X leaned an arm against the wall over Echo, who currently had her upper torso in a gap in the wall of the ship, examining all the wires that were there and seeing if there were any that needed to be repaired.

"And your sure that this is, erm, safe?" the Disassembler asked.

"I know you ain't doubting my sister down there!" Uzi's voce called out from the upper part of the ship.

"Oh, who cares if she fires a circuit board?" V called out, from the chair she was sitting at.

Well, more like from the chair she was chained to.

V could still stand if she wanted to, but how far she could travel from the chair was restricted. For the Worker's saftey until she proved that she wouldn't attack Echo or Uzi.

"Guys, don't worry! I'm good with wires. I'm not gonna fry myself. What kind of diot would do that anyway?" Echo called out, her voice slightly muffled due to being in the wall.

"Can you even see what you're doing in there?" X asked her.

The Worker in the wall moved a bit, then peered out through the opening. X automatically shielded her eyes, both her real ones and the ones she emoted with, from the sudden bright light that filled her vision. The light came from Echo's own eyelights, which had been brightened up to now act as flashlights.

"Oh geez, that's bright!" X cried out, as she turned her body away.

"Yeah, trying to see things in dark places is no problem for me" the Worker stated with a shrug as she went back to fiddling with the wires.

"Trying to see things at all might've become a problem for me" the female Disassembler beside her commented as she rubbed at her eye lights, trying to get them working properly again.

After a couple moments, her vision returned to normal, much to X's relief as she blinked a couple times to clear away any lingering spots.

"Oh thank goodness. Let's never do that again" she muttered.

"Well maybe don't look directly into the light when I turn my eyes into flashlights dumbass" Echo commented inside the wall.

X went still as she slowly turned towards the Worker, a smile of amusement and surprise slowly spreading across her face.

"...Cheeky fucker!" she cried, her smile widening as she heard Echo's muffled giggles.

"Did you know that was actually one of my nicknames when I was younger?"

"Shut up"

"It's true! Just ask Uzi. She was usually there to bear witness"

X couldn't help but laugh a bit, then she calmed herself down and looked towards the ladder as the angsty rebellious female Worker drone slid down the ladder.

"What is this thing?" Uzi asked as she held up an odd looking object.

Echo, who had just brought two separated wires together, turned off the flashlight setting and peeked out of the opening. The object her sister was holding had a skull in the center, while a pair of wings swept out on either side of it.

"Huh. Never seen one of those things before" she said, tilting her head a bit as she brought herself to a sitting up position, leaning against the opening in the wall.

"Oh that thing? That's a pilot's pin tag. All of the Disassemblers that flew one of these things here wore those. Plus a pilot's hat too" X explained as she walked over and took the object from Uzi to closer examine it.

She flipped the pin over in her hand, and discovered a pleasant surprise.

"Huh, this has N's name on the back of it" she commented.

"Wait, really?" Echo asked as she stood up.

X turned the pin around to show the two siblings.

"That means N was the one who flew this hunk of junk here!" Uzi cried out as she grabbed the pin, taking a look at it for herself. .

"That might also explain why it's so busted up" Echo added, though she kept her voice on the more quieter side.

There was suddenly a muffled startled yell and loud thump that came from outside the ship, causing everyone to look around.

"Huh, speak of the devil. I think he's awake" X commented, putting a hand against her hip.

N had gone outside a little while ago to take a nap. To be perfectly honest, Echo had freaked out the first couple of times she saw a random yellow glow suspended in the air in the darkness of the Corpse Spire as she traveled to scavenge some parts, but she quickly got used to it. How N never heard her and never woke up, she would never know.

But he seemed to be awake now. Uzi practically flew up the ladder to call out to him.

"N! We found something in here!" she cried, then she slid back down the ladder to join the others.

She looked at the pilot's pin, like she was trying to memorize every detail of it, and her mood suddenly seemed to drop.

"Uzi?" Echo asked, tilting her head a bit as she gave her sister an inquisitive look.

The volatile Worker turned towards a mirror that was hanging up on the wall, and lifted up some of her dark purple hair that was hanging in front of her visor. Suddenly, one of her eye lights distorted into a hexagon with three prongs, and a second later, the glass in the mirror cracked, some pieces even falling to the floor. Echo went still as her eyes hollowed out, not even registering the soft, "Oh shit" that came from X.

She had seen that symbol before. It had been showing up in her dreams for the past couple of nights.

"You too huh?" she finally managed to say, causing Uzi to face her, a look of surprise on her face, as the symbol glitched away.

"I've been seeing that in my dreams lately. Didn't think it could actually materialize" Echo stated.

V who hand been blowing bubbles from a bubble stick that came out of her arm, stopped what she was doing, and turned around in her chair a bit.

"That's weird and concerning" she taunted in a bit of a jaunty tone, a lazy look in her eye lights with an equally lazy smile on her face.

Uzi's downtrodden mood took a turn real quick in favor of her sudden temper.

"Bite me! This is probably you weirdo's fault!" she snapped, a ticked off look on her face as she pointed an accusatory finger at V while her other hand balled into a fist.

Echo took a small step forward, giving V a somewhat hard look while at the same time preparing herself to hold Uzi back if she flung herself at the Disassembler. Its happened before, but that time involved her former classmates. Better to try and avoid a repeat of that situation.

"I've never seen that symbol before" V told Uzi.

Her tone suddenly went up a couple of octaves, and sounded almost threatening.

"Wanna do an autopsy to find out?" she asked.

Echo now fully placed herself between the female Disassembler and Uzi, who jumped up on a box to have the high ground, and gave a rather sarcastic laugh.

"Hahaha! No" she said.

"Preferably not V. I would like for this space to remain oil stain free, thank you very much" X stated as she leaned against the wall that was right beside the ladder, crossing her arms as she did so.

At that moment, the light that was coming in through the porthole in the roof disappeared, dimming the room down severely, and it slowly returned as N climbed down the ladder.

"Whadya find?" he asked, turning his upper body towards the group as he spoke.

Uzi smacked the pin onto his hat, surprising him.

"Did you know that was a pilot hat?" she asked him, kicking the box she was standing on backwards while simultaneously stepping down on her other foot.

It was done so casually too, unlike N's reaction to the news as his eyes hollowed out.

"I, was the pilot?! That's awesome!" he cried out, holding the hat on his head.

Then he suddenly went quiet. Echo had to turn her audio receptors all the way up to hear what he said next.

"I crashed and ruined everything"

Then N returned his voice to a normal level.

"Spaceship pilot. Origin story" he said, pointing finger guns at the group as his eye lights filled out again.

X gave an amused chuckle as she brought the back of her hand to her mouth, while V gave a sudden, very threatening hiss before quickly returning to blowing her bubbles. Everybody was silent for a moment, then N began talking again.

"Speaking of piloting to Earth, we sure, murder all humans is uh, sssss, morality?" he asked, watching Uzi as she grabbed a screwdriver and walked towards the control console.

