(Lizzy)
The past couple weeks… I didn't even really have words to describe them, they were so crazy. Joe confessed that he did like me back, we brought Doll's mom back from the dead, Joe brought us to his secret lair, and his big secret was that he was a literal Isekai Protagonist from the other side of the 4th Wall, and that he was trying to save us all from the Solver this whole time. And also, I was stuck waiting for my 12th birthday to actually date him. That part sucked, because that was still about seven months away at this point.
But still, the new status quo was something else. We spent the first couple days just kinda processing things, the new reality we lived in, what we were facing, the truth behind the Murder Drones and the Solver, and just starting to experiment with various melee weapons and firearms in the firing range and training areas in The Scrapyard. I was liking lasguns, personally, and was thinking maybe dual laspistols. I was having a bit more trouble with a melee weapon though. I wanted something dexterous, liked the idea of having reach from a polearm of some sort, but wanted it to be unique. Uzi had suggested fabricating some kind of whirler or twinblade, and I liked the idea, but it felt like it was still missing something to make it really feel good with me. Some kinda versatility so I could have options depending on the situation… I suddenly recalled watching RWBY, and realized that being in the 3000s might actually make mechashift feasible. I made a mental note to start putting an idea together later… and some light armor to go with it, because I wanted mobility in combat.
Trevor and Emily were both leaning towards heavy armor, and Joe and Uzi had looked outright giddy as they got to planning and started talking about their current progress on actual power armor. Emily had admitted to actually wanting to lean into an Adeptus Sororitas aesthetic, and said she was interested in using a bolter, and ever since Joe had worked to recode Warhammer 40k: Darktide for modern gaming consoles and PCs, Trevor had been liking the idea of an Adeptus Arbites. Joe already had ideas for that beefed up riot shield and a shock maul, heavy armor to match, and Uzi was figuring out a shot-pistol from scratch just for him. I took a brief aside because my new pattern recognition let me come to the realization that a game by the name of The Last of the Kitsune that was recently uploaded to the internet archives had a lot of humor that lined up with Joe's preferences after a certain point into the game, and realized that Joe was probably recoding a lot of games from his first life, and that one was a… rather lewd example… that was somehow still wholesome and had an actual story despite the raunchy themes. I was gonna do a playthrough of it later, for sure.
Kelsey was also leaning into the idea of a polearm, and while Joe was working on narrowing down what exactly she wanted, Hot Topic was working on tweaking her lasgun designs for a recon variant so she could maximize fire rate at the expense of distance accuracy. Penny had actually made Joe visibly nervous for just a moment when she said she wanted something as close to a Helldivers 2 arc thrower as Joe and Uzi could manage, and had also taken to a DU AR (Depleted Uranium Assault Rifle) and Deagle as backups, while asking Dolly if she could [EDIT] together a pair of CNT-Reinforced electrified Italian style stiletto daggers… I just then and there realized that they were like huge sewing needles, but more stabby, and it subsequently clicked as to why Penny wanted those, because it fit her own theme so well. While Kelsey and Penny wanted light and medium armor whenever Joe and Uzi finally cracked power armor, Thad had expressed a desire for something heavier, a blunt weapon to match for melee, but with a more precision based interest for ranged combat, showing an interest in Joe's kinetic railgun, and had picked up a laspistol. Even Rebecca and Darren were hopping back onto the arming bandwagon, as I'd caught them both practicing at the range with a laspistol and a DU Deagle, respectively, as backup sidearms to carry.
Uzi was pairing a CNT-Reinforced CrCoNi combat pickaxe with a chainsword of all things, and was carrying around what I could charitably describe as a death ray that she was evidently planning a better version of which would hit like a literal nuke, as well as a DU deagle and literal shurikens, and then rounded that off with the ridiculously modified taser Joe had given to her years back as a birthday present. Meanwhile, the man who made the manufacture of all these weapons possible had been carrying a concealed DU Deagle around whenever he was in the Bunker, Dolly's gift, Emily's cross, the virus jack pistol for his… Dysentery Darts, two bootloop lights, and when he was outside, he swapped the pistol for Friendship… I really didn't know whether to laugh or sigh at naming a bolt pistol that, and mounted his Doomblade/Pile-Bunker hybrid onto his left wrist. They both had light and heavy armor planned for themselves, respectively.
Dolly, on top of having so much proficiency with her Solver, had worked to [EDIT] one of her earlier birthday presents into a pair of CNT-Reinforced CrCoNi NKVD-style combat knives, a similarly prepped tomahawk axe, and had taken to practicing with a bolt pistol, going so far as to watch Joe when he was practicing and ask him about how he manages recoil and stuff to improve her own proficiency. She wanted to get medium armor whenever that finally got sorted out. Dolly… she was gonna be a goddess on the battlefield at this rate. And not just in a "she's so hot" way, just getting to watch that was gonna be amazing.
