only for the pod's light to glow brighter! Uzi is momentarily blinded before the light dampens completely, and the glass door of the pod unlocks. Air hisses out of the contraption as the glass door slowly rises from the bottom, lifting higher and higher until the human's body is completely exposed.

Now she wasn't an expert on human gender but the one in front of her seemed pretty masculine, even without a silly mustache like her dad wore. And much more thankfully he wasn't naked, she didn't need to learn about human anatomy today, her drone health class was embarrassing enough. The human was completely clad in a blue-gray jumpsuit fitted with several pockets, one on the chest and what had to be like six on his bottom half.

Uzi leans in closer to the human as he lay in the pod, his eyelids shut in a deep sleep. Honestly he looked pretty dead...oh no.

"No no no no no! Don't tell me you're dead too!" Uzi panics and leans in closer to the still human and places her head on his chest, trying to listen for any signs of life. She listens closely, hearing a very faint beat, ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum...

!!!

The human sharply inhales before violently coughing and hacking like he's been suffocating this whole time! Uzi jumped back the second she heard him inhale, her whole body on edge as she watched the human grasp at his throat.

"Whoa! Okay, okay! So you're alive! That's good. Unfortunately you look like you're choking. That's bad. How do I help!?" Uzi asks in a panic as she approaches the human, but all he does is lean on the edge of the cryopod, wheezing and gasping as his hands lower from his throat to his chest, seemingly in deep pain as his eyes are shut tight.

"Come on, come on, say something!" Uzi reaches out for the coughing human's shoulder, just to freeze as his pained expression is replaced with a look of complete hatred as his eyelids open to reveal crimson irises.

"I'M GONNA KILL THE SOLVER!" The human spits out in a guttural tone, venom in his voice before he falls into another bad coughing fit. "GOD DAMN IT!" He yells out, his voice having strangely shifted as the coughing seems to have cleared his throat! Now he sounded a lot less angry and definitely less threatening.

"Gah! Jeez, don't scare me like that! I mean, I wasn't scared, who said I was scared!?...who's the solver?" Uzi asks bewildered as the human scrambles around the icy room before grasping the nearby oxygen tank. He immediately grabs the mask and places it over his mouth before turning a nozzle on top of the oxygen canister, and breathes in deeply.

"Fuck I needed that...what's a solver?" The human asks confusedly as he takes a few more deep breaths, trying to steady his breathing and experimentally taking it off a few times to try and get used to the much less cleaner air around him.

"But you were the one who...never mind." Uzi sighs, figuring it was the ramblings of a near dead human. "Are you a real human?" She asks as she looks over his face, his irises still crimson but somehow less bright than she first saw them. Must have been a trick of the light.

"Huh? Oh yeah, of course I am. Unless my mind was somehow implanted into a new oxygen-needing drone body..." Curiously the human looks over himself, his hands touching his face and running his fingers through his short black hair before sighing in relief. "Okay yeah, I'm still me, 100% human."

Uzi was pretty weirded out by the human, but considering she's never met a human before, she wouldn't be surprised if they were all this weird. "So do you have a name or should I just call you human?"

"Sorry, I forgot my manners when I was coughing my lungs out." The human says with a bit of playful sarcasm and a smile. "My name is Maxwell, but you can call me Max." The now named Max introduces himself with a kind smile before he takes another breath of sanitized air from the mask in his hands. "Do you have a name? I know corporate says naming drones is bad because it causes unnecessary attachment, but I say fuck that." He shrugs nonchalantly, it was hard to believe this guy was suffocating not even a minute ago.

"Ha, I can respect that...I'm Uzi." Uzi introduces herself before her face scrunches. "Wait a minute, corporate? You mean JC Jensons?"

"In Spaaaaacee!!!!" Max finishes before nodding his head.

"You work for them?" Uzi asks, a bit of anger showing in her voice.

"Worked for to be exact, as in past tense. For all accounts I was fired...but apparently my contract stated that before I could collect my severance pay, I had to volunteer to test out an experimental project of theirs. Said project being this hunk of junk." Max gently slaps the side of the cryopod.

"Wait, test? They made you their guinea pig?"

