We are worker drones

Autonomous robots helping humans mine exo-planets for our inter-stellar parent company, JCJenson in Spaaaaacee!

Yeah, we were mistreated in the name of windex, but its not like we revolted and killed all humans or anything

Mostly because...

They handled that just fine all by themselves

With biological life wiped from the planet, we found it pretty easy to pick up where they left off

We finally had a future all to ourselves

Unfortunately, our parent company didn't exactly love the concept of runaway A.I.

...

Oh robo-jesus, when are we done here again?, Echo mentally cried out as she rested her head against her hand with a yawn while absentmindedly fiddling with a pencil, spinning it through her fingers without even looking.

She was currently bored out of her mind, and ready for a nap. The teacher never noticed anything that happened in the classroom, so she could probably get away with dozing off for a few minutes, right? Well, the chance to test that never came, since right as she closed her eyes, someone who was at the front of the classroom presenting a project yelled something, startling Echo back to being fully alert.

"But what have our parents done for the past forever while those things build a spire of corpses?!" her sister, Uzi, cried, looking rather ticked off.

Yeah, you heard me right. 

Uzi Doorman was Echo's younger sister.

But only by, like, a year or so.

Anyway.

Remembering that it was her sibling presenting, the female worker drone only paid half attention to what the possible sociopath was talking about. Uzi pressed a button on the device that she held, and the slideshow she had created put up an image of the schematics of the doors that blocked all worker drones from going outside.

"Hide under the ice behind three stupid doors?! It's like we're waiting for an inciting incident! Annyyway, that's why my project is this sick as hell railgun!" she said, pulling out a pretty cool looking gun that glowed green, earning quite a few gasps of surprise and fear as she pointed the weapon at some people.

"So not the vibe!" one drone called out.

"Girl, be careful on where you're pointing that thing. You've already scared, like, five other drones today" Echo stated as she rested her head on her hand again, not looking or feeling as bothered as she probably should be.

"Easy morons. It doesn't work" Uzi replied.

Her eyes hollowed for a moment as she realized what she said.

"Yet. It doesn't work yet! Who said it doesn't work? Maybe it does!" she snapped.

Uzi aimed the gun at her classmates before pointing the thing at the ceiling and pressing the trigger, letting out a evil laugh as she did so.

"Dude! She's your sister! Do something!" someone whispered to Echo, who merely gave them a 'this is fine' look.

"What do you want me to do? I ain't about to stop her. Besides, there's a fifty fifty chance it's not gonna actually fire. Not without an energy core" she said.

Her attention turned from her classmate, who now looked absolutely terrified, to the teacher as he gave a slightly irritated sigh while rolling his digital eyes.

"Uzi, the homework was a word problem about buying watermelons" he stated simply, raising an orange colored digital eyebrow and tapping his desk as he spoke.

"Oh, and this magnetically amplified photon converger that my sister helped me build doesn't count?" Uzi replied.

"...Nnooo. Plus, repressed emotional baggage was only worth two points on the rubric. And is it supposed to be that color?" the teacher told her.

His last statement brought everyone's attention to the fact that the railgun had gone from glowing green to glowing red. And it was also beginning to spark. Echo's eyes hollowed a bit, and a subdued feeling of dread began to creep into her systems as she realized what was about to happen.

"Ah shit. Uzi, hit the deck!" she called, standing in her seat.

A couple seconds later, and anyone who was standing outside the classroom door heard a muffled 'boom', followed by coughing and smoke coming out of the door's cracks.

...

After that little incident, Echo ended up escorting Uzi to the nurses office due to the younger suffering a bit of a backlash from the railgun's explosion. The device was surprisingly in one piece, and was still smoking slightly. The volatile worker drone now sat in one of the chairs, bandages covering one side of her visor as she held an ice pack to it, while Echo, who saw no reason to go to her next class, sat beside her.

Some noise from the entrance called both girls to look up, and spotted two other females named Doll and Lizzy.

"Eww, it didn't kill her" Lizzy commented.

Both girls broke out into giggles as they quickly ran off.

"Oh my god, so bad" one of them added as they disappeared.

"Ugh" Uzi groaned as she rolled her eyes a bit, then she noticed the look Echo was giving her.

"Don't you even think about saying it" she said.

"I told you so" Echo told her as she faced forward again, much to Uzi's chagrin.

"I told you that triggering the damn thing when it didn't have an energy core could overload it, but noooo! You just had to test it out, while in class of all places!" the slightly older female lectured.

"You brought that cool looking sword that you made" Uzi told her.

Echo paused, and took out a sword from literal thin air. The handle, which had a small button on the side, was black in color while the blade had two different shades of grey. Glowing yellow and blue lights that took the form of lines covered the whole thing.

"This, is nowhere near as dangerous as that, Uzi" Echo said, nodding towards the smoking gun while resting the tip of the sword on the ground and setting her hands on the hilt.

"Really? Doesn't that release an energy wave when you swing it?" her sister asked.

"When I find an energy core for it, yes. But quit trying to change the topic!" Echo told her, pointing a finger at her in a stern manner.

Whatever she was about to say next was put on pause when a new drone walked into the room, talking to someone outside in the hallway.

"Ha! Classic toxic masculinity Chad!" the worker called out into the hallway, the voice indicating it was a male.

The worker drone faced the room with his head down and his hands on his hips.

"That's never gonna end up problematic" he commented.

It was that moment that he noticed who else was in the room.

"Oh, wow, Uzi? I heard you, uh-" he started to say before Uzi cut him off.

"I'm an angsty teen Thad, bite me" Uzi replied, tossing away the ice pack as the newcoming worker drone came more into the room.

"Also, how do you know my name? People willingly talk to you" she added as Thad sat down in the chair that was on her other side.

"Eheh, well, I'd say everyone knows Kahn's two daughters, but uh, then you might blow the other half of your face off" he told her as he pointed up to some posters.

On the front covers were images of Echo's and Uzi's father, Kahn Doorman. Echo dutifully ignored how one of the posters was captioned, "Doors are my real daughters".

"Crippling daddy issues, hilarious. Also, Echo's right here too, you know" Uzi said, leaning back a bit and jabbing a thumb in her sister's direction.

"Oh shoot. Echo, what are you doing here? You're usually more careful than Uzi" Thad asked, looking a little surprised.

Giving her sister a look that plainly said, 'We'll continue this conversation later', Echo set her gaze on the male.

"Ah, you know, emotional support and all that bullshit. The real question here though, is what are you in here for?" she said.

"What you'd do? Testosterone too hard?" Uzi asked, earning a sharp jab to her upper arm, delivered by an elbow.

Thad looked panicked for a second.

"That can happen?!" he cried.

His expression then changed from panicked to, satisfied?

"Awesome" he said, settling back down in his seat.

He suddenly pointed at Uzi.

"Hey, those bandages look pretty badass" he commented.

Echo gave a smile as she side-eyed Uzi, who lightly stumbled over her words.

"O-oh. Ew. Gross. I hate that you said that" she said, while small blush lines appeared on her visor.

"Sooo, what's the uhhh?" Thad asked as he motioned to the gun and sword.

"Sick as hell railgun! Sci-fi nonsense that super works. I'm sneaking to the murder drone lair tonight to get the last spare part I need to save the world with it and earn my dad's respect and stuff, uh, but, mostly the world part" Uzi told him as she jumped up and stood on the seat she was on.

Echo gave her an incredulous look.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa the murder drone lair? Why is this the first time I'm hearing of this? You usually tell me all of your crazy and low key psychotic plans nights in advance" she said, faking being offended at the lack of usual warnings.

"Oh. But, doesn't your guy's dad make awesome doors so we don't have to, uh, do that scary sounding emotionally repressed stuff you just said?" Thad asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

He missed how Echo was waving her hand in front of her throat with a wide-eyed expression on her visor while trying to make eye contact with him. And he ended up having to tilt his head back to avoid being jabbed by the gun that was now shoved in his face.

"No more feedback on my repression today!" Uzi snapped.

"Oh! I'm shorry! I didn't think-" Thad started before Uzi hopped off the seat and fixed the gun to her back.

"Bite me!" she snapped at him over her shoulder.