Dolly in general was just… so much more animated, generally happier, and just… joyful ever since her mom got brought back from the dead. Which… you know, was completely understandable, but I was still really happy for her regardless. I caught her skipping the other day when I went to meet her on the way to class. She's needed a bit more oil as she acclimates to the new frame, and we finally went to Rebecca and worked out some new hair-care products for when her wig fuses to her head again, but that just meant that in the interim, her hugs were warmer, and I loved that. And… Dolly's been a bit more liberal with hugs in general. I've… I've caught her blushing a few times when talking to Joe, or me, and she's just been more affectionate with both of us in general. I… I was so desperately hoping she finally fucking figured it out. If… if she did, then I just needed to tell her, and I could finally just… I just wanted them both. I loved them both.
Unfortunately, the thought of Doll finally figuring things out reminded me that the 4th Wall did shipping, and those horrible people actually shipped me with V of all drones. I wanted to gag at the mere thought of that. It was disgusting, and Dolly and Joe were way hotter than her. And also, Hot Topic was totally trying to rizz her (after we all kicked her ass), so like… no. Just… I was not into Uzi or N… N was admittedly pretty cute, but I just wasn't into him like that. Just, like, why couldn't the 4th Wall ship me with Dolly-- my train of thought derailed as I realized they absolutely shipped us, and it was probably a popular ship, and Joe probably shipped it… definitely shipped it, considering that he said he was okay with us being together while I was dating him. Robo-god I hoped he'd be into Dolly too. Just… I wanted the three of us to be together so bad.
Speaking of Joe, he's been visibly slightly less tense around us, being a bit more animated, noticeably more relaxed, he lets his overclock slip and shows genuine reactions of laughter or being nonplussed or even embarrassed when he's with just us. He's… a bit less active in conversations, but also seems less stressed because of that. He's been smiling more often, looks a little less tired, something I only noticed after having the before to compare it to, and it hit me all over again just how much stress relief Joe had to have been getting from getting everything out in the open and being able to finally be honest and genuine with everyone.
The last bit of big news in the last couple of weeks was Joe gathering everyone together and then asking Yeva if there were any other Solver Drones in Outpost 3, only for her to confirm that she and Nori had made damn well sure they hadn't missed anyone in the Outpost that needed their help. So then Joe had brought up the possibility of other orphans keeping their dead parents like Dolly had, and that now that he checked that we didn't have another Solver Drone in need of potential reviving, that it was probably time to try and bring that possibility up to Khan so he can check in on it, because no one else should be going through that.
Dolly had looked really uncomfortable at the topic, so in his typical jackass fashion, Joe literally said, "Aight, Imma change the subject! Hey Dolly, I know Liz's oil was literally sweet on you, but did you ever know when you had a cup of Joe?"
Yeva had been drinking antifreeze at the time and started choking, Dolly's jaw just dropped, and Joe started laughing, only for Dolly to suddenly shift her expression to a smug grin (probably from an overclock) before she literally pulled his own feet out from under him with her Solver. Uzi started laughing, and gave her cousin a fistbump as she started laughing too, but Joe just started laughing harder. The laughter spread across the room, and even as I joined in, I had to admit that Joe really knew how to throw off a somber mood with his unhinged bullcrap.
___
As it would turn out, Dolly was not the only child to keep their parent's corpses in the wake of V's break-in. Two days after Hot Topic "asked" her dad about what the "wellness check" on her cousin had really been about, and then asked if maybe Khan should check in on the rest of the colony's orphans, a total of nine bodies had been removed from the homes of children who lost family from V. Khan… he hadn't taken that well, and when he came home that night, optics hollow, staring an indeterminate distance ahead. From what Uzi had told me, Khan even had a hand in a pocket holding that wrench, and she and Dolly had ran up to him, hugged him, and convinced him to take the next day off. Uzi invited all of us over, I guess as a measure to distract her dad from what he'd had to do to those poor kids. I… I wasn't the only one horrified by that thought. We were mostly just hanging out at Khan's hab, and the TV in their living room was currently playing Gate: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri, because even now, Joe was still making us watch Isekai anime as part of Uzi's current anime marathon.
I got a DM ping from Joe, and opened it to see some preliminary blueprints.
Isekai_Protagonist: How's this looking so far, Liz?
I looked through it briefly in overclock.
Babeatron-Queenthousand: I LOVE it, Joe!
Isekai_Protagonist: You have NO IDEA how much of a pain in the ass figuring out RWBY levels of mechashift that don't compromise a weapon is. I would NOT be putting myself through this if I wasn't into you.
An eighth of a second, and then:
Isekai_Protagonist: To clarify, that means I would have just shunted the task off to Uzi, since I know she'd have fun with it.