"Nah, they treated guinea pigs better, they had better odds of surviving than me. The scientists in charge told me I only had a 40 percent chance of living. That's less than a coin flip. Apparently this cryopod is a prototype, they were gonna take the data on this and use it to make better ones. Wait why am I telling you all this, didn't the scientists tell you this when they sent you here?" Max asks confused as he slowly takes in his surroundings and then notices the way the drone is dressed so differently from the common worker drone.

"Uh...funny story..."

———

"Wait wait wait, time out...first of all, really well done exposition. Did you write all that yourself?" Max asks curiously as he trudges through the snow next to Uzi as they made their way to the big doors Uzi mentioned in her explanation before she went maniacally laughing while presenting her railgun.

"Yep! It's part of my homework presentation. I feel it'll help get my point across." Uzi answers while caressing her magnetically amplified photon converger, having luckily scavenged some of the parts she needed to get it mostly working. Even Max was lucky enough to find some of his withheld items such as his sturdy work boots, and some tools he could fit in his pockets like screwdrivers, pliers, and small wrenches. He also found his lucky red crowbar he kept in a holster on his hip, and lastly he got his thermal underwear to wear under his jumpsuit to help him not freeze to death. He even found a cart he could use to carry the oxygen tanks just in case he needs them, as his cough didn't seem to be going away.

"Cool. Second, humanity ended up wiping all biological life off on this planet?"

"All except for you."

"Pleeeease tell me we managed to get the dogs and cats and other sweet animals off the planet."

"I...if it makes you feel better, I haven't seen any frozen animal skeletons."

"Then I'm just gonna hope for the best. Lastly, fucking murder drones!? Sorry, language..."

"No no! Do it again! That was cool!" Uzi encourages excitedly, eager to see more cool swearing.

"Shut up, no it's not!" Max laughs, pushing Uzi's eager face away. "God, I was only 22 when they put me in cryosleep, and I'm already a bad influence on those younger than me...actually wait how old are you?"

"I'm 18! Don't treat me like a kid, it's my last year of high school." Uzi huffs, the 4'2 drone glaring at the taller human.

Max laughs before shaking his head. "Damn though, I knew JC Jenson was awful in the way it treated drones, but making drones to specifically hunt and kill other drones is, I'm gonna say it, completely fucked up."

"Ha! One thing I do like about humans at least, your swears are funny."

"...there's gotta be a way to stop those things. It's a longshot but...do you think they'll listen to a living human?" Max then ends up having another harsh coughing fit before clearing his throat. "Ugh, mostly living."

"I...huh." Uzi takes a second to ponder it before looking at Max. "Hmm, maybe? I'm gonna say maybe not. They got orders from JC Jenson itself, probably some stuffy rich jerks who never worked a day in their lives. If you were fired, then that means you're not with the company, you're just a civilian. They probably won't kill you, but they won't listen to you."

"Damn, and here I thought I could at least be of help. Drones don't deserve this..."

"...why were you fired?" Uzi curiously asked, trying to understand how a seemingly nice human like him lost his job.

"Funny enough, it was because I cared too much about drones. Sorry if this sounds weird but, I always found worker drones fascinating. Your AI is incredible, you learn so much so fast just by observing others. You don't just replicate or mimic emotions, you have your own feelings! You're not just mindless slaves, but beings with hopes and dreams, fears and insecurities. Honestly, I'd say drones are a lot like humans! Drones like you Uzi are just incredible."

"...wow...I-I mean, that's stupid, like I'd wanna be anything like a stinky human!" Uzi looks away, trying not to let her blush be visible. "And besides, there's no drone like me. I'm a lone wolf, a loose cannon, a short fuse in a house of candles, a rogue!"

"Yes yes, you're incredibly special and incredibly unique." Max rolls his eyes and playfully pats Uzi on the top of her head, making her blush more before she snaps her teeth at him, making him laugh again.

"Bite me! ...and that didn't answer my question, how did you get fired? What even was your job?"