"I mean, I don't like the company, but isn't killing all humans a bit excessive?" X added as Uzi began screwing something back into place.

Echo's eyes now hollowed, and she turned towards her sister.

"Murdering all humans? First going to the Disassembly Drone Lair, and now this? Why aren't you telling me this kind of stuff anymore? Not that I would stop you if you did go through with the things you say I would actually try to help you because I'm supportive like that, but that hurts Uzi!" she cried.

"The humans sent you without a communication relay and reformatted your memories to soup" Uzi stated as she pointed the screwdriver at the control panel, then at the three Disassembly Drones.

V took the moment to press her tongue against her bubble stick for a quick second. Echo gave her an incredulous look that was mixed with severe confusion and a bit of disgust. V gave the bubble stick a scrutinizing look, before looking off to the side with a 'this is fine' look and shrugging a bit.

"You people have issues" Echo quietly muttered, now feeling a little scared as she leaned away from V for a moment.

"Covering their tracks means their past negotiating" Uzi stated as she jabbed the screwdriver into the panel and took out a wrench from literally nowhere.

"Well, like they tried negotiating with our mom" she added, bending the wrench as she tightened her grasp on it.

Echo glanced towards the ground for a second. She barely had any memories of her and Uzi's mother, and the only thing they both knew about her was how she died.

"Or maybe there are no negotiations!" V snapped with a murderous smile, pulling herself to the end of the chain's length as she got in Uzi's face, catching almost everyone by surprise.

Echo found herself slowly being pulled back so that she stood behind X, by the Disassembler herself, as she took up a slightly protective position in front of the Worker.

"The humans programmed us to solve a problem. Where's proof of your backstory? The one where your kind's so conveniently innocent?" she asked as she slowly sat back down in her chair.

Uzi stared at her, unblinking for a moment, before her eyes filled out again and she raised up the bent wrench, clearly not having good thoughts running through her head. N, who had during the exchange placed himself behind the volatile female, now put his hands on her shoulders and slowly pulled her backwards to his side, giving V a somewhat hard look. They both narrowed their eye lights at each other for a second before V rolled hers.

"...J was getting orders from someone. If not the company through that relay then uh, who? And how?" N said, seeming just as confused as he sounded.

Uzi looked off somewhere, and a loading symbol appeared on her visor before it turned into a symbol of annoyance, quickly being followed by a groan.

"Quit complicating my murder plan" she huffed, leaning against N as she spoke, much to his surprise.

His eyes, which had hollowed, filled out for a moment, then after a moment of an internal debate, he hesitantly began patting Uzi's head. An action that quickly stopped when she gave his offending hand a quick backhanding smack. Despite the tense mood, Echo couldn't help but give a quiet giggle.

The poor guy just looked so conflicted as to what he should do!

Deciding to help him out of his little predicament, Echo moved out from behind X and started towards the end of the control panel that was farthest from Uzi. There, she found what she was looking for. Which happened to be a small piece of metal.

Placing this on the tip of her finger, Echo came back around and hid behind X, much to the Disassembler's confused amusement.

"What are you up to?" she asked, peering down at the Worker taking shelter behind her.

"You'll see in a moment" Echo replied while pressing the middle finger against her thumb on her free hand.

She set that hand right against the small piece of metal on her pointer, pressing one eye light shut as she took aim. Uzi glanced over in her direction, and her eye lights hollowed for a second before they filled out again, now narrowed.

"Echo, don't you even think about doing it" she hissed in a warning tone.

Echo's smile turned into a shit eating grin that showed off her fangs.

"Too late" she stated before flicking the piece of metal as hard as she could.

The tiny thing hit Uzi directly between her eye lights, startling the volatile female for a moment as she rubbed at the spot.

"Oh hunny, you better start running" X commented as she looked back down at Echo.

Uzi's eye lights narrowed even more as she slowly reached for the bent wrench, which had been set aside. Echo gave her an innocent smile as she backed up.

"Echo, where do you think you're going?" Uzi asked with a dangerous smile as she tilted her to the side a bit.

N looked rather unsure if he should hold Uzi back, or just let things play out. He did have his hands out though, looking ready to grab Uzi's shoulders and pull her back if he had to.

"Absolutely nowhere" Echo replied in a sing song voice as she clasped her hands behind her back while slowly backing away.

"Alrightseeya!" she suddenly cried out, darting towards the ladder and practically teleporting to the top from how fast she was moving.

"Echo, get back here!" Uzi yelled, chasing after her sister, holding the bent wrench above her head as she went.

X quickly moved out of the way of the two Workers, unable to hold back an amused chuckle when they were both gone.

"Not a dull moment with them around" she commented, setting a hand against her hip.

"As long as they don't hurt each other" N stated, though he was also looking slightly amused as he leaned against the control panel.

He quickly got off of it and gave the thing a hollow eyed apprehensive look when it began smoking and spitting a few sparks.

"Pffft, and as long as you don't hurt yourself!" X laughed while N tried to look like he didn't do anything.

The muffled sound of metal harshly hitting itself, followed by a pained and indignant "Ow!" brought the Disassemblers to silence and their attention to the two Worker Drones, who were both still outside.

"Dude! I merely flicked a piece of metal at you! Why'd you throw a fucking engine component?!" Echo's voice cried out.

"That's what you get bitch! And I have yet to hit you with this wrench!" came Uzi's reply.

"...Might want to bend the thing back into shape first if you want it to actually have an effect in the first place"

...

"I'm definitely hitting you twice as hard than I originally planned for that"

X and N both looked away from the wall and at each other, concern etched in both of their faces. It was much more present in the male.

"We should probably go and stop them" He stated.

"Or you could let them tear each other apart" V called from her chair amid the sound of the multitude of popping bubbles that surrounded her.

"Nah. And you're gonna run out of bubble liquid if you keep that up at this rate" X told her while N started for the ladder.

V stuck her tongue out at her, prompting an eye roll and a light shake of the head as X followed N up the ladder to the porthole. Sticking her upper body out of the ship while the male Disassembler stood, the two scanned the entire inside of the spire. No Worker was to be seen, but the snow a good few meters away from the ship was all messed up, like a scuffle had taken place.

"Where the heck did they go? They were just out here, we heard em" X commented, confusion and slight concern present on her face as she pulled herself all the way out of the ship and closed the porthole.

"There's no way they can disappear that fast" N said as he hopped down to the ground.

"Well, they did. Somehow" X told him as she put out her wings, jumping off the ship and gliding towards the scuffle sight.

N quickly joined her as she landed, and went down on one knee to try and discover any footprints. X took a step back and slowly turned her head, allowing everything down to the tiniest piece of detail to be registered. And that allowed her to detect the two sets of footprints trailing through the snow towards the opening of the Corpse Spire.

They were rather spaced out, indicating whoever created them footprints was moving at a sprint.

"Well shit" she said, setting her hands on her hips.