Babeatron-Queenthousand: LOL
Babeatron-Queenthousand: Thanks for doing this, Joe.
Babeatron-Queenthousand: I love you.
I swallowed and felt really nervous after sending that, glancing over to Joe, just in time to see him look to the side as some grey hash marks crept up the bottom of his visor, before he replied.
Isekai_Protagonist: I love you too, Liz.
Babeatron-Queenthousand: I HATE that we gotta wait.
Isekai_Protagonist: After all the grief you put me through, consider the next seven months my revenge.
I just deadpanned at him, right up until his visor flickered to [XOXO] and then back in less than a second as he grinned at me, and I blushed. Joe gave me a small smile, and then glanced over to Uzi, who was sitting with Khan, who was watching GATE and was very obviously trying not to say--
"Dad, if you wanna say the GATE could use doors on both sides, just say it."
"Oh thank goodness!" Khan literally slumped. "I'm just saying, if I could have gotten some doors on that fast enough, that first attack could have been stopped cold!"
Uzi laughed, and leaned over to give a one-armed hug to her dad, who stiffened up, but then leaned over to return the gesture. "Do… do you think you could make doors that could stand up to the Apostles?"
Khan looked mock-offended as he turned to glance at his daughter. "Uzi, I can keep out Murder Drones! Have some faith in your old man!"
"To be fair," Dolly said, "If he had the prep time, I think Uncle Khan could make doors that would block anything GATE has to offer short of teleportation."
"Maybe I should break out the idea for those quantum interdiction fields again…" Khan muttered.
The rest of the room froze. "What?" Uzi asked.
"Well, theoretically they could block some forms of teleportation, but the Murder Drones never really showed any signs of pulling that off, so I put the idea to the side in favor of the Doors we have now," Khan replied.
"Don't… suppose you could send me whatever notes you have on that, Khan?" Joe ventured.
Khan glanced over to him, and shrugged. "Don't see why I can't." He let go of Uzi, ruffling her beanie (much to Hot Topic's protests), and then stood up, "Come on, Joseph, I'll pass you the notes I have in one of the drawers in my office." Joe stood up, stopped, glanced to Uzi for a moment, and Uzi snapped her gaze over to him. Just as fast, Joe moved to follow Khan, and I realized that an overclocked DM conversation just happened.
Joe and Khan went into his office, and I listened with my enhanced hearing as they started to chat about which drawer Khan would have left the notes in, and then I heard Joe say, "Khan… I uh… I'm not really sure how to bring this up, but you know how we're sure Uzi has autism?"
"Yeah?" Khan said. "Is… did something else happen to her?" he added with blatant concern, and I saw Hot Topic stiffen up before smiling a bit that her dad cared so much now.
"No!" Joe said, "It's just… now that I know you better, I've been thinking, and you got a lot of the same symptoms Uzi has, and I think she inherited it from you. Which isn't a bad thing, for either of you! It just makes you different, and I think it explains the whole… door obsession really well. Why you had a hard time understanding Uzi, or seeing that all the door stuff was distressing her--"
"Joe," Khan interrupted. "I… it does explain a lot. But it still doesn't excuse what I put Uzi through." The whole room was quiet as we all listened in, Hot Topic's and Dolly's optics wide as they listened. "I deserved that punch in the face. I don't think anything else short of a Murder Drone breaking in and nearly killing Uzi would have snapped me to my senses." Uzi stiffened up, looking decidedly uncomfortable, and I recalled when Joe had us all sit down to watch the Pilot Episode and the scene where exactly that happened and then Khan left Uzi to die. And, you know, canon me had been horrifying to contemplate, but I already had an existential crisis about that, which I used to shamelessly get hugs from Dolly and Joe. Uzi had been a mess on seeing that the first time, from what Joe told us, and was still decidedly upset on reruns, and therefore was subjected to a group hug from all of us, Yeva and Doll being the first to pile on by sheer dint of teleporting to their niece/cousin, respectively. And even now, Hot Topic looked decidedly uncomfortable.
"I'm still sorry for not telling you sooner…" Joe started saying, and I stopped focusing on the conversation to walk over to Uzi and give her a hug.
"It's okay, Uzi," I told her. "That… that won't happen anymore. You and Joe both saw to it. And Joe's got this talk in hand, okay?"
Uzi snapped out of her thoughts and hugged me back. "Thanks Lizzy," she said.
Dolly walked over and hugged her too. We chatted about anything that came to mind, the others chipping in and out of the conversation, just to distract Hot Topic from having to listen into a talk that she'd evidently asked Joe to do for her, and about seven minutes later, Joe and Khan came back out with Joe holding a manilla folder underarm. Khan stepped into the room, saw Uzi still a little distressed, and jogged over to hug her too.
"Uzi, is everything okay?"
She sniffled, but tugged an arm free to hug her dad back. "I'm better now, dad."