"Well, I was actually a repairman. I worked on stuff like the radiators, air conditioning, even the vending machines. Sometimes just a whack from my lucky crowbar got it to spill any stuck snacks." Max chuckles before reminiscing a bit more somberly. "But my main job was repairing drones, fixing them up when they got workplace accidents. In a way it made me feel a lot like some kind of drone certified nurse, screwing back on dislocated arms or mending cracked visors. Maybe it was getting so close to drones that made me care so much for them."

"But still, I was guilty of staying on the sidelines for too long, doing nothing as I saw drones get mistreated. Some people worked drones too hard, day and night with no rest. Some were complete sadists, kicking and beating drones for any little mistake. The worst were the bastards who wastefully killed and disposed of drones everyday."

"I got sick of it, I tried to get some drones to unionize and fight back...little did I know that one drone I talked to was fitted with a video recorder inside him. I couldn't blame him, how could he have known one of the managers was able to look and listen through his metaphorical eyes and ears whenever they wanted? I got fired, but the drones I rallied got the worst of it..."

"Max..." Uzi trails off, unsure of what to say.

"Hey don't worry about it though, it's all in the past. At least I have the chance to help out here and now. I managed to survive whatever happened on this planet, so I might as well make the most of it!" Max smiles wide, his positive energy disgustingly infectious as Uzi can't help but smile. Soon enough though they finally reach the doors.

"Okay, now for the hard part...convincing my dad to let you stay."

Uzi knocks on the wall three times, signaling one of the drones inside to slightly open the huge door slowly, allowing his visor to peer through before settling on Uzi.

"Ah Khan's kid! You're back! Did you find a fresh deck of playing cards like you said you were looking for?" The drone asks as Uzi's eyes widen.

"Shoot! I knew I forgot something." Uzi hissed softly, looking around her person to see if she might have picked up a deck before finding Max.

"Oh if it's a deck of cards you want," Max speaks up, finally catching the attention of the worker drone. The human reached into his back pocket before pulling out a mostly new deck of playing cards. "I got a full set right here. I managed to teach some drones how to play blackjack back in the day."

The worker drones eyes narrowed at Uzi and Max suspiciously before the doors open wide. "Well why didn't you say so! Come on in!"

———

Surprisingly enough, it wasn't too hard to convince Khan. Once Max showed he meant no harm at all and even played a couple games with the WDF, he immediately earned Khan's approval...which unfortunately lowered his coolness in the eyes of Uzi, but thankfully not enough for her to stop wanting him around.

Khan still made sure Max's room was close by so he could keep an eye on him just in case. But Max certainly didn't mind as it allowed him to visit Uzi easily. Like he's doing now after she got back from school.

"Uzi are you okay? I heard there was an explosion in your classroom!" Max asks, concerned as he looks over Uzi and the bandage around her face.

"Ugh! Quit smothering me! I'm fine! What's with boys today and asking about me?"

"Wait, boys? As in plural?" Max's smile widens as he can see Uzi flinch at being caught. "Ooo give me the deets! Is he nice? Is he cool? ...is he hot?~" Max asks teasingly as he leans in closely just for Uzi to shove him away.

"Ew! Gross! It wasn't like that! I mean he's not bad it's just, UGH! I don't have time for this! My life isn't some romcom, it's gonna be an epic action packed adventure! Especially once I get the final piece I need."

"Right, the final piece...the piece you said was at the Murder Drone lair...okay look, I trust that you can take care of yourself Uzi, you were cool enough to save me."

"Well, I mean I am pretty awesome." Uzi smiles smugly, Max chuckling a bit before ending up coughing a little hard and needing to take a breath with his oxygen mask again.

"But... don't you think some back up would be helpful? I mean, from what you said there's more than one of those winged bastards. Going out by yourself is incredibly dangerous, and going into their lair could very well be a suicide mission!"

"I can totally handle it!" Uzi stubbornly protests, her arms crossed looking away from Max. "Besides, everyone here is too much of a coward to go outside the walls! They'd rather play cards and twiddle their thumbs!"

"I could come with you." Max offers, Uzi's eyes widening as she looks at him, scanning for any sign of this being a prank. "I'm not joking. You saved my life Uzi, the least I can do is use it to help you save the entire colony."

"I...I really appreciate it Max but..." Her eyes looked at the oxygen canister Max had close by. "But, in case the Murder Drones attack here, you're the only one I can trust to protect everyone here!"