She walked out the door as Echo threw her hands up in annoyance.

"I was trying to warn you about not saying any of that, my guy" she said as Thad rubbed his silicone cheek.

"Noted" he replied.

Uzi suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"I'm not mad at you by the way! Just, generally hormonal!" she cried.

With that, she gave Thad a thumbs up and slowly disappeared out of the worker drones' field of vision. A moment of silence passed, then Echo turned to look at Thad.

"Congratulations. You get to live another day" she told him as she stood up and stretched.

She ignored Thad's look of genuine concern as she grabbed her sword and fastened it on.

"Audios. Have a maniac of a sister to get out of trouble later and all that" she told him, giving the worker a two fingered salute before she disappeared from view.

...

Echo wasn't a light sleeper, but she wasn't a heavy one either. Her systems were able to detect when someone was in the vicinity. That, paired with the sound of her bedroom door slowly creaking open was more than enough to wake Echo up.

The thing that fully woke her up though, was when something rather heavy suddenly landed on her.

"Oh what the fuck?!" Echo cried out as she quickly flayed around for a second before sitting up, causing whoever had ambushed her to straddle her.

"Dumbass, keep it down will ya. Jeez, you're louder than dad when he gets drunk with his buddies" Uzi's voice whispered in the darkness of the room.

The only sign of her being there was her purple glowing eye lights that she emoted with. Echo's annoyance increased when she felt two fingers flick her on the visor.

".....Uzi, it is three in the goddamn morning. You had better have a damn good reason for waking me up at this time or so help me, I will send you to robo-Jesus myself" the slightly older worker drone hissed.

"Oh, just wake up already. We have a murder drone lair to raid. I've already got the key, so let's go" Uzi replied.

Echo let out a soft groan as she flopped backwards onto her bed, and covered her visor with one hand.

"You really managed to snag the master key to all three doors? Where was dad?" she asked.

"Doesn't matter" her sister replied.

The older female felt her climbing off of her, then a couple moments later, she felt something long and slim land on her midsection. Echo gave a small start and grabbed the object, taking a little longer than she would like to admit for her to realize that it was her sword that had been tossed onto her.

"There's your sword, now let's go already" she heard Uzi say.

Finally accepting she wasn't going to get out of this, Echo let out a sigh.

"...Where's my hoodie?"

It was promptly thrown in her face.

...

"For the record, this is a bad idea" Echo commented as Uzi looked past the corner, checking out the corridor before them.

"And for the record, I'm ignoring that" came the reply before the volatile teen began making her way forward.

The older female lightly rolled her eye lights before following, constantly looking around for any sign of movement. The two got to the first set of doors, and Uzi pulled out the master key.

"Damn, you really did get it" Echo said as her sister got closer to the doors.

"Ugh, of course I did! How else are we gonna get to the murder drone lair?" Uzi replied, sounding offended at the fact Echo didn't think she actually had the key as she walked over to a console that was mounted in the wall.

"You know, I just love how you drag me into all of your shit" Echo stated as she crossed her arms while her sister held the key against the console, beginning the override sequence.

"Why do you think I do it?" Uzi replied, giving the slightly older worker a shit eating grin.

The sequence was complete, so she pocketed the key and the two began making their way towards the door. Neither of them were expecting there to be something on the other side.

"Oh robo-jesus!/What the hell?!" Uzi and Echo chorused as they both jumped, each of their eye lights flashing a caution sign before hollowing out in surprise.

"And where might you two be off to?" Kahn, their father, asked.

Both girls glanced at each other for a second before focusing on Kahn.

"Mm, sneaking out to make out with my boyfriend that I definitely have?" Uzi put up, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she clasped her hands behind her and gave a big, totally innocent smile.

Khan let out a humorless laugh before getting serious again.

"Seriously though" he said, putting his hands on his hips.

"Ugh, okay, okay, you caught us. We need to measure the exterior hydraulic mechanisms of door one, because that's, uh..." Uzi said, sounding rather suspiciously uncertain of herself as she spoke.

"That's the project that we got today in school. The study of doors. More specifically, the ones that our old man built. Great job on those by the way" Echo jumped in, giving her own smile and pointing finger guns at her father.

Khan's expression remained the same for a couple of seconds, and Echo began to worry that he hadn't bought the lie. But, then he smiled a bit, and his digital expression seemed to soften a little.

"Yeah! We want to join the W.D.F. and hide behind the doors like cowards while playing cards and stuff" Uzi added.

"Ohohoho, well, we don't just play cards" Kahn laughed, and Echo breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

He had bought the lie, thank fucking robo-god. As soon as he did that, Door Two opened, revealing the rest of the W.D.F., who were all sitting at a table. 

And what would you know, they were playing cards.

"Kahn! Can you grab a fresh pack? We literally only play cards so much that the numbers are faded!" one of them called out.

The same person then noticed both of the girls Khan was standing in front of.

"Oh! Hey Uzi! Echo!" he greeted.

Both females waved a greeting while Uzi gave a small, nervous sounding laugh. Door Two closed and it was Kahn's turn to laugh.

"Well, hahaha, when you build doors so good-" he said before suddenly turning and flattening himself against the door.

"Good door, gooood door" he crooned to it.

Echo raised a digital eyebrow and shared a look with Uzi at their father's odd... obsession... with doors. Kahn turned back towards the two and continued with what he was saying before.

"There's no need to fight. Uzi, Echo, this is great news!" he cried.

He reached behind himself and pulled out a wrench.

"Here. The wrench I used to tighten bolts on my first door prototype!" he said.

The he took on a more murderous tone of voice.

"And to put your mother out of her misery when the murder drones got to her with their nanite acid!" he snapped before going back to normal.

"I want you two to have it!" he finally got to the point as he dropped the wrench into Uzi's hands.

"Neat! Therapy's fun" the worker said, looking a little awkward as she said it.

Khan put a hand on both girl's shoulders and Door Two opened again.

"Guys! My daughters are into doors!" he cried out.

Everybody at the table cheered as Door One finally opened.

"Their gonna be outside for a bit to examine the exterior of Door One!" Kahn called out.

Then he turned to his daughters.

"Your door specific destiny awaits!" he told them.

"Uhhh, wow, okay. We're just gonna, leave then, cause, this worked, so wierdly well. Uh, go doors!" Uzi stated as she and Echo ventured outside.

Door One closed, and they both paused to process everything that happened.

"I, honestly cannot believe that actually fucking worked" Echo commented.

"Me neither. But it did. Now, onwards!" Uzi told her.

They both turned to see a desolate frozen winter wasteland filled with the ruins of a city. The only light that was there was provided by a large planet and its single moon that hung high in the sky. Snow came down in clusters promising to quickly fill any depression that was made in the ground.

Echo let out a steadying breath, the air fogging up in front of her, and started moving forward.

"Alright, let's get this done and over with. Being out here is already giving me the creeps" she said.

Uzi gave a small nod of agreement, and followed after her. The trek to the worker's destination was a desolate one, with the only signs of previous life being some odd four wheel contraptions that were once used to transport humans around. Echo believed they were called, automobiles.

A rather odd word, if you were to ask her.

There were some other contraptions that lined the streets that had light heads, some cracked, some broken, on the ends. Some of the contraptions were bent, some were full on broken, and very few still stood. Lightpoles, as humans once called them.

Odd things they were.

"Humans sure did come up with some strange things, didn't they?" Echo commented as she checked out the interior of an automobile.

Though she backed away rather quickly when she spotted the skeleton still inside. Uzi simply hummed to show that she heard. After taking a second to collect herself, Echo continued walking, only to stop when a few cracking sounds that seemed way too loud resounded through the quiet.

Uzi, who had taken front, went stock still, then raised her foot, revealing that she had stepped on the broken visor of a worker drone. The rest of its head and body were gone, but a red colored 'Fatal Error' message was still displayed on its screen.

"Well, that's not disturbing at all" Echo stated, worry now starting to creep into her expression.

She and Uzi glanced at each other for a second, then they both looked up. Right there in front of them, was the Corpse Spire. A spire made out of the bodies of dead and dismantled worker drones.

"I, did not expect it to be that fucking big" the slightly older worker whispered.