"Glad to hear it…" he trailed off. "If… if there's something you do want to talk about later, but in private, just let me know, okay?"
Uzi smiled. "I will dad."
Khan gave a nervous laugh. "Thanks, but… there's also some stuff I want to talk to you and Doll about later, okay?"
Babeatron-Queenthousand: I am SO sorry you gotta sit through that talk when we all already heard almost every word that Joe and Khan said.
KayKay: Sorry Uzi.
Dress-to-Impress: You have my sympathies.
Thad_the_Chad: Sorry Zi.
Isekai_Protagonist: Reminder that the lot of you have a TOGGLE for your hearing sensitivity, and could have just turned it down. You could even set it to a TIMER before it goes back to normal.
I blushed. I wasn't the only one.
Babeatron-Queenthousand: I feel dumb.
DarrenToDream: Me too.
TheLastCrusade: Me three.
Horror_Movie_Survivor: REALLY dumb.
Кукла: At least we can have the awkward talk together, cuz.
Darkxwolf16: Thanks cuz.
TotesBestGirl: I WANTED to listen. Prime gossip, even if I'd take it to my grave.
TotesBestGirl: Ow!
I glanced over to see where Thad had punched Rebecca on the shoulder lightly.
Thad_the_Chad: One that did NOT hurt, and two, not cool.
Rebecca pouted.
TotesBestGirl: Fine.
TotesBestGirl: Sorry Hot Topic.
Isekai_Protagonist: Changing the subject.
There was a round of lols on the chat from everyone as the second hand slowly started to tick.
Isekai_Protagonist: Human pattern recognition is nice, but you still gotta THINK about things to properly utilize it.
Babeatron-Queenthousand: So then can't I just ask you since YOU'RE so experienced to show us all how YOU optimize your enhanced senses?
Isekai_Protagonist: Sigh
Isekai_Protagonist: Should have seen that coming.
Isekai_Protagonist: But yeah, I'll give you all pointers later.
There was another round of laughter on the TNPAPT, before we all snapped back to real-time, and Khan said, "So in the meantime, where were we?"
"We were only two minutes into the current episode, do you all wanna restart it?" Joe asked.
"We could watch through something else," Kelsey suggested. "RWBY again?"
"But it's an anime marathon!" Hot Topic protested.
"RWBY counts as anime!" Dolly argued.
"No it doesn't!" Uzi shot back.
"Honestly," Joe weighed in, "I feel like Ice Queendom counts but the original show doesn't."
I watched in real time as all three of them bounced back and forth and teamed up against the third before swapping sides as soon as the subject changed, the topic rapidly drifting away from RWBY as they got more and more into it. Penny took out a bucket of batteries and started munching away at them like a human would popcorn.
Everyone else got engrossed in spectating the debate, but part of being so awesome and up to the Machiavellian ideal was making sure to always be paying attention (which I admittedly needed to work on when I was crushing on Dolly or Joe), so I overheard Khan quietly mutter to himself, "Joseph really does act like an older brother to Uzi. Taking that conversation up with me to spare her from having to do it, looking out for her over and over, I…"
We both briefly refocused on the argument when all three of the participants started laughing as they mutually agreed that the asshats who tried to make a Catcher in the Rye anime in 2537 were fucking morons, and then I resolved to do a bit of Machiavellian Queen Bee work. I tapped Khan's shoulder, and when he glanced at me, I started to flash text on my visor. [I overheard you. Sorry.] followed by [Uzi and Joe have an ACTUAL official unofficial sibling dynamic between them]. That one admittedly took up most of my visor and required me to use a smaller font. [So you saying they act like siblings isn't that far off the mark.] Then, the coup de grâce: [This isn't the first time that Uzi and Joe, Uzi and Doll, or even Uzi, Doll and Joe, have argued about anime.] Another use of small font, but Khan blinked a few times at that, before I polished it off with [They have fun every time.] Khan looked surprised, and then contemplative, only for me to focus back on the argument when it turned to subs vs dubs, with Joe arguing against Uzi that that the original Panty and Stocking with Garter Belt is an exception to the rule of subs being better, because the English version is genuinely better. They both looked at Doll to break the tie, but Dolly just grumbled, "The Russian dub left a lot to be desired."
They both turned and gave Dolly a hug, and she hugged them back. I felt a tap on my shoulder. I glanced over to Khan, and he flashed on his own visor, [I'll keep what you told me in mind. Thank you, Lizzy.]
I smiled, the perfect picture of a Renaissance diplomat. [You're welcome]. I refocused on the argument as it picked back up, and Khan was right next to me as we both walked over to Penny to ask for some of those batteries for ourselves. This was prime entertainment, after all.