Her set of real eyes, which were the glowing yellow bumps on her headband-like thing on her head, gave her a 360 field of vision, so she got to see N perking his head up and automatically look towards her.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

X pointed upwards for a moment before letting her hand fall, her pointer finger now aiming towards the footprints.

"...Oh" N breathed, rising to his full height and moving so that he stood beside X.

"Guess we're going on a robo-hunt. Come on" the female Disassembler stated, letting her arms fall as she made her way towards the opening.

"A robo-hunt?" her companion asked, wringing his hands a bit as a hollow eyed look of concern and worry crept across his face.

"We need to find those two before they disassemble each other N. Even though V would prefer that, I on the other hand, would like to keep our new friends alive" X told him, leaning her head and part of her upper body outside of the Spire, peering out into the blizzard of the nuclear snow storm.

Tonight was especially harsh, with winds moving a bit faster than normal, and the thick snow severely reducing visibility. The light from the planet and its moon in the sky barely even reached the ground. Searching for two Drones that were half her size, blended in with the environment, and didn't give off even a fraction of the amount of light she produced, all while combating high winds and reduced visibility was definitely not going to be easy.

The use of footprints would be futile, since this amount of snow would quickly fill any depression left in the ground within minutes.

"If you want, you can stay here. I'm not going to make you go out into that weather if you don't want to" X stated, looking over her shoulder towards N, who had gotten closer to the entrance.

"I'm not gonna let you go out there alone to search for two drones who are both much, uuhhmm, smaller, than us. Out of the question" he replied, moving closer to her as he spoke.

X gave him a smile as she looked back out into the tempest.

"Alright, just don't let them hear you calling them small. We're going to split up, one Disassembler to a Worker, but try to stay in contact if at all possible. Let me know if you find either one of them" she told him.

N gave a bright smile and a thumbs up.

"Will do!" he said.

X couldn't help but smile again, then her wings materialized into existence. One harsh sweep of them, and the female Disassembler was shooting into the air. She barely heard the sound of N doing the same over the howling of the wind.

X did her best to keep somewhat close to the ground so she would have some chance of spotting the flash of living metal. She diverted as much energy she could spare towards her tracking and detection systems, hoping to increase her odds.

"Echo! Uzi!" she called out, her voice echoing a bit, but quickly being lost to the wind.

Nothing to answer her calls, and her detection systems weren't picking up anything on any spectrum. Flying closer to the ground, X kept her head on the swivel, trying her best to keep herself steady as the winds battered themselves against her body, threatening to send her tumbling off her course. She kept herself on the move, often circling back here and there to try and see if there was anything she missed.

It was on the third circle back that X finally picked up something. Landing a few feet away, she walked up to what she had seen. It was a small footprint accompanied by a few others, all creating a trail that led towards a pile of metal and rubble that was a little ways away.

What was better, was the fact that the footprints were still very fresh. Probably made just moments before X came across the area. Taking to the air again, the disassembler intended to glide over to the pile of debris, but a sudden strong and entirely unexpected gust of wind from behind threw X off balance, and she crashed into the snow, sliding to a halt right beside the pile.

After a couple seconds of silence as she picked herself back up, X was thoroughly startled to hear a cackling laugh come from the pile.

"Ayo what the-!" she cried, hopping back from the pile.

"I'm so sorry, but that was the funniest shit I've ever seen! I thought you Disassemblers were supposed to be graceful!" someone laughed out.

The female Disassembler took a second or two longer than she would like to admit for her to realize who it was.

"...Echo?"

"Well damn, took you long enough. But on another matter-" X, who had begun leaning closer to the rubble pile, quickly backed up a bit as the upper body of the Worker suddenly popped out at the bottom of the pile.

"-is Uzi anywhere around here? Last I checked she was still chasing me with that bent wrench" Echo asked, looking in all different directions.

"Uuhhh, no. She's not here" X told her, going down on one knee and resting her lower arms on the bent up one.

"Gotta admit, that little disappearing act had me and N worried. How'd ya'll get out of the Spire so fast? One second, we heard you two trying to hit each other right next to the ship and the next, you're suddenly nowhere to be seen" she added as Echo wrestled herself out of the rubble pile.

"Huh, really? To be honest, I'm not sure. It was like I suddenly got an extra burst of speed when Uzi got closer to landing a hit after I threw a screw at her in retaliation to the engine component" the Worker stated, trying to get her foot unstuck since it had decided to get caught on something.

"How many times do you guys intentionally provoke each other?" X asked her as she offered her arm up to the Worker.

"Oh jeez, uhm, well, seeing how me and Uzi are siblings, it's a bit of a requirement that we bully each other on a daily basis. To be honest, I have no idea how many of the times are intentional" Echo told her, grabbing on to the arm.

X stood and moved backwards, pulling Echo the rest of the way out of the pile.

"Well, I think N is currently looking for Uzi, if he hasn't found her already. I may be the fastest of our group, but he was sometimes the best tracker" the Disassembler stated, letting her arm drop when Echo found her feet again.

"I'm starting to think we should probably go and find them" the worker commented.

"I concur with that statement. Hop up" X told her, crouching down beside her.

The Worker jumped up onto her back, and with a great sweep of her wings, the Disassembler was back in the air, accompanied by a new pair of eyes to help with the search. Seeing how Uzi, especially with N, usually made a lot of noise wherever she went, it wasn't too hard to catch a whisper of it on the wind and follow it. Eventually, the pair got close enough to catch a full sentence from the volatile female.

"Ugh, I'm sweaty! Who programmed that?!" Uzi cried out.

X and Echo glanced at each other, and shared a dead pan smile.

"Yyuupppp, there she is" the Worker commented.

X began her descent, now getting close enough to start seeing Uzi and N through the blizzard.

"You good Uzi?" the male disassembler asked, leaning forward a bit.

Uzi pushed his face with her response.

"I'm good. Better than good. I am god!" she cried.

"Nnnnoyournot!" Echo yelled with a bright smile as X performed a quick fly-by before making a touchdown not too far away.

"Why you-!"

"Oh, hey Thad. How long have you been there?" Echo asked suddenly as she spotted the male Worker.

He was holding Uzi's railgun, and Echo's sword, and seemed to have a look of confusion on his face. Echo herself was a little confused before she suddenly remembered. The siblings had sent a discreet message asking him to gather their weapons and meet them here.

How in the world did she manage to forget about that?

Uzi stopped herself short as she looked over her shoulder a bit, and suddenly let out a nervous sounding giggle.

"Uh-hhuhuh, uh, hi, hi Thad, uh, thank youu" she said as she approached him, and got her railgun back.

She then gave N a thumbs up, showing that things were okay. The male Disassembler, who was currently sitting down on something, returned the gesture with a bright smile.

"Oh my robo-god, Thad, you are a literal life saver" Echo called out with a much gentler smile as she hopped off X to get her sword back.

"I'm never letting you go again" she muttered, hugging the weapon to herself.