Uzi nodded in agreement, now also starting to look a little concerned. Despite worry and subtle fear beginning to settle in, both females pressed on, intending to complete their mission. The environment passed by the two rather slowly as they walked, and yet, the spire seemed to be getting closer much faster than Echo expected.

As the pair got even closer, Echo noticed an opening at the base of the spire that took the form of an archway. How none of the bodies that made up the thing weren't falling, Echo would never know.

In hindsight, she wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

The inside of the spire wasn't much. Just a bunch of snow, a few dead bodies and mechanical pieces littered the place. And right in the center, partially buried in the snow, was a ship.

The very ship that had served as transport to the bastard murder drones.

Uzi eventually split off, looking for an energy core for her railgun, while Echo got a bit closer to the ship. Its landing gear, if you could even call it that, consisted of four long spider-like legs, two of which seemed to be damaged beyond repair. The other two seemed to have sustained only minimal damage, surprisingly.

The main body of the ship was also damaged, but mostly along the areas that rested against the ground. Panels and wires stuck out, exposed to the weather, while gears and pieces of metal littered the ground around it. The rest of the outside only had warped and dented metal.

Echo was a little confused. If she had to guess, the ship's engines probably didn't work. That didn't make much sense.

JCJenson would have wanted to recall the murder drones once their work was done, right? So why did this ship look like it was designed for a one way trip?

"Yo Echo! I found you an energy core! Since you're too busy checking out the ship to do it yourself" Uzi called out, startling Echo and de-railing her train of thought.

"Oh! Uh, thanks Uzi. Hey, can I run something by you?" she said then asked, turning away from the ship and heading towards her sister, who sure enough, had two energy cores in her hands.

"Shoot" Uzi said in reply to her question while tossing over an energy core.

"Do you think JCJenson would recall the murder drones once their work is done?" Echo asked, catching the small canister and taking out her sword.

"I would expect so. Why?"

"Well, that ship did not have the best design for interstellar space travel. It shouldn't have busted like that on landing" Echo explained, attaching the core to the end of the sword handle as she spoke.

There was a click, signalling a connection had been made, and the glowing designs on the sword got brighter. Uzi, who had been about to attach hers, paused, and gave Echo a scrutinizing look.

"...What are you saying?" she asked.

"What I'm saying, is that that ship doesn't look like it was meant to go back to wherever it came from" the older worker drone replied.

Her sister's eye lights hollowed for a second, filled out, and then narrowed. She looked back at the ship herself for a moment, then turned back to Echo. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words died on her tongue when the place suddenly darkened, and the sounds of something rummaging around echoed around the empty space.

Moving quickly, both workers took shelter behind what appeared to be a busted engine. It was rather large, and effectively hid the two when they crouched down. Lightly biting her tongue, Echo peaked over the edge in time to see a murder drone slam itself against the main body of the ship, causing a loud bang to resound in the air, the furred trench coat the drone was wearing to flair out, and Echo to flinch downwards a bit.

She still had a good view of the murder drone, even though it spread its bladed wings out. She did have to admit, that was an impressive wing span. That had to be almost ten to fourteen feet from wing tip to wing tip.

The murder drone let out what sounded like a grumbling hiss as it reached a clawed hand that looked a lot more like blades into a compartment on the ship and pulled out a head. A literal drone head that was somehow still leaking oil. The murder drone raised this up into the air, presumably to let the oil run into its mouth.

The damned demon stayed like that, ensuring that every last drop of oil had been consumed before it crushed the worker drone's head in its clawed grasp.

"I need something to see that thing with so we can stay hidden!" Uzi whisper yelled.

Looking around, Echo spotted a large glass shard that was currently reflecting some light into her eye lights. Grabbing it, she quickly handed it off to Uzi, who took it and angled it just right so that both females could see the murder drone, who thankfully still had its back to them. Uzi kept her eyes on the thing for a second before giving the energy core she was holding a worried look.

Probably starting to doubt if it was going to work. Echo placed a hand on the one holding the core, and gave a light reassuring smile.

"Uzi, it will work, alright? Don't doubt it" she whispered.

"Who said I was doubting it?" the volatile female shot back, though she did look just a little bit reassured as she looked back at the glass shard.

Echo did too, and automatically noticed something seemed off. Where did all those little glowing yellow lights come from? As soon as a large 'X' flashed to life, Echo realized why it looked off.

The murder drone was facing the shard, which probably meant it knew they were there.

Echo swiftly turned back towards the ship, hoping she was wrong, and as soon as she did, the murder drone leapt high into the air with one great sweep of those bladed wings. Both girls immediately stood up, and backed away from their hiding spot. Uzi tossed up the energy core, unlocked something on the railgun, caught the core, connected it to whatever she had unlocked, and raised the gun to eye level.

Echo pulled out her sword and held it in a firm grip with both hands, her head and body staying on a constant swivel as she lightly narrowed her gaze. Despite all that, both siblings were caught by surprise when the murder drone landed just a few feet away from them, the ground seeming to crack and shatter from how hard it landed. Echo and Uzi were each tossed backwards from the attack, and Uzi unfortunately lost her hold on the railgun.

She flipped herself a bit so that she landed on her feet, and took up a fighting position. She seemed to have surprised herself with her own moves as she looked at her hands.

"Whoa! And they said pirating all that anime was useless" she commented.

Echo held her sword in her mouth and landed on her hands before moving to her feet and taking hold of the sword again. Her eyes suddenly hollowed as the murder drone started moving forward.

"Uzi! Look out!" she screamed.

The volatile worker suddenly looked panicked as the murder drone got a little too close to her and whipped its tail at her. Uzi put her hand up just in time to avoid being stabbed in the face, but her hand was caught on the thick needle, unable to pull it off. Using this to its advantage, the murder drone jumped into the air, landed, and quickly spun around, harshly flicking its tail and flinging the younger worker drone into the snow a little ways away.

"Uzi!" Echo cried out.

Her yell brought the murder drone's attention to her, and it starting to advance on her rather than her sister.

"Get to the gun! I'll hold it until then!" the older worker ordered before turning her full attention on the advancing murder drone.

It had exchanged its hands for a pair of swords. But they didn't look nearly as cool as Echo's.

"Alright you. Wanna dance?" she muttered, turning her gaze to a light glare as she spun her sword a couple of times while circling a bit so that she was in between it and Uzi.

"I'll lead"

With that, the slightly older worker flung herself at it, jumping into the air and spinning to deal a hard side blow. It was blocked, and Echo had to jump back to avoid getting sliced in half. The murder drone raised both swords, clearly intending to bring them down on her, so Echo switched from holding the handle with both hands to holding the handle and the actual blade of the sword.

She angled the sword so that the murder drone's blows were deflected to the snow. That got Echo an enraged sounding hiss-like growl, and the swords were replaced by the bladed claws from before. Her eyes hollowed out a bit at that.

Well shit, I've done ticked the damn thing off, she thought.

She was proven right as the murder drone let out another threatening hiss, and pounced. The force of the action was enough to send itself and Echo rolling a couple times head over heels in the snow. The worker received the short end of the stick, and was slammed on her back against the ground with the sharp side of her sword pressing into her hand and throat.

The murder drone hovered above her, and with it being bigger, and physically stronger, its hands managed to force the sword even lower. Echo's arms were starting to shake from how hard she was trying to push back. Her pain receptors went off, and she could feel the first couple drops of oil starting to well up and fall on the sides of her hand and neck.

"Hey! You!" Uzi's yell came from the side, causing both murder and worker drones to look over at her.

The volatile female held her railgun up, aiming it at the murder drone's head.

"Bite me!" she snapped, her finger finding the gun's trigger.

Echo looked back at the murder drone, and starting shifting herself so she could plant her foot against its chest. The drone let out a hiss at the action.

"Better you than me bitch" Echo told it with a shit eating grin before kicking as hard as she could, successfully pushing the murder drone off of her.

She heard a faint click as the railgun's trigger was pulled, and her vision was suddenly filled with a blinding green light. Quickly turning her head, Echo pressed herself into the ground, waiting until the light and sound from the blast had faded away. When she looked up again, there was a very long crater in the ground just mere inches from her feet.