___
(Joseph)
Man, what just happened would be really funny to the folks on the other side of the 4th wall, I thought. I shook my head at the antics I just witnessed in The Scrapyard as I stopped paying attention to what was going on with the others to dive back into my review of various documents on my HUD in what would probably be a 1st person POV in an anime as I internally recapped recent progress, mostly to see if it stirred any new ideas in my head.
Anyways, moving on from the hilarious kerfuffle I just witnessed, just prior to the Mechromancy, Uzi and I were getting closer to a breakthrough on power armor. We already have servos and hydraulics that paired with the combat frames will let us move around in slabs of Khan-grade alloys, so the real last hurdle to a working prototype was figuring out an ergonomic design and then optimizing efficiency and power output with our internal reactors to power it. More importantly, I wanted it to be closer to Halo power armor in terms of maneuverability. Space Marines can be terrifying to face, but I wanna hit MJOLNIR levels of flexibility and maneuverability. The combat frames are fast, and I didn't wanna lose any of that with power armor if possible. Taking longer to actually have it up and running would be worth the extra time spent. And at that point, it's better to design a gen 3 combat frame built around being able to handle power armor. And while that would take a bit longer, it should definitely be done within a year if not much sooner at the current rate. And later on, I'd be able to create variants of Khan-grade power armor alloyed with smelted DD material that maintains non-interactability.
Next up, just yesterday, in conjunction with Uzi, I'd finally cracked a portable magnetic containment field for plasma. Step one for 40k plasma guns is complete. And since Uzi was already in on it, step two was probably closer than I thought it'd be. And while I was on the topic of recreating 40k BS, my studies into theoretical physics in the 3000s strongly suggested that it was possible to break space-time, and that doing so in a controlled and weak enough manner could destabilize molecular bonds without risking uncontrolled atomic splitting or even a spatio-temporal rupture. If I could figure that out, I might actually have my hands on a bonafide powerfield.
I sat back and started to crunch some numbers for it in real time, content to let the others talk among themselves and then drift to other parts of the Scrapyard as they went to practice or do research. About ten minutes later, I remarked aloud, "You know, a scene transition to one of the others probably happened by now…"
I kept crunching numbers for another five minutes before I finally got bored of watching my supercomputer of a brain crunch millions of numbers in real time and set an algorithm to crunch even more numbers for me, and sat back to reflect on changes in the others in the past couple weeks. Dolly… she's been a bit more nervous around Liz and I lately, but also more animated, happy, more prone to hugging me, I've seen her blushing when she looks at either me or Liz, and--
I sucked in a breath, checked on my internal sonar to make sure that no one else was in earshot in under a second via overclock, and then hissed out, "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck, they both like me now! Why the FUCK did I not see that coming after bringing Yeva back from the dead?!?" I blinked, eyemotes hollow as I held my head in my hands. "How the fuck did I actually rizz Lizzy and Doll, man? I'm a fucking virgin-ass white loser who'd rather write fanfics than touch grass!" I took a breath. "At least the 4th Wall probably isn't watching me anymore." I glanced forwards at what would be a good angle for the camera. "Fuck you guys and girls and non-binary individuals and pluralities in a non-sexy way if you are, though!" I glanced back to the floor, and then muttered, "Now what the fuck do I do about this… especially once they're both legal?"
I pause for a moment, and then realized that they're definitely into each other. "Well, Dizzy is going to happen. So… it wouldn't be a harem, it would be a polyamorous relationship. So not cringe or sexist. At least I have that going for me…" Honestly, I should just lie in the grave I apparently dug and let them take the lead. Not like I know how to manage a relationship with one person, nevermind two at the same time. Plus… Dolly's fucking hot too, and I really like her and being with her and making her happy, just like with Liz… I sighed. "Okay, yeah, I like them both, and if they like each other and me, I can actually just roll with this. I'm already going to hell when I die anyways, so it's whatever."
I sighed again. "Just another day in the life of an Isekai Protagonist, eh?" I gave a self-depreciative chuckle, and then decided to get back to digging into a theoretical powerfield.
___
(Serial Designation V)
A month after I'd found out that the sniper girl, Darkxwolf16, had given N that tablet, things relating to the Scrapper started to escalate again. The night had begun innocuously enough, as I'd been flying around the city after dawn had seen the end of a week long toxic death storm, and I was hoping some workers would be stupid enough to come out in the immediate aftermath.
That was when I saw it on my patrol route. Her symbol, red, sprayed out with some kind of glow in the dark paint on the walls. And beneath every one of them:
YOU KILLED HER PARENTS IN FRONT OF HER. BUT SHE STILL REMEMBERS YOU, V. SHE STILL REMEMBERS THE FIRST TIME SHE SAW THAT MARK ON HER OWN VISOR. AND SHE KNOWS HOW TO USE IT.