"Of course Zi, Echs, N and Ms" Thad told the group, facing N at the end and pointing finger guns at the Disassembler.

N replied with the same action that he gave Uzi.

"Yeesh, no fancy nickname for me? I'm hurt Thad" X commented with a smile as she came and bent down a bit.

"Don't worry, I'm working on it" the male worker replied as he and X fistbumped.

"You guys saved my life. I-I don't think the colony's even serious about this banishment stuff" he added.

Uzi looked like she automatically shut down, and even Echo stiffened up a bit.

"More just, confused, especially with-" he added before Uzi cut him off.

"The fact that me and my sister are too rogue to re-enter society now? We can never return" she stated.

"...The recent disappearances?" Thad told her before turning towards the Disassemblers.

"And your murder friend's corpse? When I went to grab your guy's weapons, it, kinda looked like it, crawled away?" he said, moving his fingers in a crawling motion to put emphasis on what he was trying to say.

Behind him, both N and X's eye lights hollowed out, and the male Disassembler stood up and looked in different directions with a slightly panicked expression.

"I guess we could return, a little?" Uzi said after a moment, holding her thumb and pointer close together on her free hand.

"Er, are you guys okay?" Echo asked, giving the Disassemblers a narrow eyed look as she leaned back a bit while putting her sword up on her back.

"Oh, us? We, uh, we're just fine. No need to worry" X replied, swiping her hand through the air and she tried to not look suspicious.

Echo raised a digital eyebrow, now very much suspicious. Her eye lights glitched for a moment, showing the word 'SUS' for a brief second before glitching back to her usual purplish blue eye lights.

"Riiight. Well, if we're going to go back for a bit, we need to convince the other Workers that you guys are okay to let in" she, pointing a lazy finger at the two Disassemblers.

"How do we do that?" Thad asked.

"Good question, I'm open to any ideas" Echo replied.

X looked at N out of the corner of her eye lights, and gave a small smirking smile.

"I might have an idea" she said.

...

"I swear, if this really works, I'm actually going to self detonate" Uzi stated from where she was on N's shoulders.

"Bitch, have some faith, will ya? You know as well as I do that the Workers in the colony can be very stupid and very gullible. Remember that one time I tricked someone into walking straight into an oil pit? That was fucking hilarious" Echo told her, keeping a hand on Thad's shirt to make sure he didn't fall off as she spoke.

Not that she really needed to. He was holding on to the back of her dress-like shirt for dear life.

Uzi burst out laughing as she recalled the time Echo had brought up.

"Dude, you were so obvious about it too! That guy was a fucking idiot" she stated.

"When did this happen?" X asked with a confused, but equally amused smile as she tilted her head to look over her shoulder at Echo.

"Okay, so, there was this guy in mine and Uzi's class a long while back, like a couple years ago or so, who claimed he was the smartest in the colony, despite being around our age. We'll call him B for now cause I actually forgot what his name was. Anyway. Nobody believed him, but almost everyone decided to roll with it, because this guy was admittedly, a little fucked up in the head" the sword weilder started.

"Big fucking mistake. This idiot's ego shot up so high, he began questioning what the teachers were saying. He thought he was always right, and everybody else was either wrong or circuit dead" Uzi tossed in.

"Right. It didn't take very long before everyone in the colony was sick and tired of him. And of course, this bitch was oblivious as fuck. Had literally no idea that everybody hated him"

"So Echo, being the smartass that she is, came up with a plan to humble this bitch really quick. There was a section in the colony bunker that had been dubbed off limits from some kind of natural disaster thing-"

"A sinkhole Uzi. It was a sinkhole that had opened up due to an oil pocket that was slowly draining itself and left a giant hole in the floor"

"....- yeah, that. Now hush it dipshit"

"Excuse me, I thought we were taking turns here" Echo stated, giving her sister a hard look.

"I don't care who goes next. I'm invested in this now" X commented, breaking up the impending argument.

"So what happened next?" N asked, looking very interested as he flapped his wings a bit, trying to keep up with X's speed.

Echo and Uzi gave each other a look for a couple seconds before the older relented, beckoning Uzi to continue with a wave of her hand. Uzi looked victorious for a second before she continued with the story.

"Anyway, so Echo took a bunch of pieces of paper and taped them all together before somehow laying this now giant ass sheet over the hole"

"I managed to tie a rope to the ceiling, and hung upside down on this to paint the paper, and make it look like the floor before the whole sinkhole fiasco. After that, I took down all the barriers and hid them to make it look like everything had been fixed" Echo put in.

"I still have no idea how she did it, but moving on. Echo comes into class one day and asks the teacher if she could take B out for a little bit. The teacher was oblivious, and he let her do so. Now, me being me, I of course follow them, and got to witness one of the most satisfying things I've ever seen"

"B had no idea what I had planned for him. He got confused when we got to the section, since apparently 'No one told me about this!'. I told him, 'Since you think you're so important and above the rest of us, you can be the first to walk across this newly fixed floor'. This idiot actually began walking, well, more like sauntering forward, and actually jumped into my little trap. Next thing he knew, he was stuck neck deep in a four foot deep oil pit. Now, mind you, you had to go through a six foot drop before you hit the oil, so he was trapped pretty damn good"

Uzi suddenly burst out laughing.

"The look on his pathetic face as he realized he had been tricked! Priceless!" she cried.

"The best part was that he could've gotten out on his own. There was a cord tied to the edge of the hole that allowed anyone who accidentally fell in to get out. He didn't see it, and spent three days down there. Everyone could hear some of the crew's laughter when they finally responded to his calls for help. After that, B finally kept to himself, and stayed quiet. I never thought silence could be so satisfyingly sweet" Echo finished off, a little smile on her face as she reminisced about that good fun time.

"I would definitely do it again too, with no hesitation" she added.

X gave a hushed chuckle as she faced forward again.

"Hey, I would do that too, if I was faced with that kind of situation" she said.

"I don't know, seems kinda mean" N commented.

"He was annoying literally everybody in the colony. A lot of people were very happy when he finally went silent out of embarrassment" Echo told him.

"Huh. I remember that guy. Went missing for three days, no one really cared about that. And when we all saw him again, he was covered head to foot in oil stains. Got a lot of laughs out of that. Actually, out of the recent disappearances, did you know he was one of the first to go missing?" Thad jumped in.

"Huh. Really? Probably tripped over a cord or wire or something and knocked himself offline. Wouldn't be all that surprising considering he's done it before" the sword wielder stated.

"I don't know. Something about these disappearances just doesn't sit right with me" the male behind her said.

"And that's why we're investigating it. Lights of the bunker entrance are coming up ahead" X called out, bringing the group's attention to three lights up ahead.

Flying over the roof, all three lights got considerably brighter as their sources were now in view. N made his descent in a half spiral, coming to a halt a couple feet off the ground and landing smoothly on his feet. X simply turned herself upright as she cleared the roof, and dropped the rest of the way down.