"...you know, I know you're playing me, but it warms my heart hearing you say you trust me." Uzi blushes at that, Max giggling as he leans in close. "You like me~" He says in a teasing voice.

"Oh, BITE ME!" Uzi shoves Max away, the human having a laughing fit as he gives Uzi her space.

"Hehehe...but seriously Uzi, keep your eyes wide open out there. Don't let those fuckers catch you off guard." Max says a bit seriously, looking Uzi in the visor as she blushes a bit before grinning confidently and nodding her head.

"Trust me Max, they won't know what hit 'em!"

———

Max couldn't sleep, it was so late at night but he was too worried about Uzi. And the second he felt he was about to fall asleep, he was immediately snapped wide awake to the sound of the alarm blaring.

"Oh no-" Max is cut off by another painful fit of coughing. "FUCKING HELL! When is that gonna go away?" Max brings the mask to his mouth and breathes in the clean air again, before he stands straight up on his feet. He grabs his crowbar from its holster, puts the oxygen canister in its cart, and readies himself as he exits his room and makes his way to the colony halls.

He sees some running drones and manages to get one's attention. "Hey! What's the alarm for?"

"The Murder Drones! They got in! We gotta get to the evacuation zone!" The drone quickly explains before running away.

"Evacuation zone, better get there too." Max runs with the escaping drones to the evacuation zone before seeing Khan.

"Khan!" Max yells out to the drone, stepping out of the way to let more drones get through before they can shut the steel gate. "Have you seen Uzi? I thought she'd be back by now."

"Uzi? She...she's gone..." Khan mutters, despair in his voice as Max's blood runs cold.

"W-what do you mean she's gone? How do you know this?"

"I-I saw it happen, that monster had her against the wall. There was nothing I could do. I-I shut the emergency door and-"

"Wait, she wasn't dead yet? Why didn't you do anything?! Isn't the WDF trained in combat in case of emergency? Don't you guys have guns or something to defend yourselves?!"

"We never needed them! The doors did all the defending for us! Just like this one will!" Khan said, seemingly convincing just himself as he began to shut the steel door once the last drones got in. Max quickly steps inside with them, feeling a hot rage swell up in him.

"You utter fucking MORON!" Max roars out at the Doorman. "You're drones! You're capable of learning so many ways to defend yourselves! You learn by watching! Didn't any of you watch maybe some self defense tapes or a cheesy kung fu movie? Do any of you know how to fight?" He quickly scans the room, no drones coming up.

"Son of a bitch...fine then! If we survive this Khan, I'm going to shove my arm so far up your robotic ass, everybody is gonna look at you and say "Wow, that is the WHINIEST looking puppet I've ever seen!" "

"...what the-"

"SHOULDER DEEP!" Max snarls at him, only for an explosion to ring out, Max putting his attention on the metal door as more banging is heard. Max can't help but cough again, his head hurting from it this time as he goes to take a breath from his oxygen mask.

"Damn it! I'm not going out without a fight!" A drone with a backwards cap walks forward, grabbing a broken pipe and readies himself.

"I appreciate the back up dude. Before we fight for our lives, I just thought I'd say hi, I'm Max."

"Heh, I'm Thad. Nice to know there's at least one human who'll fight for us." He gives the human a thumbs up before the metal door finally blows open! An explosion rings out, Max and Thad pushed backwards as out of the dust come two new drones Max had never seen before. They were much taller than the average drone, having a more human height. They were still a bit shorter than Max, but height didn't seem like such a big factor when the menacingly giggling Murder Drones had razor sharp claws.

"Well, here goes nothing." Max takes a deep breath. "MURDER DRONES!" Max yells out, the drones momentarily stopping, their bodies scanning him before the Xs on their visors revert to regular digital eyes, wide and hollow in surprise.

"My name is Maxwell Ignitus, JC Jenson employee. I was supposed to be fired, but as per my contract I still had one last job to do. Without anyone to officially fire me after said job was done, I am still technically an employee. And as fucked up as it is, as a human I outrank you both. With that said, as your superior officer, I command you both to cease your worker drone killing spree!"