I felt genuine terror for the first time since the Scrapper had announced his intent to fight Cyn. How many times was my past going to come back to haunt me? How many times would I be tortured by the things I did to keep N and even J safe from Her? Would… would this kid with Her powers in her kill me? Send me back to Her?
I broke my patrol route and went over to N's section of the city. I spent the night prowling the skies with him, trying to keep from breaking down on the spot. J didn't comment on that at the end of the night.
The maid I buried away kept screaming louder with each passing day. When she was in my nightmares, it was almost deafening.
___
(Serial Designation N)
V had come to me the other night terrified of something. I hadn't pushed her boundaries, but the next night, I dipped into her section of the city to see if I could spot it, and holy biscuits, the latest messages from the Scrapper would be terrifying if they came from an actual sapient being. No idea what that symbol meant, though. Something about it definitely felt ominous, but it wasn't ringing any bells. Ah well, it probably didn't matter.
A couple nights later, V came up to me again, just as we were getting ready to go hunting for the night, and pulled me aside after J set off first. "N?" she asked me, actually looking… vulnerable… I felt worried.
"What's wrong, V?" I asked, concerned.
"I…" she looked away. "The Scrapper is genuinely scaring me," she admitted, eyemotes squinting shut behind her glasses as her tail flicked behind her. "I… I have an idea to finally get rid of him?"
My own eyemotes widened. I glanced to the side. "Just the Scrapper?"
I glanced back to see V looking at me, utterly poleaxed. "N?"
I raised my hands, "I'm totally fine with getting rid of the Scrapper!" I defended. "Maybe… can we not disassemble Darkxwolf16? She kinda did get you the glasses…"
"N, she nearly killed you!"
"And it was an accident!"
"I…" V trailed off, groaned, and said, "I won't go out of my way to get her, but if she's attacking us, I'm not holding back. Happy?"
"Yeah," I said with a grin.
V looked at me for a few moments, and then sighed. There was something… nostalgic, but also melancholic in her gaze, but before I could ask about it, V said, "I want to shadow you on your next few patrols, so that the next time you get ambushed, we can jump the Scrapper and finally k-- disassemble him!"
I blinked. Weeeeeeeeell… as long as we weren't disassembling Darkxwolf16, I was down for trying to deal with the Scrapper. Put that poor corrupted guy out of his misery, and also so he'd stop consistently traumatizing V. "Okay!" I told her. "Let's do this, V!"
V gave me a hesitant smile. "Thanks, N," she told me.
I smiled back. "No problem!"
___
(Joseph)
Another day, another ambush… well… counter-ambush, technically, considering that I caught V planning to shadow N and try to jump us on my spy cams already. So… kinda just planning to ambush N with a well-tossed EM nade to down him, deal with V's "surprise", and then have Uzi, Darren, and Rebecca jump them both, and maybe get V's head to give it to Yeva as a gag-gift so she could play basketball with it or something… that was a really damn funny mental image, actually. Forget the memes of Doll ballin on V, if there are any artists on the other side of the 4th Wall watching my second life, could we get some memes of Yeva ballin on V?
Anyways, there was N coming around the corner, so I overclocked, drew up the right angle to toss my nade, armed it, yeeted the thing, and then watched as N yelped and crashed into a nice and thick snowbank, exactly like I planned. Uzi was watching to take his head off, and Darren and Rebecca were right with her, so I stood up from my hidden position while taking out Friendship and turned to where I already knew where V was coming from, and saw a yellow flash--
I overclocked. The laser was already an inch from me. Not dodging it, that thing was literally moving at light speed. I processed the visual data I had, plotted the path, and realized it was gonna decapitate me. That was… annoying but I had a black-box for exactly this reason, and I was mostly annoyed at myself for having let the lasers slip my mind since they only got used like twice in the whole series.
Okay…
Fuck…
I was gonna "die" but as long as Uzi got my black-box back to The Scrapyard, I'd be perfectly fine in the long run. I trusted Uzi though. I trusted Darren and Rebecca. They could beat N and V, and J if she showed up, and then put me back together.
They would save me. I believed in them.
I was mostly just upset that I was in this position in the first place, and that I wouldn't be able to help them with this.
Still, I opened a DM chain to Uzi, Darren, and Rebecca, and sent:
Isekai_Protagonist: About to get decapitated by a laser. My black-box will be fine. Don't panic, just get the MDs off my body, and get either the whole body or the black-box back to base. I trust you all, okay?
I wasn't gonna lie. Even if it wasn't permanent, I was about to die. I was fucking terrified. And also slightly annoyed that I was gonna lose my perfect K/D Ratio, but mostly terrified by the suddenness of my own mortality being thrown in my face after over half a decade in Earth Years to get used to being an ageless robot.
Well… no sense in delaying the inevitable, I guess. I internally winced and stopped using my visual feed.