Echo jumped off right as X hit the ground, but poor Thad, who wasn't used to such landings, stumbled off and landed flat on his back, causing the sword wielder to giggle a bit in amusement.

"You good?" she asked, offering him a hand.

"Uh, yeah, yeah I'm alright" came the reply as the male Worker took hold and allowed himself to be pulled up to his feet.

"Well, let's get this over with" Uzi growled out as she marched towards the door.

It opened a bit, allowing whoever was one the other side to peer through it without fully exposing themselves.

"Welcome back Thad!-" the door guard greeted before he took notice of the rest of the party.

"Uh, wait, aren't those two grounded or something?" he asked, motioning to the siblings.

"Uugghh, banished! Has our dad been saying we're grounded?!" Uzi snapped.

"Honestly, as annoying as it is, that is definitely something he would do" Echo commented with a deadpanning look to the side as she rested the back of a hand against her hip.

The door guard then looked towards the two Disassemblers.

"Genocide robots?" he asked.

All three Workers outside the door simultaneously looked towards the taller Drones, and N suddenly assumed a kicked puppy look as he lightly tapped his pointer fingers together. He approached the door, and handed a piece of paper through the gap in it. The door guard took and looked through it, before giving X a suspicious look.

She jabbed a finger towards N.

"He speaks for both of us with that apology card" she stated.

That seemed good enough for the door guard as he suddenly brightened up.

"Ooohhh, alright, just don't do it again. Get in here ya goobs!" he said with a bright smile.

He then pinned up the apology card to the upper part of the door before opening it all the way to allow entry. After they were out of earshot, Echo let out a breath of relief that she had been holding.

"Can't believe that actually worked" she said.

"Can't believe we're actually back here again" Uzi quipped, not looking happy at all.

"Hey, I don't know anybody, well except maybe Thad, is very happy to be here. With that being said, are there any tunnels or walkways around here that allow us to be out of sight?" X said then asked.

The group collectively looked at Echo, who held their gazes for a moment then stalked ahead. She got close to the wall as she walked, and began quietly tapping her knuckles against the metal while straining her audio receptors, waiting to hear the sound she was looking for.

"I'm not sure how knocking on a wall is going to help keep us out of sight" Thad said, looking a little nervous as he spoke.

"If I remember correctly, there should be a secret tunnel right around..." Echo began to say before cutting herself off.

The section of the wall she had just knocked on let out a 'ping' noise for each time she made contact, but the sound didn't just echo through the hallway. It sounded like it was echoing from within the wall too.

"...Here" the female Worker stated with a smile as she hooked her fingers under a metal panel.

With a pull, the panel slid towards the right, revealing a large gap that led into darkness. It also seemed big enough for a Disassembler to pass through with ease. Echo looked back at the group, tilted her head towards the tunnel, and then went in herself, activating the flashlight feature

for her eye lights as she went. After a moment, everybody followed her. X made sure to close the door behind her.

Common curtsy man.

After a little bit of travel, and a few attempts at small talk, the group got out of the tunnel, and were immediately behind what seemed to be a crime scene. From where she was Echo could make out some caution tape, and an oil stain on the wall. Poking her head out from behind the wall, Echo had to bite on her finger to keep herself quiet.

Caution tape was everywhere, overdone in her opinion, but so were the oil splatters and stains, and even dismantled body parts. Puddles of oil and drag marks littered the floor, and splatters could be seen on the walls. There was even oil dripping from the ceiling, coming from a large opening.

Looked like a whole ass ceiling panel had been removed.

"Holy shit" she quietly whispered.

"What's the matt- oh! Woah! What the hell?!" X whispered then quietly cried out as she joined Echo.

Some of the Workers in the crime scene began talking, so everyone quieted down to hear what they were saying as the rest of the group joined the two females at the wall.

"Yeah, where's Khan? Cause this is looks, ehehe, ughh, not ideal" one Worker asked then said as he pointed out a streak mark on the floor.

"Parent teacher conference? Something about his daughters being more important than building a door in this hallway, uughh. Kinda cringe" another replied.

"Eww, yeah, ugh, give me a minute, ug, yeah, okay, almost threw up" the first one stated as he made a couple of gagging noises.

"Huh. Nice to know we've been missed" Echo said in a sarcastic tone, looking towards her sister as she spoke.

Uzi rolled her eye lights in subtle annoyance as her mood visibly dropped. N was quick to notice this.

"You good?" he asked her, looking concerned.

"I'm good. Stop asking!" the volatile female quietly snapped as she pushed him out of view.

She made a couple of hand motions, that apparently only Echo understood, before she quickly and quietly moved to the other side of the room. Echo followed at the same pace. X almost found it surprising at how quiet the two siblings could be when they wanted to.

She didn't hear anything when they moved. The rustling of clothes and the sound of footsteps never reached her audio receptors, which was actually rather impressive. Echo peeked out from the wall she and Uzi were behind, making sure they hadn't caught anyone's attention, before motioning for X, N, and Thad to join them.

Which the trio did.

"Alright, this tunnel right here will take us directly to the room where Uzi killed J" Echo stated, motioning towards said tunnel.

As soon as that happened, X caught the scent of oil. It didn't come from what was in the room behind them. That oil was at least a couple hours old.

No. This scent of oil smelt, fresh. Which was rather odd.

"Before we get moving, does anyone have any comments, concerns, questions, or objections?"

X debated on telling the others, but ultimately decided against it.

"Nothing? Good. Let's go" Echo stated before darting into the tunnel.

Everyone quickly followed her, and it seemed Thad suddenly had a thought.

"How do you know where all of these secret passages are?" he asked.

"I, may or may not have been wondering that too" N commented.

"A good couple years ago, I saw a layout of the entire compound on Khan's desk. Naturally, I stole it, and looked it over. After that, I realized, that there were a lot of tunnels and rooms that never seemed to be there when I walked through the halls. The first time I discovered a secret passageway was completely accidental. I had gotten frustrated over not being able to figure out this strange mystery of the compound layout, and out of anger, I punched a wall. Imagine my surprise when part of the wall slid away, revealing a dark tunnel behind it. After that, I was on a roll. I did my best, and discovered every hidden entrance, tunnel, and room. Some of them weren't even on the layout, so I marked them down. The other kids didn't really like playing hide and seek with me" Echo explained.

"How come?" N asked.

Echo gave him a coy look, turning off the flashlight feature before she did so.

"Cause I always won" she simply said before facing forward again.

"Oh, hey, look at that. We're here" she said suddenly.

To everyone's surprise, she suddenly jumped forward, and disappeared from view, effectively throwing everyone for a panicked loop.

"Echo!" X cried out rushing forward.

"She's fine, morons. This is the exit. It's above the floor level, so we have to jump. Dumbasses" Uzi told the group before she also jumped.

Peering over the place where the two siblings disappeared at, N, X, and Thad were all relieved to the two in perfect condition. Both were staring up at the group expectantly.