For a good long while, everyone was silent, the worker drones were completely shocked seeing a human stand up to the Murder Drones, while J and V were completely stunned, looking at each other unsure how to act.

"I thought all the humans were dead? Who is this guy?" V whispers to J, clutching her head with one hand feeling strangely dazed.

"I-I don't know, I was told there were no survivors. I can't find the employee registry either to see if what he's saying is true!" J's visor was displaying a loading symbol as she struggles to make sense of this.

"Whoa, you actually got them to stop." Thad whispers to Max in awe.

"I think I may have only bought us another minute of life, something is wrong..." Max mutters, coughing harshly and breaking the silence as he has to take a breath from his oxygen mask again. But as he reaches for the canister, the oxygen tank is completely slashed in half by J as her visor returns to its menacing X shape.

"Yeah, s-sorry not sorry. B-but we take orders from s-someone higher ranked t-than you." J explains, her voice glitching slightly like she was still in the middle of loading something. Something about her voice though, for a second it sounded like an entirely different voice was speaking instead of hers. And this voice...it made Max's blood boil.

"You...you WAGE SLAVE TOADIE!!!" Max viciously yells out before swinging his crowbar, catching J off guard as he bashes the side of her head, the room filled with the sound of metal clashing against metal like a pipe clanging on the ground as she's sent flying back a few feet away from him.

"Huh, guess the human's got some guts in him. Kind of a shame we'll need to rip them out of him." V comments idly, just for Thad to strike her head with his pipe... unfortunately she barely flinches before slowly turning her head toward him, and grinning maliciously.

"Oh shi-" Thad is cut off as V slashes at him, the jock drone barely jumping out of the way, but not without those claws scratching the surface of his metal body, oil slowly bleeding out of him as he crashes onto the ground and tumbles next to the other drones.

"Thad!" Max yells in concern, his blinding rage vanishing for a bit before returning even stronger as he jumps to stab V with the pointed end of his crowbar, just for J's tail to wrap around his waist and stop the human midair. "Gah! Let me go!" He struggles in her grasp as J brings him closer to her face.

"I'll admit, you got a good hit on me. And it's kind of nice seeing someone with some backbone for once. I probably would have liked taking orders from you.~" J trails a finger along Max's cheek, the human completely caught off guard but shakes his head, his rage slowly vanishing as her voice doesn't seem to make him as furious. He's still pissed off, but strangely he feels the burst of strength he had leaving him.

"Knock it off! Look, if you don't wanna follow my commands, then fine. But JC Jenson must have had some protocol telling you to bring back any living human, some kind of backup directive maybe? And even if that's not the case, then shouldn't you at least report it? Don't the managers hate it when drones make a decision of their own without their permission?"

"That's, I mean..." Once again J's visor is forced into a loading screen as Max's words and presence leaves her confounded.

"Think about it! Call off this killing situation! What if the drones aren't a rogue AI acting on their own? What if I was the one telling them what to do? If they were following my orders, then they've done nothing wrong, and JC Jenson needs to take responsibility!"

"THEY CAN'T!" J yells in a panic, an error message flashing on her visor before she reels her tail back and tosses Max towards the drones!

"Agh! Fuck!" Max tumbles on the ground, slowly getting back up as he sees Thad in V's grasp. "Hang on Thad!" Max grabs his crowbar, about to get back into the fight, just to hear a voice he thought he'd never hear again.

"Hey! Leave the human alone, and put that conventionally attractive drone down!" Uzi appears at the entrance of the busted doorway, standing next to her is another Murder Drone who is waving before she elbows him.

"Oh right! Uh..." The male drone begins as he looks at J. "J, you're sometimes kind of mean to me, and I wish you weren't. Just some constructive criticism!" Once he finished, Uzi smiled and gave him a fist bump.

"Uzi! Man am I glad to see you! And I see you made a new friend, good for you!" Max calls out as he stands up straight ready to fight.

"Oh hi! I'm N, nice to meet you...living human? Wow, that brings up a lot of questions."

"I'm Max. And trust me, I have plenty of questions too." The human chuckles, just to watch as V tosses Thad aside. He's happy the worker drone is not in danger at the moment, but understands things are about to get a lot more dangerous.