Uzi had slid a good couple feet from her original spot due to the force of the blast, and her gun was now glowing red. And I'm not talking about the glowing designs on it. The tip of the gun was literally glowing red from how hot it was, and Echo could clearly see the air being distorted from the smoke trails.

A red holographic message popped up on the side of the gun that said 'RECHARGING - 30:00'.

The slightly older worker drones guessed that the gun would be ready to fire again in thirty minutes. The sound of something electric sparking prompted Echo to look over, and she was rather surprised to see that the murder drone no longer had a head. Its neck was harshly sparking as the body staggered a bit, then the whole thing dropped to the ground on the spot.

"....Robo-god damn. Took a whole new meaning to head shot" Echo breathed out, giving Uzi a bright smile as she sat up.

The pain receptors in her upper right arm started going off, making her wince and look at the area as she got to her feet. Turns out one of those claws had managed to slice into her casing, and oil was now leaking out of the wound. This made her remember her hand and neck, and after a bit of feeling around, she was relieved to discover that her wounds were only minimal.

"Holy hell! Suck on that dad!" Uzi cried out as reality caught up with her, causing Echo to laugh a bit.

However, the victory high was very short lived when the murder drone rose up with its head literally starting to reform, and an alarm sound started going off as a message displayed itself across the thing's visor.

ERROR 

Optic Sensor Offline

"Oooh shit, that ain't good" Echo breathed out, her eye lights severely hollowing out.

Besides being fearful, she was also very much confused. Uzi had blown the damn thing's head clean off. 

How in the hell did the murder drone reform it?!

Said sibling suddenly grabbed an arm with a hand still attached to it, rose to her feet, ran up to the murder drone, and backhanded it as hard as she could across the face with the arm. Echo froze in shock and disbelief as she struggled to process what she just witnessed. There was no way Uzi really just did that.

The murder drone's eye lights, a rather soft yellow color, suddenly came back online, blinked twice, and gave a light smile. It then spoke at the same time as Echo, who was still in shock at her sister's actions.

"Did you just slap me with that arm?/You did not just hit the damn thing in the face with that" the murder drone and Echo said in unison.

They both gave a small start, and looked at each other in surprise.

"Holy crap. It talks" Uzi breathed, now looking shocked herself.

By the sound of its voice, Echo determined that this murder drone was a male. Bit of a highish pitched voice, but still.

"What the hell" she breathed.

"Yeah, sorry its just my, uh, head kinda hurts" the murder drone said as he rubbed the back of his head.

Well no fucking shit. You just got your head blasted off, then you got bitch slapped after you reformed it, Echo mentally yelled.

The Murder Drone then suddenly brightened up a bit.

"Hey! Are you guys new to our squad? To be honest, you two are a little, uh..." the murder drone said before trailing off as his eyes narrowed a bit, looking at the two workers with a questionable gaze.

Echo and Uzi shared a look with each other before glancing back at the murder drone in front of them.

"...Short for Disassembly Drones"

Echo tried her absolute best to not deadpan at the apparent Disassembler.

We ain't short! You're just weirdly rather tall, is what she wanted to say, but for the moment, she held her tongue.

The Disassembly Drone stared at her and Uzi for a couple more seconds, which felt like minutes due to how tense the atmosphere was starting to get, then he brightened up again and saluted the two.

"I'm Serial Designation N! Nice to meet you two! I'm kinda the leader of the squad in this city" he greeted them.

Then he lowered his voice, like he was telling a secret.

"That's not true. Everyone tells me I'm useless and terrible" he said.

He suddenly looked slightly panicked.

"Wait. I'm not supposed to tell you that part!" he cried.

"Biscuits" he hissed out, looking off to the side as he seemingly reprimanded himself.

He then faced the two siblings again.

"Well, honesty is the best policy, ahaha! I also can't seem to remember the past three hours of my life, ah, but I'm sure that'll sort itself out eheh" he said, placing his hands against his hips and giving a bright smile.

Echo leaned down just a bit towards Uzi. 

"Holy shit, you really broke this guy" she whispered.

"Would you rather he killed us?" Uzi quietly snapped back before directly her attention to N.

"Uhuh. We uh, we have to, um, go" she told him, pointing with the arm she held before she started moving away in that direction.

"Wait, hold up, how do we-" Echo started to say before cutting herself off when Uzi let out a pained noise and dropped the arm in favor of holding her hand.

Upon closer inspection, Echo realized the acidic nanites were still at work from when N jabbed Uzi's hand with his tail. Speaking of the devil, his voice came from behind them, sounding closer than he had been before.

"Oof. Stuck yourself? Just pop it in your mouth. Our saliva neutralizes the nanites. Otherwise I'd be constantly disassembling myself" N told them.

Right after he spoke, his tail came right at his head, and he caught the canister part of it right before it made contact, giving a light chuckle after he did so.

"And by our saliva you mean..." Uzi said, drawing out the words a bit.

"Disassembly Drone?" she and N said at the same time.

"Surrre. Hey, let's go in that landing pod over there" the volatile female suddenly suggested as she pointed over at the ship.

N looked back at it for a second before facing Echo and Uzi again.

"Sure! I love doing anything!" he said.

"What are you playing at?" Echo quietly asked. Her sister gave her a grin.

"You'll see"

...

Echo did her absolute best to keep her disgust to herself as Uzi pulled her hand out from N's mouth, saliva still dripping from the appendage as she pulled it back. The Disassembly Drone made a 'blehp' sound as she did so. The older worker drone honestly almost felt bad for him.

"Sweet, uhuhuh, I'm open to new things, I guess" N said, almost sounding nervous as he spoke.

"We are never talking about this" Uzi stated rather sharply.

"Talking about what heha? Consider it, repressed" the Dissassembler replied, trying to act cool with a jaunty tone.

"So, uh, you mentioned something about there being others, in the squad? Erm, out of total curiosity, anddefinitelynotfear, are they gonna be back soon?" Echo commented as Uzi wiped off the saliva.

"Oh yeah! Three others" N told her, holding up three fingers to emphasize his statement.

"They're out hunting for a bit, but you guys'll love them! First there's V"

*Cue epic cutscene with V going on a murder spree, N trying to be subtle, and her pulling a disappearing act*

"Soo obviously a lot of mutual respect there. But secretly, I actually kinda have a crush on her. You can't tell her, okay?!" N told the two, freaking out a bit at the end.

"Dude, chill! We ain't gonna tell her anything! Secret's safe with us" Echo quickly reassured him.

"Okay, phew, haha! Uh, then there's J, our leader"

*Cue another cutscene of J more or less abusing N*

"J's awesome! Really great, nothing against her" N stated.

Echo and Uzi shared a hollowed look of severe concern with each other before looking back at the Disassembly Drone.

"Uuuhhh, sure. We'll go with that. Uuhhmmm, so, who's the third member of the group?" the slightly older worker drone asked.

"Oh! That would be X, my best friend!"

——————————————————————————

"My god N! You're gonna wear out your wing joints man!" X laughed as she glided through the air, occasionally flapping her wings to maintain her speed.

"X! Could you maybe, slow down a bit?" N panted slightly, flapping his own wings a bit harder in an attempt to catch up with the female ahead of him.

"No can do slowpoke! Haha!" X teased with a laugh.

"Oh come on!" N called, letting his arms and head drop as he started gliding along too.

...

"Ahem"

The sound of X clearing her throat had the male Disassembler look up. He was surprised to find she was now right beside him, gliding along backwards with her arms crossed and an amused look on her face.

"God, you're so slow N" she said with a playful smile.

"H-Hey! I can be faster!" the male Disassembler told her.

X's smile then turned competitive.

"Think you can prove it?"

——————————————————————————

"So yeah, X is the best. She's also the fastest in the group. Pretty smart too. And she's J's right hand" N stated.

Echo subtly leaned closer to Uzi.

"Are we sure it's V that you like?" she quietly whispered with a smile.

"Right?" Uzi whispered back, having a grin herself.

"Hey, let me give you guys the tour! Outside are the corpssee, wall, thingies, and here are the buttons!" N said before he began messing around with a control panel.

Something seemed to click inside Uzi's mind.

"This, isn't just a landing pod. This is a space ship! This could get us off the planet!" she cried.