"Well? Are you guys coming or what?" Echo called out.

After sharing a look with the others, X was the first to hop down. It wasn't a terrible drop, only about ten feet or so. It was an easy land for the Disassemblers, and N caught Thad when he jumped, then set him on his feet before walking over to X.

Uzi, Echo, and Thad, at this time, pulled out flashlights from literal thin air, and clicked them on, revealing something rather disturbing that they all had different reactions to.

"Oh my!"

"What the hell?!"

"Oh robo-jesus!"

"The fuck?!"

"That's disgusting"

The ground in front of the group was absolutely covered in oil that was steaming from how warm it was in the cold air.

"That is very disturbing" Echo stated, moving her flashlight to shine against a wall.

"You guys... do that often?" Uzi hesitantly asked as she moved the flashlight up the wall, revealing a trail of oil that led up to a massive hole in the wall.

"Haha, no. I'm very concerned" N told her, putting his fists against his hips.

"But also, pretty frightened a little bit" he added, doing a finger guns motion as he gave a deadpaning smile.

X gave a small amused smile and shook her head while closing her eye lights.

Absolute lovable dork N.

"Hey Zi! Echs!" Thad suddenly called out from a different part of the room.

The group joined him, and he shined his light against an imprinted sign in the wall.

"What's this thing?" he asked.

Echo stiffened up as she recognized the three pronged hexagon symbol. Next to it were the combined words AbsoluteSolver. And under it was something about a host reboot, then three numbers, and then something about insufficient material.

"Hey, isn't that your special eye?" N asked Uzi as he pointed towards the symbol.

"Don't call it that" the volatile female snapped as she hit N on the arm.

Then she joined Echo, who had gotten closer to the sign.

"Absolute Solver? Reboot?" the gunslinger said as she read the sign.

"Hey N? Out of curiosity, would this have anything to do with the time you literally regrew your head after Uzi blasted it off?" Echo asked, looking over her shoulder at the male.

N let out a nervous giggle.

"I actively avoid unpacking how that works" he replied.

"Ooookaayyy. Even more disturbed with that" Echo commented, looking rather concerned before she turned her attention back to her sister as she began talking again.

"New material can't be pulled from thin air. If the wound is severe enough, this Solver might be some sort of auto-run program to collect more matter-"

The younger female worker drone's hollowed out as she was suddenly caught cut off by N, who had placed his hand over her mouth. Thad was visibly shaking, X was staring at something in the distance, looking about ready to activate some sort of weaponry with how she held her hands and arms up, and Echo quickly became aware of an odd scuttling noise. Shining her light at the ground, she flitted it about for a moment before suddenly going still.

A five fingered hand that appeared to be covered by some sort of pale pink colored fleshy thing, slowly crawled into the flashlight's view. It took every ounce of self restraint she had to prevent herself from visibly shaking like Thad. That odd limb crawled around a bit more, then suddenly darted towards the group, latching itself on Thad's leg, who let out a soft scream out of nerves and shock.

Echo raised a hand, and slowly began to draw out her sword. Uzi made the light follow along the cord that the strangely shaped limb was attached to, and discovered that it snaked along the ground for a moment before going up and disappearing behind some large cargo crates. Echo now fully had that sword drawn, and N, who had taken his hand off of Uzi's mouth and transformed it into a missile launcher, was given the go-ahead by Uzi herself.

The sound of the missile firing almost seemed too loud as it echoed through the air, and the missile landed against the ceiling, lighting up the entire ceiling, and drawing attention to what appeared to be a giant moving tube with hundreds of little legs sticking out of its sides. It felt like Echo's insides were wriggling, forming a pit of nausea and disgust to settle in her lower midsection. Now that thing, whatever it was, was absolutely terrifying.

"Oooooh, fuck that, no fucking thank you, nu uh, goodbye" she quietly whispered.

Both N and Uzi quickly covered their mouths with a hand, both looking rather somewhat guilty. Suddenly, the strange thing that was holding on to Thad's leg shot up, yanking him into the air as he let out a fearful yell, before slamming him down against the ground and starting to drag him towards the cargo crates. Echo was about to dart forward, ready to slice the thing off of Thad, but before she could, N made a throwing motion out of the corner of her eye, and a ninja star shot through the air, curving its trajectory and slicing through the cord.

There was a moment of silence as the severed cord disappeared from view, and then everyone collectively turned towards N, who had a second ninja star clasped between his fingers, ready to throw should he need to.

"Okay, I'll admit, that was kinda cool" Echo quickly breathed out as she approached Thad back first, intending to pull him to his feet.

"I wanna fricking ninja star" Uzi stated, going on the tips of her feet in an attempt to reach the six bladed prong weapon.

She never got the chance to grab it as something slammed into her, N, and X, harshly shoving them all into the wall behind them, leaving them winded and falling to the ground. The thing that attacked the group made itself known as a giant pair of pincer claws that suddenly snapped around a yelling Thad. Echo made a move with her sword, intending to bring it down on the pincers, but a second pair of them came out of nowhere, rocketing into her side, breaking through the casing and slamming her into a support beam.

"Echo!" she heard Uzi scream out as the pincers retracted, now bring the older female Worker's stuck body with it.

With her sword now on the floor, since she had lost hold of it when she was slammed into the support beam, Echo now desperately used her hands and feet to try and pry herself off of the pincers. After a few tense moments of struggling, she managed to free herself, and landed on the floor, holding her injured side as she made a move for her sword. The pincers came forward again, but before they could get even a foot closer to the downed Worker, a sudden flash of brown, white, yellow, and silver darted between the two, taking Echo with it.

The two hit the ground hard, and a pair of metallic wings folded themselves around the duo, protecting them from the worst of the damage as they rolled to a stop. Echo now recognized X as she stood up, letting out a threatening sounding hiss as a murderous 'x' appeared on her visor. The oil stained pincers paused for a second, decided it wasn't going to deal with a protective Disassembly Drone, then quickly noped it out of there.

X waited for a moment before letting the namesake on her visor distort back to her eye lights, and she worriedly looked down at the precious cargo in her arms.

"Echo, are you alright?" she asked, sounding slightly panicked as she flew back towards the others, performing a fly-by along the way to pick up Echo's sword.

"Uh, weellllll, about as good as I can be" came the reply as the Worker was set on her feet.

"But more importantly, WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?! The hell was that thing?!" Echo cried out, her hands on her head.

She quickly spun on her heel to face N and Uzi, who were both finally starting to come to.

"And secondly, are you guys alright?" she asked in a much more quieter and concerned tone.

"Yeah, I'm good" came N's reply as he pushed himself up a bit.

"You good?" he asked Uzi as she also started to rise.

"Ugh, stop asking!" Uzi snapped as she pushed N back into the ground.

"Jeez, I can feel the love from here" Echo commented with a deadpan look as she set a hand against her injured side.