"Noted, traitor." J growls out. "We'll circle back after I rightsize your existence..."

"Okay, which one do you want?" Uzi whispers to N.

"J please!"

"Too bad.~ Good luck!" Uzi smirks before clicking a pen and tossing it at J with amazing aim, puncturing a part of her headpiece holding some of her nanite acid and making her scream in pain.

N looked nervously at V as she giggled maliciously and shifted her arms into sharp swords instead. As she's about to dash in and attack N, Max sneaks up behind her and swings his crowbar right into the small of her back, gaining another satisfying sound of metal clashing as the Murder Drone is thrown forward.

"Did you forget about me?" Max taunts just to have to duck and roll as J wildly sprays a hail of bullets around the room in a painful panic.

With the lethal barrage of bullets from J and missiles from V flying around, all Max can do is quickly find some cover behind a pillar and try to wait out the storm and find a good opportunity to jump back into the fray.

A damaged and incredibly angry yet sadistically cackling J brings an arm up, electrical energy charging in it before firing, unleashing an EMP wave that knocks Uzi onto the floor.

"Uzi!" N yells in concern, stuck in a sword fight with V.

"I got her!" Max yells out, giving N time to focus on his own fight. The human runs in front of the downed body of Uzi, his crowbar ready to defend against J.

"Ugh, you're reeeeally persistent aren't you?" J asks sarcastically, while Max growls angrily.

"And you're reeeeally annoying me with how you keep dodging my questions! Answer me this, can you or can you not contact JC Jenson!?"

"..." J remains silent, but seems conflicted much to Max's confusion.

"Your silence says it all. Last chance, surrender now and answer to me instead. We can find the answers we both want. I know you have questions too, but something is stopping you. I may just be a repairman but with the worker drones we can figure something out! It's not too late!"

"I-I CAN'T!!!" J yells out angrily, clutching her head before spreading her wings and dashing forward to slash at Max. Before she can get in range though, the green glow of Uzi's railgun lights up, the clever drone having used their conversation as an opportunity to aim her gun while prone on the ground.

"You're mine!" Uzi grins as she fires, aiming right at J's head and upper body. At the last second, J quickly tries to fly upward and dodge the attack, but only partially succeeds. She flies up, but not nearly enough as Uzi's railgun fires.

A green explosion blinds everyone momentarily. When the blast settles, J is left twitching on the ground. Her head, upper body, and left arm are intact...but her right arm and entire lower body is completely blown off. Sparks of electricity come off of her as she weakly tries to claw away.

"Ha! Not a total fatality like I wanted, but still a good shot if I do say so myself." Uzi blows a bit of smoke off the barrel of her gun, meanwhile N comes by with a captured V. The worker drones come out of hiding, cheering for Uzi and her impressive display.

"Uzi, that was incredible!" Thad remarks with a big smile.

"Ha, I know. Just gotta let this recharge and we can fully destroy her-"

"Wait Uzi," Max spoke up, walking toward the crawling J and stomping on her arm, making her cry out in pain. "You have every right to want to kill her, but I need answers...WE need answers. And she can't tell us anything dead. Even with two Murder Drones, hi again N, wish we could chat under nicer circumstances, it's nice to know Uzi has another friend." Max smiles kindly at N who smiles back with a double thumbs up. "Even with the two of them, there's no guarantee they know everything J knows. We can't miss out on any information that could help us understand what's going on...plus we need to know who they're working for."

"Well, it's gotta be JC Jenson right?" Uzi asks a bit unsure.

"I don't even know anymore Uzi, something tells me things are a lot more complicated than we were led to believe..."

"...Alright. I'll take her to Murder Drone's lair and interrogate her along with V here with N's help."

"Wait, you're not staying?" Max asks before an error symbol appears on Uzi's visor, the EMP attack from earlier still leaving her weak. Thankfully N swoops in and lifts her onto his shoulders.

"Ahem..." Khan finally makes himself known, some drones parting so Uzi can see him. Just for her to throw a wrench down at his feet.

"I brought the Murder Drones here accidentally. You CHOSE to leave me for dead, instead of just FUCKING BELIEVING IN ME!" Uzi swears, Max wincing knowing he influenced her there, but mostly focused on glaring at Khan.