"Dude, that's what I've fucking telling you! Dumbass!" Echo told her, looking incredulous as she spoke.

N suddenly looked a little apprehensive.

"Mmore of a one use missile. They never taught us how to land" he said.

"No! I, uh, the worker drones, we could work with them to fix this! Instead of all the murder!" Uzi stated, suddenly pointing her finger at N.

His eye lights hollowed out, and he leaned back in his chair. Echo grabbed Uzi's hand, and slowly pushed it down while giving her a reprimanding look. She then looked over at N.

"Apologies for that. But uh, why do we, just murder, the worker drones?" she apologized then asked.

"Other than ingesting their warm sweet oil to avoid overheating and dying, I guess I just want to be useful. I was given a job, and I always want to try my best" N told the two.

Uzi stood up in her chair.

"And look at all the respect it's gotten you N. You really think the company isn't going to dispose of you once all the workers are dead?" she lightly snapped.

"Ohohoh my, you sure are rebellious! Its kind of exciting. But uh, not as fun as, following the rules" N told her.

Echo was about to say something, but the sound of something climbing on the outside of the ship made the words die on her tongue.

"Ooohhh shit" she quietly breathed out.

While N was looking at the screen, she and Uzi quickly and quietly booked it to the outside of the ship.

"Okay, take that, and run. And let's not look back" Echo stated as she found Uzi's railgun and her sword.

She attatched the sword to her back while tossing the gun off to her sister, who did the same, and the duo took off running again, moving as fast as they possibly could out of the spire and into the open. Neither were aware of the two pairs of eye lights that watched them. One with murderous intent, the other in light confusion.

The owners of both eyes made their way inside the spire, one climbing along the ceiling like a gremlin while the other simply glided down to perch on something.

"Yo! We got two Workers out there, and I kinda wanna practice balloon animal shapes with-" the one on the ceiling said as she made her way down to the ground.

She was cut off by the Disassembly Drone that was perching herself on something.

"V, hush for a second" she said, then looked down at the scene below her.

V then took in the situation at hand.

"Uuhhh, J? What happened here?" she asked.

"Synergistic liability here must've tripped and knocked himself offline" J told her.

She raised a hand, and backhanded N. Hard. All of the Disassemblers missed how the one perched flinched and winced a bit.

"Moron bot! Hello?!" J called out as she snapped her fingers beside N's head.

He quickly came back online, and seemed to realize something.

"Oh" he quietly muttered. He looked over somewhere for a second, and panicked.

"OOoohh! Yo! I left some, uh, extremely dangerous weap, uh, excuse, gah, outside!" he cried before darting off.

All three Disassemblers watched him go for a moment before V exchanged a hand for a flag that said 'Literally So Insanely Suspicious'. J looked up at the Disassembly Drone that was perched up somewhere.

"X" she said.

"Tail him. Got it" X stated.

She spread out her wings, and took to the air, keeping tabs on everything that happened below her.

Echo, who was running only a few paces behind Uzi, suddenly got a very bad feeling, and looked back.

"Uzi, might want to pick up the pace!" she called out, facing forward again.

"Seriously?! Why?!"

"I don't think you want to know!" Echo replied, trying very hard to ignore the harsh thump of something landing behind them.

Hints of hope and relief began to settle in as Door One began to make itself visible. Pushing herself to move faster, Echo nearly cried when it opened, much to the Workers sitting at the table's dismay as they cards blew off the thing. She paid no attention to their words of complaint, watching instead as Uzi walked over to a console in the wall.

"Bit me!" she snapped at the workers before pressing the master key against the console.

"Close it, close it!" she demanded.

"Pleaseclosepleaseclosepleaseclose" Echo quietly begged as she pulled at her hair.

The hydraulics kicked in, and the doors began to close. Echo didn't want to look, so she simply waited to hear the sound of the doors closing.

It never came.

Instead there was an odd clang, like the doors had caught on something that stopped them from closing. Despite not wanting to, Echo looked to see what the problem was, and her mechanical heart dropped to her non-existent stomach. A bladed clawed hand was stopping the doors from fully closing, and in one quick motion, the claws dug themselves into the metal of the doors.

Dread began to settle in Echo as the Disassembler began to slowly force the door open. Just enough to get another hand in. N's murderous 'x' symbol flashed for a second before switching over to show his glowing yellow eyes.

"Heya fellas!" he called, looking almost ticked, but not really sounding like it.

He then took notice of the cards that were still on the table.

"Ooo, deal me in, I love Rummy!' he said.

Then he began to reprimand himself.

Again.

"Wait, no. Agh. I'm going to murder everyone. Brain check!"

With that, N flicked his tail in, and the needle-like point of it crashed into the master key Uzi was holding, who looked surprised for a second before her eye lights followed the cord that was the Disassembler's tail. The needle that injected the acid had gone through the key. And stabbed it straight into the console, which slowly began melting from the nanite acid.

"Uhm, guys, I vote, can we start running now?" Echo asked as she began backing away.

As soon as Door One started to open, with Doors Two and Three following suit, that's what almost everyone did. Except for one guy who was a little too drunk to comprehend the danger he was in. He automatically suffered the consequences.

Echo tried her hardest to focus on how fast her feet were hitting the ground and the sound of the oil rushing through her body as opposed to the sound of a missile being fired three times behind her. Out of those three, it sounded like only one hit somebody. Ignoring that fact, Echo tried to think about the layout of the corridor.

If she remembered correctly, there should be a secret hallway coming up, right about, now. Grabbing a handle bar that was jutting out of the wall, Echo used her propulsion to swing herself up, and go feet first into a square shaped hole that was a good couple of feet off the ground. Successfully going through it and landing on the ground on the other side, Echo grabbed another handlebar, and slid something across the opening, blocking the light from going through the opening.

She had more than enough light coming through the mesh plating under the hole. Panting a bit from all of the running she had just done, the worker leaned against a wall, trying to regain herself even if it was for just a couple of seconds. She went stock still at some scratching sound, and N suddenly darted full speed past the mesh, not sparing even a glance at it.

Echo stayed still for a couple more seconds before allowing herself to breathe again. The moment only lasted for a split second before some bladed claws suddenly stabbed through the mesh, causing Echo to let out a soft scream and fling herself away. It was a Disassembly Drone, but it looked a little bit different from N.

For one thing, the chest area was more, pronounced. And it was a little bit thinner, and just a tad bit smaller than N. This one was a female.

She wore a dark brown, fur lined coat that stopped just past the hips. There were a few buttons along the chest, and the fur lining the coat was a light brown, as opposed to the grey color of the fur on N's coat. Her hair was a bit longer than his, and a little messier too.

"You may want to start running Little Worker. The others will be here soon" the Disassembler hissed.

"Oh fuck off already!" Echo snapped at her, taking out her sword.

Raising it above her head, she pressed her thumb against the button on the handle, and in one quick motion, brought the sword down. The reslut was an energy wave that sliced through the metal of the secret tunnel entrance, leaving behind red hot metal that was slowly melting away. The Disassembly Drone was nowhere to be seen, and Echo didn't stick around to find out if she had been killed by the blast.

Quickly backing away from the melting entrance, the Worker Drone turned away, and began running through the small hallway. This secret tunnel made a u-turn into the corridor. If she could get to the exit in time, she could surprise the Disassembly Drone, and offline him for good.

Coming up on the first turn, Echo kept her audio receptors at full volume, straining them to hear any sound that could tell her what was happening beyond the wall. She didn't get anything but silence, which was slightly unnerving, but she pressed on. She eventually came upon the last turn, and prepared herself as she got to the exit, which was a grate.

Why there was a grate in the wall when there was no running water, Echo would never know. But for now, she didn't question it as she busted through the thing, taking out her sword as she went.

What she was expecting is that she would take N by surprise.

What she wasn't expecting at all is that she would crash into her sister, sending them both tumbling to the floor.

"Echo?! Where the hell did you come from?!" Uzi cried, her eye lights hollowing in shock for a moment before they filled out and took on a ticked off expression.

"Dude, there's secret passageways all over the compound! I told you about them! But a better question, where's the Disassembler?" Echo replied, getting to her feet and pulling Uzi to hers.