"You know what, fuck off" Uzi told her before glancing back down at the male Disassembler.

"Chainsaw hand time?" she asked.

"Yeah, could be cool" N replied as he transformed his hands into literal buzzing chainsaws and raised them into the air.

Echo stared at them with a blank expression before slowly turning towards X, jabbing a finger at N as he rose up to his feet.

"Yeah, JCJenson hooked us up with almost every type of weapon possible. Literally the only thing they did well at" X told her.

...

"Huh"

After that, X turned her hands into a gun and a missile launcher, and the group took off running, following the trail of oil that had been left behind by whatever took Thad. They managed to pass through a couple of hallways before a holographic image of Thad screaming out of fear appeared in front of them, effectively stopping the group in their tracks. Suddenly, the holographic image distorted, now showing Thad standing up, seemingly fine.

"Yes, and hello! It's me, Thad! Uhm, can I get a location?" his voice called out, sounding doubled and almost demonic for a moment, then slowing evening out as the projection kept talking.

X, Echo, N, and Uzi all gave each other a confused look before glancing back at the projection.

"I heard, Dentist's Office! I'm Thad at the Dentist's Office! Come over here for your... teeth!" holographic Thad called out.

Echo and Uzi shared a look, then they both powered up their weapons. Echo got into a fighting stance while Uzi aimed the gun at Thad's hologram.

"Predictably terrible work J. Why do you look soooo...?" the volatile female started to say before N cut her off.

Again.

"Great! You look great J!" he called out.

"Pffft, no you don't" Echo muttered under her breath as she looked off to the side before looking back at the hologram.

Uzi readied her gun again, and hologram Thad looked panicked.

"Ohoho no! Wait guys, its really meee... is that a fricking ninja star?" the hologram said then asked, its voice and the hologram itself heavily distorting as N took out the weapon.

He gave a smile, and suddenly tossed the thing. Uzi, tossing up her railgun, which N caught, performed a midair twist, kicking the weapon and making it fly through the hologram and into the ceiling. The real Thad suddenly dropped down to the ground, much to X's surprise.

Thad let out a relieved sounding noise as he got to his feet.

"Life savers again! Thanks! Super invited to my Shindig next weekend" he said as he backed up a bit.

His face suddenly hardened as he pointed at a projector.

"Cool kids only" he stated.

One of the pincers from before started getting close, but Thad noticed it, and the thing backed up real quick when he raised a fist, ready to hit it if he had to.

"...Holy shit, we've been invited to a Shindig!" Echo cried, and the news prompted excited squeals and yells from just about everyone.

Though the excitement was quickly cut short as a few heavy mechanical limbs slammed into the ground.

"We're busy in any way. So whatever, so lame" a robotic female voice stated as multiple projectors came out of the ceiling.

All of the single lights in the projectors rolled as one, and Echo had no doubt in her mind that it was supposed to imitate an eye roll.

"What's with the voice J?" X asked as Uzi and Echo both readied their weapons again.

"Oh, J's not here" the robotic voice said as the projectors focused on one spot and activated, showing J's now headless corpse.

"We are trying to repair that host as per our directive"

"So you are a program?" Echo asked, lifting her head a bit.

"More like you are our cute puppets"

J's headless body distorted, and showed someone that was painfully familiar to the two siblings.

"It hurts our feelings you don't remember us" Uzi and Echo's mother, Nori, seemed to speak the words out herself, but Echo knew that wasn't her voice.

"Nnnnnn! What's with the mom hologram?" Uzi called out.

Looking around, Echo suddenly realized that neither of the Disassemblers were around anymore.

"Easier to assemulate than explain" came the voice.

"Not happening!" Uzi snapped, raising the railgun up.

"Fair, but our choice"

The top of J's head suddenly dropped down, and Echo raised her sword a bit higher.

"Now, we will have to do something shocking"

Another flailing body dropped down from the ceiling only being held by it's head, and Echo's oil seemed the freeze as she recognized who it was.

"Whoa, hey!" Uzi called out, her voice shaky as she ran forward.

"Dad!" Echo cried out.

It seemed to be the only thing she could do. Everything else was frozen in fear.

"Goodbye, dad"

With that, a second clawed hand dropped down and grabbed Kahn's body, and in one fluid motion, his upper body was pulled straight off. Everything began to sound muddled around Echo, and it seemed the only thing she could focus on was how J's mangled form bit down on Kahn's shoulder, exctracted every last drop of oil she could from his broken and destroyed body.

"...Dad?" she just barely managed to say, her voice coming out as a small, high pitched squeak as an arm fell to the ground, accompanied by a bucket load of oil.

Echo was barely aware of a missile flying just past her head, but she did have the sense to duck when it exploded against V's face.

"Uzi! Shoot! Or give it to me!" N called out panicked as he suddenly appeared, running down the hall with one hand transformed into a missile launcher.

He came to a stop beside Uzi, who was currently backing away from J's mangled form, shaking. The male Disassembler fired off another missile, but it was directed off course by a stray claw.

"Close, but..." the robotic voice stated.

If it had any emotion, Echo was sure it would sound like it was mocking the trio. The mangled form slowly got closer.

"Snarl" the robotic voice said.

By this point, N and Uzi were both back where Echo was, and she finally got enough sense back to realize that she should probably be moving too.

"Uzi! You good?!" N cried out.

The volatile female looked at him, and finally managed to say something.

"No" she shakily replied before holding the railgun out.

N started reaching for it, then he gave a murderous smile and an evil laugh as his body distorted and disappeared, revealing a projector behind him.

"Tricked, idiot. You big stupid" the robotic voice stated as a pincer slammed Uzi and Echo back, knocking them both against a wall.

Uzi lost her hold on the railgun, and it went skittering to the middle of the hallway, where it was stabbed by a wayward claw. A clawed hand grabbed Uzi's head, slamming her back into the wall before slowly bringing her forward towards the mangled body.

"No, no,, nonono! Uzi!" Echo screamed out, finding her voice at last.

"Lucky for you, it's melt time. Time to go into my mouth" the robotic voice said as Uzi scrambbled her hands against the giant clawed one holding her head, trying desperately to escape its grasp.

Echo managed to stand up, but a second clawed hand grabbed her, preventing her from doing anything. But she didn't have to, apparently. There was a buzzing sound, followed by the sound of metal being cut through, and everything in front of the two siblings released its hold on them, and collapsed to the ground.

N suddenly dropped to the ground, his hands transformed into chainsaws, and X flew in right beside him, a hand transformed into a sword that sliced another projector to the ground.

"Are you guys here? Like, actually, here?" Echo asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

X somehow managed to hear her, and she dropped down to the ground right beside the female Worker.

"Yes, we're actually here. I'm so sorry Echo. J got a lot better at those projections than we gave her credit for. Had to battle some internal demons for a minute. Took us a hot second to realize none of it was actually real" X explained, cupping Echo's face in her hands.