I stopped my overclock--
___
(Uzi)
Less than a second before Joe got decapitated by a laser from V, I got a message from him, with Darren and Rebecca in the chain.
Isekai_Protagonist: About to get decapitated by a laser. My black-box will be fine. Don't panic, just get the MDs off my body, and get either the whole body or the black-box back to base. I trust you all, okay?
His head rolled and hit the ground. No oil spilled because the wounds were cauterized. His visor flashed a terrifying red… [VAFFONCULO] that totally ruined the image and was absolutely intentional on his part for just a moment before it went dark.
I overclocked.
Joe was fine. Joe was fine. Joe was fine. He had his black-box for stuff exactly like this. We just had to get his body.
We just had to get his body.
We just had to beat two, potentially three Murder Drones, two of which I was crushing on, and then get his body.
Game On.
Darkxwolf16: I'll take care of N. You two down V.
TotesBestGirl: Holy Shit.
DarrenToDream: Becca. Freak out about the sudden stark reminder of what the stakes are later.
TotesBestGirl: Right. Sorry.
TotesBestGirl: On it, Uzi.
Rebecca leaned out from cover and popped off a shot that took V's still glowing laser-arm out, before snapping up and to the left to shoot one of her wings out at the mid-joint, unloading shots that peppered her while she threw her other wing in front of her and Darren jumped down to street level and started firing single shots to corral V further from Joe's… body… I swallowed and shook my head. I needed to stay focused.
I saw N jump out of the snowdrift and drew my DU Deagle and shot out his tail just below the stinger, ducking and swinging my combat pickaxe as he dove at me, driving it into a wrist-blade, shattering it, and darting out my hand at lightning speeds to grab his wrist-- don't think about how close to hand-holding this is --and tugged to redirect his momentum to slam him into the street. I suppressed a wince at his yelp, but leapt back from a swipe of his wings and threw some shurikens as I went.
They hit his own thrown shurikens, and I resolved to ask Joe later-- after we saved him, because HE WAS FINE --what other unexpected surprises they might have, and we both stared at each other as they clattered to the floor.
One second went by.
Two.
Three.
I decided to shoot my shot.
"Hey handsome," I ventured.
"What?!?" N squeaked out.
I was a girl with two crushes, and I was gonna go for them! "You're handsome and I'm crushing on you and V!" I shouted.
"What?!?" V shouted from the side, whipping her head over… and then Rebecca put a las bolt through said head.
"Look," I said quickly, "I like you a lot, but you kinda just killed my friend so I need to disable you and I'm really sorry about this!" I repressed a cringe and then whipped out my taser and shot N with it. He screamed and collapsed, and I cringed for real as I put a round through his processors. I pulled out my chainsword and decapitated him before he could finish regenerating from the bullet, following it up with a thermite charge, and turned in time to see Darren just blast V's head a few times with his gatling shotgun before he put on a charge of his own.
I got a ping on my motion tracker, and whipped around, dropping my other weapons as I pulled up my SAHMPA, sighting in on J as she crashed through a building above me. I dove backwards as I saw she had some kind of higher caliber firearm (looked to be an AR barrel of some sort, chambered in 7.62, the rounds coming out looked to be travelling at supersonic speeds and were made of tungsten, pointed, sharp, and likely armor piercing.) I sighted on her in slow motion, aiming at her head as her eyemotes widened, right optic flickering to a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark inside with the words "Prior Hazard" emblazoned under it. She dodged a half-second before a lance of green would have erased her head. At the same time, her bullets trailed after me, most of them missing but one headed straight for my core--
There was a spark of purple in front of me and the bullet ricocheted off nothing and missed me by a hair's breadth. While still overclocked, I noticed a literal "between one frame and the next" moment that I would have otherwise missed, as a notification in a caustic yellow flashed on the bottom of my HUD. The text read "absoluteSolver string = FALSE" for a whopping hundredth of a second before it glitched to "absoluteSolver string = TRUE" for exactly as long before it disappeared. If I was still in a normal drone frame, I would have missed it entirely.
Okay, I thought as I hit the ground on my back. My Solver is now active. Cool… I'm gonna unpack that later, because I need to keep it together now… fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, I tacked onto the end of that.
J landed as I vented heat from my weapon and kept my optics on her, J looking decidedly nervous as she backed off as Darren advanced with his shotgun ready, both of us putting ourselves between Joe and her--
There was a really faint crack as I saw something sail by from where Rebecca was over Joe's body, and then J yelped as I glanced back to her and saw a virus jack embedded into her lower torso. I blinked. No way Rebecca just--
J screamed, doubling over and clutching her stomach as she keeled over. "What the stock crash!" she shrieked as she curled into the fetal position. A moment later a purple bolt went through J's head and put her out of her misery, and Rebecca kept her gun trained on J as she put another two bolts through her.