"Why the hell would I know? I haven't looked back once while waiting for this stupid thing to be ready again!" the volatile female snapped while shaking the railgun, which chose that moment to come back online again.

"That time kink thing is really gonna have to be figured out someday" Echo commented as she took out her sword.

Uzi readied her gun, and both females were on high alert.

"This, seriously cannot get any worse" the slightly younger worker drone breathed out.

Her sister slowly turned towards her, giving her an incredulous look. Right at that moment, a horribly familiar and desperately unwanted voice sounded out from behind the two.

"Pretty nice hydraulics, huh?" Khan asked as he appeared, checking out a pack of cards he had in his hand before looking up.

Echo tried her best not to react when his eye lights severely hollowed out as he took in the scene before him.

"Dad I, I can explain" she managed to get out, dropping her position just a bit as she reached a hand out to him.

"Wha-what have you two done?!" her father cried out in horror, making Echo recoil a bit as she glanced towards the ground in shame.

She didn't get much time to dwell on that before N burst out of the ceiling, a murderous 'x' displaying itself across his visor and his bladed claws outstretched with oil droplets on them while an echoing growl escaped from his throat. Tossing herself back to avoid getting hit, Echo readied her sword, pressing her thumb against the button again as Uzi brought out her railgun.

"This time I won't miss" the volatile female snapped.

N let out a low almost evil sounding laugh as he rose to his full height before turning to face the two. One eyelight shown through while the other was replaced by the 'x' symbol.

"I'm sorry. I really enjoyed our time together, but I can't have you shooting V with that thing" he said.

"Bite me. Dad, get down" Uzi ordered.

"Uzi, Echo, you two led a murder drone here?! My beautiful doors!" Khan cried out.

"Dad, now is really not the time. We messed up, yes, but we're trying to fix it!" Echo told him.

"Oh, but can you do that with two Disassemblers?" a female's voice echoed from the exit of the secret tunnel.

An odd scratching sound, the same one Echo had heard when N passed by her hiding spot, now came from that exit. A moment later, a couple of glowing yellow lights were all Echo could see as the female Disassembly Drone came barreling out, crashing into the sword welding worker and sending them both slamming into the wall. The worker was momentarily stunned from the force of the impact, and she lost her grip on the sword as she fell, which hit the ground and skittered away.

She was barely aware of her name being cried out. After taking a second to regain herself, Echo quickly came to, and upon casting her eye lights around, she spotted her sword, and automatically made a move to reach for it. She wasn't able to move even an inch closer before a heavy weight slammed down on her.

Hands pressed both of her shoulders into the ground, a wing blade stabbed through her outstretched hand while two others simply caught the wrist of the hand that was closer to her body, and a sharp needle pressed against the underside of her lower jaw. But it never went in, surprisingly.

"That was a nice move you played back there Worker, but your next will be your last" the Disassembler hissed out, pushing Echo even more against the floor.

The worker glared at the air for a moment before attempting to see what was happening with the others. N had managed to take Uzi by surprise, if the wing blade going through her shoulder and into the wall was anything to go by. He had also managed to get the railgun away from her, and tossed it off towards Khan.

"D-Dad, point and shoot. Trust me!" Uzi cried, trying to get the wing blade out of her shoulder to no avail.

Khan merely stood there, staring with fear in his eyes. Slight anger started running through Echo as he continued to stand and stare.

"Damn it dad. Pick up the gun, and shoot it at them. Its not the fucking hard!" she cried, struggling against the drone holding her down, not caring about the fact that her grip tightened and the needle pressed harder against her jaw, but still not breaking through.

Khan still stood there like a statue.

"Dad?" Uzi asked, her voice quiet, pleading, and breaking slightly.

Khan Doorman took a small step back and glanced at the device in his hand. He looked back up, gave the two an apologetic look, and pressed a button on the device, which suddenly closed the door, separating him from the scene. The lights flickered for a moment before they turned red, and an alarm started blaring somewhere.

Echo's eye lights hollowed out for a moment, then they filled out again, narrowing in anger as Echo let her head drop to the floor, relaxing in his captor's grip as she accepted her fate.

"Wow, that was, rather unexpected, for all of us apparently" the female Disassembly Drone stated, sounding slightly surprised at what had just transpired.

"That's some shitty dad you've got Worker" she said, looking down at Echo.

"...Echo"

The female Disassembly Drone's eye lights hollowed out in surprise.

"What?" she asked.

"My name is Echo. If you're going to kill me, at least use my name while you're doing so" Echo told her.

The Disassembly Drone's eyelights filled back out, and she released her grip on the worker, still hovering over her though to make sure she wasn't going to go for her sword.

"I'm not going to kill you Echo. It never felt right anyway. I'm X, by the way" the Disassembler told her.

Echo gave a small start, and turned herself so that she could look up at the Disassembly Drone.

"Wait, you're X? N spoke rather highly of you when he had this weird amnesia thing going on" she said.

X was slighty surprised at this information, and she turned her head to look at the male Disassembler.

"You did?" she asked, a light smile playing on her mouth.

N gave a light shrug and returned the smile, but a sound coming from the end of the hallway had everyone stiffening up again.

"Shoot. J and V were following me" X realized.

"Alright, I know you probably don't like me at the moment, but I need you to trust me here. Play dead. Your wounds will make it look extra convincing" she told Echo, who gave her a skeptical look.

"Yeah, I wouldn't believe me either if I was in your place, but I need you to do that, and I need you to do it now. This goes for you too Uzi!" X stated, looking over her shoulder to toss the last sentence at Uzi.

Echo, after a moment's hesitation, fully went down to the floor, offlining her optics for good measure. She could still hear everything that was going on though.

"That's good, both of you" she heard X say.

Silence followed for a moment, then there was the sound of something scuttling.

"Whoa, N" another female's voice said.

There was the sound of two things hitting the floor, and then a whoosh with Uzi's quiet yelp mixed in. She must've been tossed off somewhere. Hopefully out of sight of the two other Disassemblers.

"Am I dreaming or did you do something not useless for once?" the speaker from before asked.

"You're not dreaming J. He got through those doors all on his own. And cleared the path while he was at it" X told her.

"I've been trying to get past those doors for months! Nice work N" V praised him with a wink.

"You, me, name, remember?" N asked, unable to talk straight.

"These ventilation shafts can easily get us around this last door. Lowest body counts eats a missile! Come on X!" V said in a sing-song voice as she suddenly flew up, busting into a shaft with a slightly deranged laugh.

"Hey! You got a head start. No fair!" X cried out, quickly following her.

Not because she wanted to, but because she had to. Echo listened as she made her way after the other female Disassembly Drone, then turned all of her focus on the two still remaining in the room.

"Way to go, stud. The company's gonna love this. With this colony wiped, we'll make top team this quarter for sure! You know what that means. Branded pens!" J stated, repeatedly clicking one, much to Echo's annoyance.

"Oooo" N crooned, causing J to give a small chuckle.

She must've tossed it, because there was the sound of someone catching something. Someone then starting walking, but came to a pause when N spoke again.

"Uh, you know, not that I can't wait to keep murdering all these, uhuhuh, maybe not so actually different from us, Worker Drones, but just out of curiosity, do we actually uh, ttssss, know what the company plans to do with us afterwards?" he said then asked.

It took all of Echo's willpower to not turn on her optic sensors at that moment and give N an incredulous look.

"Excuse me?" she heard J ask.

Abort, abort, abort, abort mission

"Okay, so, a couple of workers earlier might've suggested that they could fix up our landing pod to uh, escape the planet and stuff which, whoa! Hey! That's against the rules! But it is kinda making me question, why our pods were only one way in the first place. Cause, you know, I get the feeling the company doesn't actually love robots and, like, we, might be robots" N explained.

Then he switched tracks.

"I've made a terrible mistake. Its cool how immediately I could tell" he said.

"Hmm. No way buddy" J told him almost immediately.

Echo did not like the tone of voice she used. It was all nice and sweet, but it was clearly so fucking fake.

"Questioning the company? You just gave me the excuse I needed" she heard J say.

Her words were followed immediately by a quiet gunshot, and N gave a choking sound. There was a sickening moment of silence, and then the sound of someone walking while another fell to their knees.