The Worker seemed to relish the contact, and X briefly wondered what she had gone through. Though there was no time to dwell on it. The busted railgun began letting out a few warning blares, and Echo's eye lights somehow managed to hollow out even more.

"Oh, robo-jesus, it's going to self destruct!" she cried.

N sliced through a few more limbs and performed a midair spin to get closer to Uzi, then he grabbed her, and darted off down the hallway, using his wings to gain an extra burst of speed. X followed his lead, holding Echo's shaking body close to her own as she suddenly flew down the hallway. They were halfway down when the gun exploded, filling everything with a blinding white light.

The last thing Echo realized, was the fact that she hadn't managed to grab her sword before X grabbed her.

...

Slowly coming to, the former sword wielder lightly shook her head, trying to get the ringing out of her audio receptors as she slowly raised her head. Well, tried to, anyway. All of her movements were restricted by some heavy weights that draped themselves over her body.

It took Echo a good couple of seconds to realize it was an arm and a wing. Why were there body parts resting on her? After another couple of seconds, everything that had just happened came flooding back to Echo's memory banks, causing her oncoming headache to increase with the pain level.

Seeing Khan die, almost getting killed herself, N and X's arrival, and the railgun exploding from the damage it took.

"...X?" the female worker croaked out after a moment.

"Uzi? N?" she added, looking towards a rather large lump that laid on the ground a few feet ahead of her.

After a couple more tense moments, she finally got a response.

"I'm here. Is everyone alright?"

It sounded like N. And Echo's guess was confirmed as yellow lights flickered on in the lump ahead of her. The sudden light in a very dark place was enough to overload Echo's optic sensors, and she turned her head away for a moment, trying to visually recover.

The light provided by N's body was enough to light up the form that was currently pinning Echo to the ground. X didn't look to be in too bad of a shape, just some scorch marks and a couple dents in her plating.

"I think X is okay, just needs a minute or two to come back online" the female worker noted, before facing N again, her optics sensors now quickly adjusting to the light being produced by his body.

"How are you and Uzi doing?" she asked.

"Well, I think Uzi's the same way as X. I'm okay, despite being a bit banged up from the explosion. How are you doing?" N replied after a moment.

"Pfft, fucking great. Might be a little delirious from oil loss, but that's okay" Echo managed to laugh out.

"...What's so funny?" X groggily asked, her lights flickering on as she came to.

Uzi quickly followed, and after a bit of explaining everyone was caught up. Now that everyone was finally awake and at it, the group was able to take in their surroundings. The entire hallway had been scorched to hell and back.

A giant mass of rubble was all that was left of the epicenter of the gun's explosion, and fires dotted the ground and the walls here and there. A single projection depicting Khan's lower body distorted, then fizzled away.

"What was... Which parts of that were real?" Uzi quietly asked.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say none of it was" Echo said.

It was more of an effort to soothe her sister, rather than her own mind, and it unfortunately showed in her shaky and uncertain voice. The sound of something moving in the rubble caught everybody's attention, and an odd red colored mass that was no bigger than N's fist came out. It appeared to be made of some fleshy substance, but also had some mechanicalness to it, if the spider-like legs were anything to go by.

"Sneaky, sneaky, sneaking away, get snuck upon" the robotic female voice stated as the odd mass of flesh and metal crawled along the floor.

N stood up and got in front of the group, raising his tail as he went. He suddenly stabbed the limb into the mass, but it was somehow still moving, so he stabbed it again and again, until the mass glowed orange, then shrunk in on itself, creating what appeared to be a tiny black hole that floated away. The sound of voices coming from the end of the hallway prompted almost everyone to stand up, and X managed to get Echo on her back.

The Worker would be riding piggy-back style tonight. N turned towards Uzi, and held out his hand, but she didn't notice. She seemed to be stuck in her own little world.

"Uzi?" Echo quietly asked as N reached forward.

The second his hand touched her shoulder, it might as well have registered as an electrical shock. Uzi flinched back, away from N, and he leaned back a bit himself.

"What... are you things?" Uzi breathed out, genuine fear present on her face.

A look of hurt flashed across N's visor, and he slowly rose to his full height, backing away from the traumatized Worker. Based on the drop in posture, Echo could tell what Uzi said had also affected X, but she seemed to be trying her best not to show it.

"N. I'm sorry, but we have to go" X quietly muttered, just loud enough for the Disassembler to hear her.

N didn't say a word. He simply turned around, and slumped off towards the end of the hallway. X turned to follow him, her wings slowly spreading out as she went.

Echo turned her head to look at her sister, who was watching them go with no notion of stopping them.

"I'll be back. I promise" Echo told her, giving a small smile.

Uzi didn't return the action, so Echo turned her head away, leaning it against X's shoulder as she let her smile drop. She tightened her grip on the Disassembler as they took off, flying away into the blizzard. Though they stayed for a little while, circling around the area they had come out of, silently watching and waiting.

It was a minute before they saw N take to the skies, looking very downtrodden. He didn't say a word, merely gave a sad glance towards X and Echo as they joined him. His gaze seemed to linger on Echo for a couple moments longer before he faced forward again.

Not a word was spoken on the flight back. No one acknowledged the fact that the first few rays of the sun were beginning to peak over the horizon.

Not that it mattered.

The trio was back at the pod long before the sun actually had a chance to do some damage. X had managed to get her hands on a cloth, and soaking it with her saliva, she climbed up the ladder to the second compartment up the ship. Echo was sitting on the floor, leaning her back against the wall.

Her expression was emotionless, but X could practically hear her mind running a thousand miles a minute. The Worker was so caught up in her thoughts that she wasn't even aware of X parting the tear in her shirt to get better access to the wound that had been delivered by the pincer. However, she was jolted out of it when she felt fingers bending some of the plating back into shape.

That part, was actually pretty painful, and despite her best of trying not to show it, she was ultimately unsuccessful. Relief from the pain came in the form of the saliva soaked cloth, which was now pressed against the wound, causing a tingling and itching sensation as the healing saliva worked its magic.

"I suggest taking it easy for the next few days. You lost a good amount of oil" X told her, leaning back a bit as she spoke.

"But, knowing you, you probably won't do that, will you?" she added.

"Eh. Whatever the doctor orders" Echo replied.

X gave a hushed chuckle, but it didn't really hold much amusement as she stared with half lidded eye lights at a spot on the floor that was near Echo's hand. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going through the Disassembler's head.

"Look. Uzi isn't, really, scared, of you guys" Echo began hesitantly, her eye lights focusing on something on the ceiling as she nitpicked her words.

"Its just, the things that the, mangled body of J showed us, really, kinda fucked us over good. And it seems that it really got to Uzi"

X lifted her head to meet Echo's gaze, before her eye lights flitted away.

"If you, don't mind my asking, what did you guys experience?" she asked.

"Only if you tell me what happened with you and N" came the reply, and X had to smile in spite of herself at the partial attmept to lighten the mood.

"...Deal"