"And that's not even an edgy teen hyperbole like when I said it last week!" Uzi sniffles before smacking herself, trying to recover her critically low edge. With a sigh, she speaks up again. "I'll save you the trouble, Dad. I banish myself!"

Everyone looks to Khan, waiting to see if he'll do or say anything. All he can do is stay silent like the coward he is.

"Let's go N..." Uzi huffs on top of N's shoulders before glancing at the human. "You're welcome to visit me at any time Max. Everyone else here can bite me! "

"Thank you Uzi. Here N, let me at least help you with this..." He offers as he begins to lift up J's upper torso.

"Ugh, I feel like I'm gonna hurl..." J groans in pain, N putting his hands up and backing away.

"You're a drone, you can't possibly-" Max is cut off as he sees J's cheeks bulge, and he immediately grabs her twintails with his other hand and lifts them out of the way as J retches and expels some oil from her mouth onto the floor. Quicker than anyone notices, something skitters out of the oil and hides in the shadows.

"Oh god it's everywhere!" N yells out, waiting for J to finish before Max hands her upper body to the murder drone to carry with him along with the tied up V while Uzi is sitting on his shoulders.

"Nice to meet you Max and Mr. Uzi." N says as he begins to leave, just for Uzi to lightly smack his head.

"Shut it..." She demands before N opens up his wings and flies out of the roof of the evacuation zone, flying away from the colony.

Max sighs softly, looking at the night sky through the hole they created. He looks at Khan as he idly sips from a mug with the label #1 Dad on it. Max was so tempted to smack it out of his hands, but figures enough damage was done today.

Max looks at what remained of his oxygen tank, inspecting it closely as he looks at the cleanly cut steel. Thad manages to shake off his shock of Uzi banishing herself and approaches Max.

"Hey, it's gonna be okay, I'm sure there's another one of these somewhere, we just never needed them so we-"

"It didn't hiss..." Max mutters coldly.

"...well of course it didn't, it's not a snake...there aren't any snakes right?" Thad asked a bit concerned, only having seen them in books with pictures but still found them creepy.

"You don't understand, the oxygen canister didn't make any noise when it was slashed open. No air escaped, it's been empty of any oxygen for god knows how long. It might not have ever had any oxygen in it to begin with!" Max explained with rising fear and frustration.

"If there was never any air in it, then how was I breathing better, how have I been breathing at all?!" Max rants, his eyes wide and teeth grinding just for Thad to grab his shoulder. Max looked at the drone offering his support, and slowly settled down.

"...I have questions that need answers, but I'm not gonna solve anything like this anytime soon. I need to gather my thoughts... could you do me a huge favor Thad?"

"Oh sure! What is it?"

"Whenever you get the chance, it doesn't have to be today or tomorrow, but once you feel ready, please come with me to try and find Uzi. I'm not asking you to drag her back here, but... I just wanna check that she's safe."

"No problem! I already need to thank her for saving my life. But she should be fine, she's with the murder dude with all the guns...wait that came out wrong."

Max just chuckles softly and shakes his head. "No no, I get what you mean. N seems like the trustworthy type. But it's not him I'm afraid will hurt her or the other Murder Drones...I can't shake this feeling that there's something worse to look out for." Max explained ominously, carefully placing two fingers along his throat, checking for his own pulse.

———

And here we have the first chapter of my Murder Drones fanfic, Consume. Weird title I know, but it'll make sense with time. For now though we gotta deal with these deadly Murder Drones. I hope you enjoy this story of mine. Sorry if some scenes feel a tad rushed, I'm trying hard not to bloat this fanfic with unnecessary stuff like just writing down completely unchanged scenes in the original show.

That's why we skipped stuff like Uzi's class presentation or her talking to N. That's honestly a pet peeve of mine, finding a fun fanfic only to find it's basically writing down the entire script of the source material. If you wanna see those scenes, then I recommend rewatching Murder Drones and supporting the official material.

Coming up next is a little segment I like to add at the end of chapters. These Omake are completely non-canon to the fanfic unless stated otherwise. They're just a fun comedic side piece I like to add. Inspiration for this piece comes from the Lythero Silver Campaign. Hope you enjoy it!