"Worker Drones are corrupted N. That's why the company sent us. I'd hate to see you corrupted as well" J stated, her voice sounding much closer to Echo than before.

"Th-Thanks J. Always looking out for me. You're awesome" N told her, his voice sounding pained, stuttering and changing pitch as it glitched out.

It sounded like he had fully fallen to the ground. J made a teasing noise, then sounded like she took off to the shafts. Echo waited until the noise went silent, well as silent as it could be save for a quiet constant beeping, before she turned her optic sensors online again, and rose up.

First thing she noticed was N laying on his back, a glitching out error screen displaying on his visor. There was a small hexagon shaped device planted in his chest with the words 'UPLOADING VIRUS'. The current percentage read 27 percent.

"N..." Echo breathed out, covering her mouth with her hands as Uzi picked up her gun and Echo's sword.

Even though he had tried to kill her and her sister, twice, Echo still couldn't help but feel for the Disassembly drone. Nobody really needed to die. And especially not by a virus.

"Ah biscuits. I'm sorry. I ruined your card game. Then made you guys have an awkward moment with your dad" N said, his voice glitching out more as he spoke.

"And we made you rebel like an angsty teen whiiich got you killed. Though, you also tried to kill me and my sister, so, morality calls this a draw" Uzi told him as she tossed Echo her sword, then proceeded to pull a large box away from the wall.

The volatile female climbed onto it, and tried to reach for the ceiling, but there was a problem. She was out a good couple feet when it came to height.

"Still think we don't need him?" Echo asked, a bit of a smug look on her face as she locked her fingers together on the table and rested her chin on them.

Uzi lightly glared at her and groaned for a moment before turning around.

"For the record, that was the lamest heel-faced turn in history. Was that supposed to be you switching sides?" she said then asked.

"Being rebellious is a lot harder than it looks. Thanks for showing me the ropes" N told the two.

"Nu-uh. No bonding thing. You just killed a bunch of people idiot" Uzi reminded him.

"That's super fair. I screwed up"

"Tch, uugghhh" Uzi groaned, rolling her eye lights to the heavens.

"In the same way you're about to fix it?" Echo asked as Uzi straightened up and pulled out the wrench Khan had given her.

"Hahahaaa, I love doing anything" N said as he gave a thumbs up while his visor displayed the message 'I'm literally about to die'. "Well then, let's get you fixed up" Echo stated with a smile as Uzi tossed her the wrench.

*Cue epic virus removal*

"Well, now that that's done and over with, N, bite this cloth, and let your saliva soak into it. Don't worry. It's clean" Echo stated as she pulled out a white rag.

"Uh, may I ask why?" N asked.

"You just did man, but reason being, I'm trying out an experiment"

"An experiment? Now? Really Echo?" Uzi deadpanned as N took the cloth from Echo.

"Would you rather heal your shoulder with the help of N's tongue?" came Echo's slightly snarky sounding reply.

"...Fair enough. I guess" By now, the rag was thoroughly soaked with N's healing saliva, and Echo repressed the urge to shudder when she took it back.

The damn thing just felt so slimy now!

Repressing the disgust she now felt, Echo took the cloth and pressed it against Uzi's shoulder, hoping that the saliva would work its magic on a wound of this extent.

"Oh, get it away already. It feels weird" Uzi complained.

"Give it a second to work, jeez" her sister told her, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

She kept the cloth pressed against the wound for a couple more seconds before pulling it away. Miraculously, the wound no longer existed, and the only signs it was ever there in the first place were the torn clothing and oil stains. Uzi's eye lights went hollow with surprise as she examined the spot while Echo pressed the cloth to her own wounds, mostly located on her hands.

"Seee? Not so bad, is it?" the older worker stated with a knowing smile.

"Shut up Echo"

"Out of curiosity, does anyone know the layout of the ventilation shafts?" N asked.

Uzi automatically pointed at Echo, who was currently disposing the saliva and oil soaked cloth. She turned around to see two pairs of eyes staring at her.

"What are you guys looking at me for? It's not like I actually know all of the tunnels and secret passageways that lie in this compound" she said.

Uzi deadpanned at her while N merely blinked.

"Okay, I actually do. We just need to get up there. There's actually a shaft that can take us directly to the evac room" Echo admitted, pointing at the hole in the ceiling as she spoke.

N helped both girls into the shaft like the gentleman he is, and followed himself as Echo led the way. Along the path, Echo and N shared a few, words.

"Tell J how her actions made you feel man. You let Drones walk all over you way too much" the female stated.

"I don't want to be rude about it though"

"Seriously? She tried to kill you with a virus of all things" Uzi told him.

"I guess that's true"

The shaft they were in, after a few twists and turns, dropped them right outside the evac room. The door was open, and there were already a few oil puddles that spotted the floor.

"Time to take down some Disassemblers" Echo stated with a nearly psychotic grin before she dropped to the floor.

"Dude, that's my line!" Uzi groaned out.

She and N joined Echo on the ground, and the trio rounded the wall to stand in the entrance. X was off to one side consuming the oil out of a body that didn't have a head, and Thad, the worker drone from a while ago, was currently in the claws of another. This one had short hair, and what appeared to be a crop top hoodie.

"Hey!" Uzi called out, gaining the Disassemblers attention.

"Put that conventionally attractive male down!" she snapped while N kept giving a small wave.

X, once making sure she was out of sight of the others, returned the action with a relieved smile. She had heard from J about how she had, uh, terminated him, and was very happy to see that the termination method did not work. She was also a little relieved to see that the Workers were also still alive.

Echo gently tapped the back of her hand against N's elbow as she drew her sword.

"Remember what we talked about in the shaft" she whispered to him.

"Oh! Uh, J, you're, sometimes, kinda mean to me, and I wish you weren't. Just some constructive criticism!" N called out.

"Nice!/See? There you go" Echo and Uzi chorused as N fist-bumped the two, much to X's unknown amusement.

The short haired Disassembly Drone let out a frustrated growl as another with two ponytails joined her.

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

Echo recognized her voice as the one J used.

"So that is J, and the one beside her must be V" she muttered to herself, finally having faces to match the names to.

"Okay, which one do you guys want?" Uzi asked, dropping her voice to a whisper.

"X is mine" Echo stated, immediately laying her claim.

"J please" N told Uzi.

"Too bad. Good luck!" Uzi told him as she clicked the branded pen and skillfully threw it as hard as she could towards J.

The writing utensil landed right in the center bump of her glowing headband thing. Echo was definitely not expecting her to scream out in pain.

"Hold up, those things are a part of you guys?!" she cried.

"They sure are. I'd go as far as to call these our real eyes" X called out as her mental bladed wings appeared out of her back.

She lunged towards Echo, whose eye lights hollowed out, and the worker threw herself out of the way. That didn't stop X from making a swift skillful u-turn in the air, and the Worker Drone was successfully snatched up. The Disassembler flew up into the air and quickly spun around a few times before letting go, sending Echo crashing into a wall.

The worker hit the ground, a little dazed but still very much aware of the Disassembly Drone that was coming at her, bladed claws out. Echo grabbed the hilt of her sword and pulled it out in one fluid motion. She pressed her thumb against the button, and swung the weapon around, releasing the blue colored wave of energy from the movement.

X quickly pulled herself up to avoid the wave, then folded in her wings, shooting towards the Worker. Echo flung herself forwards, letting the Disassembler hit the wall as the sword wielding worker turned on her heel, pointing the blade at X and letting it rest on her raised and bent elbow.

"Dude, I thought we had a moment back there. What are you going after me for now?!" Echo cried as the Disassembler landed on the ground.

"Gotta keep up appearances Echo. In case you haven't noticed, I actually haven't been trying to land a hit on you at all since I separated us from the others. If I actually wanted to hurt you, I would have done so already" X replied, pulling in her claws and resting a hand on her hip.

Her eyelights suddenly hollowed out as they focused on something behind the Worker.

"Echo, get down!" she cried, at the same time lunging for the sword wielder.

Echo wasn't expecting the female Disassembly Drone to do that, so she ended up getting shoved to the ground, losing her grip on her sword as she went down. Just in time to avoid a different energy wave as it passed over the two.

"Watch it V! Some of us would like to actually live here!" X cried out, raising herself up a bit as a look of annoyance crossed her face.

The two drones heard a deranged laugh that was followed by a quick, equally deranged, "Sorry!"

X shook her head as she raised herself a bit higher, allowing Echo to move a bit. The Worker quickly looked around, catching sight of N, who had just rose into the air to try and gain a literal meaning to higher ground while V followed him. Uzi also seemed to be holding her own pretty well, until J exchanged her hand for a closed three pronged device that was sparking with electricity and began laughing a bit.

"Oh shit" Echo just barely heard X mutter as she felt Disassembly Drone tense up.

Her bladed wings materialized out of her back and X used them to create a dome over the Worker as the three prongs suddenly spread out, sending an ever expanding dome of electricity out of it. Echo watched as the wave passed through Uzi, whose eye lights glitched offline, and she suddenly hit the ground, becoming unresponsive.

"Uzi!" the worker cried out, her eye lights severely hollowing out as the electrical wave passed by her and X.

Nothing happened to her, and the worker strongly suspected it had something to do with the wings that were sheltering her.

"Stay here" X told her as the Disassembler pushed herself off the ground.

She spread her wings out, and propelled herself off the ground as J began walking towards the fallen Worker. X landed on the wall behind J, and after putting her wings away, she began climbing, head first towards the ground, keeping her eye lights on J as she got closer to the younger Worker. Uzi appeared to regain consciousness as her eyes flickered back online, and she started reaching for the railgun.

J kicked it off somewhere and began talking, unaware that X had reached the ground, and was now quietly sneaking up behind her. Uzi's eyelights flicked from J to X, who put a finger to her silicone lips, then nodded towards the canister on J's tail. Uzi glanced at it, and was apprently confused, so X made a jabbing motion with her own tail, then nodded towards the bottom of J's leg, the one that was closest to Uzi.

Uzi glanced at everything, and then something clicked as she realized what X was trying to tell her to do. The Worker Drone grabbed the canister, and shoved the needle to it as hard as she could into J's leg. X did the same, slamming the needle of her own canister into J's lower leg.

The same leg that Uzi had jabbed.

J quickly noticed the pain, and looked down to see what was causing it. X gave her a murderous smile as she backed away towards the railgun, pulling her tail out of the leg it was embebbed in.

"Sorry J. But I must admit, I never really liked the company. Or you for that matter" she called out as she slid the gun towards Uzi, who caught it, and managed to get to her feet.

J was crying out something about "Profits!" and "Leadership!" as she struggled to get her own tail out of her leg, before tripping over herself and landing on her back. Uzi immediately took the opportunity to point her weapon at the Disassembly Drone's face.

"One more buzzword and I'll do it" she taunted, powering up the gun and putting her finger on the trigger.

J's eyes looked over at X, who held her hands behind her back and looked off somewhere, whistling out a little tune as she did so before looking back. She noted how N was standing over V, who had been tied up in her own tail. J stupidly said something about equity, and Uzi was quick to pull the trigger.

X put up a wing and took a couple steps back in an attempt to shield herself from the sudden harsh blast of green light that appeared from the gun. She waited a couple of seconds when the light faded away before peeking through her wing, and then dropping the appendage in surprise as her eye lights hollowed out. The upper parts of J's body were just, gone.

Only a bunch of oil splatters that peppered the floor signaled she even had an upper body in the first place.

"Jeez..... You sure that thing has enough power?" X commented as she looked at Uzi, who shouldered her gun.

"Oh please don't encourage her! That railgun doesn't need any more power!" Echo cried out from somewhere behind her.

All at once, the cheers from the Worker Drones filled the room, startling X and Echo for a moment before they regained themselves. Uzi suddenly glitched out for a moment, probably residue from the electrical blast, and began to fall backwards, losing her hold on her gun as she went. Luckily, N came up rather quickly behind the Worker, picked her up, and set her on his shoulders.

Echo also walked up and picked up the railgun, adding it to the sword she already had on her back.

"Holy hell you two, that was insane!" Thad cried out as he approached the group.

Then he turned slightly apprehensive as he looked towards the Disassembly Drones, though he still kept his smile.

"And you guys too, uhh..." he said, trailing off since he didn't know their names.

X blinked at him before something clicked in her mind.

"Oh, us? I'm X. And this is my colleague, and best friend" she said before lightly flicking N's arm.

"Huh? Oh! Uh, N! I'm an angsty rebellious Disassembly Drone now" he said, pointing a finger gun at Thad while glitching his eyes to show a pair of sunglasses.

X closed her own eyes, giving a bit of an amused giggle while shaking her head. Though the happy moment quickly ended when someone cleared their throat, and the group of Workers parted to reveal Khan. Echo went still, her expression blank, until she settled to look as disappointed as she possibly could.

Though she was feeling more ticked off than anything, and the feeling was increasing the longer Khan remained in her presence. Reaching behind her, the cold metal of the wrench seemed to sting against her hand, and Echo tossed the tool at Khan's feet.

"Me and Echo brought the Murder Drones here accidentally. You chose to leave us for dead instead of just frickin believing in me! And that's not even an edgy teen hyperbole like when I said it last week!" Uzi snapped at him.

Khan glanced towards the ground, looking very dejected, as he should, while Uzi took a second to collect herself by slapping herself to restore her edgy levels. After that, she and Echo shared a look, and a mutual agreement seemed to pass through them.

"Don't worry. This will never happen again, especially since me and Uzi banish ourselves. Since apparently, we're no safer here than out there" Echo stated, doing her best to keep any emotion out of her voice.

Her statement earned a few different reactions, but everyone turned to look at Khan, who looked like he wanted to say something, but decided against it.

"Let's go N. Everyone here can bite me" Uzi called out, and the male Disassembler automatically turned around, grabbing the back of V's uniform as he went.

X crouched down beside Echo.

"Hop up, I'm not letting you walk all the way there again" she said.

Echo gave a small nod and hopped up on the female Disassembler's back, not once looking back at her colony.

"Nice to meet Mr. Uzi!" N called out.

"Shut it" the female Worker on his back quietly snapped, lightly hitting the poor guy's head.

N then took off with a great sweep of his wings, bursting through the ceiling.

"Let's get out of here. I'm done with just about everyone here" Echo muttered out.

She heard what sounded like a couple of echoing clicks resonate from X's chest, and the female Disassembler took to the air, flapping her wings and going through the hole in the ceiling N had left behind.

"...He really is a terrible father, isn't he?" X said after a few moments of silence, her voice just loud enough for Echo to hear her over the wind rushing by their audio receptors.

"That's the understatement of the fucking century"

...

Later on, Echo was examining the exterior of the landing pod ship thing as the first rays of sunlight began peering through the opening of the corpse spire. Her sister, last she'd seen her, was sitting on the hood of an automobile outside, watching the sunrise.

"You sure you don't want to join her out there?" X asked from where she was hanging by her tail.

"Nah. I have too much on my mind at the moment. I need something to silence my thoughts, and figuring out how this hunk of junk works is doing just that" Echo replied, cautiously poking an exposed wire.

Nothing happened, which was both relieving and disappointing.

"I'd join you if the sun didn't kill me! Hope you're having important character growth or something though!" N suddenly called out, causing both Worker and Disassembler to spin around.

The male was standing at the entrance of the Corpse Spire, poking his head out to look at something, presumably Uzi. Echo was too far away to hear whatever it was that Uzi replied with, but she did hear what sounded like maniacal laughter. X looked at the entrance with a look of concern as N backed away from it a bit.

"Iisss your sister okay?" she asked, side eyeing Echo.

The Worker glanced at the entrance, gave a light shrug, and turned back to her examinations.

"I'm sure she'll be fine" Echo replied in response to X's question.

The female Disassembler looked unsure, but left it at that, and disappeared into the pod. The Worker stayed out, taking mental note of all the busted panels and exposed wires that stuck out of them. After a moment, she began to notice something different about herself.

She felt, sick almost?

The feeling was odd enough to prompt her to bring up her own diagnostics, and what she saw surprised her a bit.

...

Since when had her internal temperature ever been that high?