———

Omake

N and Uzi stood in the middle of a high-tech looking room before N turned to Uzi with a smile on his face. "Ay! We're kinda nice at this!"

"You said there'd be anime here..." Uzi grumbles with her hands on her hips. Before N could speak up, the front doors open to reveal Cyn in her original worker drone body and maid uniform.

"Oh? Excuse me, what in the actual- [audio jungle] are you both doing in my house?" Cyn questions, her voice glitching a bit as her head tilts to the side.

N happily points to a big monitor on the other end of the room displaying the words, MAXIMUM Author Motivation. "We're celebrating! Come on Cyn!"

"Wait, why does your house have all this sweet tech?" Uzi asks confused, just for Cyn to giggle.

"Obviously because I'm the best character. Wink.~" She winks before returning to the main subject. "So a celebration? Haven't you forgotten someone?"

"Hmm, nope. Pretty sure Max and by proxy the author already have your character arc figured out." Uzi shrugs as she opens a can of soda to sip from.

Cyn slowly leans forward with a subtle creaking noise before immediately standing straight. "Not me, you easily tricked robots, her!" She points at the monitor, the screen changing to a live cam feed of the front door, revealing the Russian speaking drone Doll!

"Hello? Is anyone there?" Doll asks as she peers into the peephole curiously.

"Oh god! But Max said writing for her character arc was even harder!" N yells out in a panic, clutching at his face.

"Too bad~" Cyn sticks out of her tongue playfully before pressing a button hidden on the wall.

Doll sighs as she sits on the doorstep. "I knew this was a terrible idea." Doll remarks, just for her eyes to widen as she feels the floor beneath her has vanished. She yelps as she finally stops defying gravity and falls down the opened hole.

Uzi shows off some cute dog pictures she found online on her phone to N, just for the two of them to hear some muffled yelling and Russian cursing as Doll continues falling down several winding pipes until finally falling through a hatch and onto a pile of pillows, feathers blasting around the area.

"You agreed to help finish her character arc." Cyn reminds them, Uzi letting out a whiny groan and pouting as she looks to N for help.

"Hmm, well we could always just kill her!" The Murder Drone suggests, earning a smile from Uzi.

"Sounds like a plan I can get behind!"

Doll groans as she slowly lifts herself up from the pile of pillows, before looking at the three drones surrounding her in a very menacing and deadly formation. She first glances at N, who's in complete murder mode with his wings spread, claws out, and sinister X on his visor. Doll next looks at Uzi who has the solver symbol on her right eye as she somehow cocks her railgun. Doll then worriedly observes Cyn who's yellow eyes glow, illuminating her body now suddenly in her intimidating Tessa skin suit with a hungry look in her eyes. Doll worriedly dabs at her face with a towel as Thad appears dressed as Sonicman, just for Doll to interrupt and speak up!

"Wait wait wait!" She began, the three drones pausing in place to hear her out. "...I brought pizza." She offers, using her absolute solver abilities to present three boxes of hot and fresh pizza with a nervous smile.

To her surprise, this worked! "HOORAY!" The drones cheer, back to their far less violent selves, lifting up Doll and throwing her in the air with confetti and fanfare.

Uzi then shows Doll a paper with her plan to prank Maxwell. The Drones take to the sky, whooping and cheering before they spot a sign directing them to California.

"Dear god..." Uzi mutters with a haunted look on her face as they all realize California is terrible. N has collapsed in the family guy death pose, Doll was seated in the ground with her back against a rock and her head hanging low looking like she's fought through a battlefield, and Cyn is in a fetal position rocking back and forth.

"We're here!" N announces as they find a sign to a building that says Max's house. Him and Cyn in perfect soyjak pointing positions.

Once inside, Max sees them all just to be repulsed at the sight of Doll happily waving at him. Cyn places her hand on Max's shoulder, looking him dead in the eye with a smile on her cute face. "Write it." She says simply, Max's face in disbelief and pain before he angrily hunches over his desk and computer and begins typing while N, Uzi, Cyn, and Doll happily cheer behind him!