"Decapitate her and get a thermite charge on her already, Dare!" she shouted.
"On it!" her boyfriend called out, sprinting forwards to do that. I double checked that the ones on N and V were still burning well, and shook my head before I scrambled to pick up my stuff, sorting through the pile of shurikens to grab my own before turning to see Rebecca shouldering Joe's body, his Dysentery Dart gun clipped to her side. Darren jogged over and grabbed Joe's head, as well as Friendship's fallen form as he checked to set the safety back on before he pocketed it. I ran over myself and we started to book it as fast as we could. We got a block away before Rebecca skidded to a stop, turned on a dime, dumped a las bolt into the Dysentery Dart still in J, and then holstered the weapon as she started speaking.
"Dare," she said, setting Joe's body down and reaching into a pocket to pull out some rope. "You take his body and tie it to you, I'll take the head so we have hands free to use the grappling hooks."
"How did you know which pockets he had that in?" I asked her. "The Dysentery Darts too?"
"Overclocked and went back through memory files when he was showing off all the crap he had squirled away," she said as she got to work tying Joe to her boyfriend. "Looked back to the clip he showed where he nailed V for the pocket with the Dart gun itself." She tightened the knots, nodded, grabbed his head from Darren, and added. "Hot Topic, you wanna take point?"
I blinked, and then snapped myself back to my senses. "On it!"
We got going more than fast enough to evade notice after JNV regenerated their heads after that.
___
We were just getting ourselves under the hidden surface entrance 20 minutes later when I got an automated audio file sent from "Vault 3" to me,, as well as a location ping from where Joe went offline and from his body that Darren was still carrying. We started walking down the tunnel, the entrance sealed up above us, when I opened it, and my eyemotes widened when I heard Joe's voice.
"Hey-o, Uzi. If… well, if you're hearing this, something killed me. Odds are actually fairly decent I got decapitated or dismembered or otherwise horrifically maimed to the point where I Fatal-Error'd, though, and my black-box is still intact. If that's the case, you just gotta get that and put me back together. I've had another automated program ping the spot I was last in to you, and if enough of my body is intact, it'll give you a live location for that too." There was a brief pause in the recording, as if Joe was struggling to find what words to say.
"If it's not the case, and I'm actually dead, I've attached a file for where the door to Vault 3 is. Just melt it open or something. If I'm not dead, just delete that file from your system, please. I have a Faraday Cage in there with all my Isekai Memories stored in it inside of Vault 3 for you just in case this happened, though you should probably hand those to your Aunt, since she's Patched. But regardless of whether you do or don't, I wouldn't have wanted to leave my adoptive sister in the lurch in the event of my unfortunate demise. In that same Faraday Cage are some extra final messages I pre-recorded for folks, that I update about once every 7 months, and updated again right after we brought Yeva back. I'm sorry to drop this burden on you, and I hope that it's just me being offlined and you can grab my black-box, and that you don't have to hand those last messages off to folks. Hell, maybe you're already holding it as I'm speaking, and you can disregard all the worst case scenario stuff I just told you entirely."
There was another pause, a bit longer, and then Joe continued. "If I really am dead though… I'm sorry for leaving you, Uzi. I'm sorry for leaving everyone. But if I was given the choice to do it all again, without being able to change anything, I'd do it all over again, every single time. Because getting to know you all, getting to be here, getting to make things better, giving Dolly her mom back, getting to know Liz and help her be the best version of herself she could be, helping every one of you all be friends and heal? It was all worth it. I'd do it all again and die again every single time because you were all worth it. So, despite all the stress it's put on me, thank you from the bottom of my very soul for making these the happiest years of two lives. Get out there and rizz V and N for me. Leave a photo of your wedding on my grave. Bonus points if N is in a dress! Make sure Liz and Dolly get together for me. And go kill god! I know you can do it! You all deserve happiness, and I know you can all get it."
There was another brief pause, and then Joe started talking again, voice a bit heavier. "And hey… I got Isekai'd! The multiverse is real. You're theoretically immortal. Maybe one day, we'll see each other again. I platonically love you, Uzi. Take care of yourself in the future. Live for me, okay? Move forwards together with everyone, or not at all. And wherever I end up, know that I'll be rooting for you every single day! …Fuck, I'm shit with goodbyes… If I am really dead, punch the Solver in the face for me, will ya? And just remember; I love you Uzi. Platonically, because I know if I don't clarify that the 4th Wall will start shipping us more than they probably already are." I heard him sniffle once, and then the audio file ended.
I looked over at Joe's body while we stood in the last airlock, and I sniffled and teared up as I realized that Joe's paranoid ass really did think of everything. I started actually crying, because I had the best fucking unofficial brother ever, and resolved to give me the biggest fucking hug when he was back.
"You okay, Uzi?" Rebecca asked.
I sniffled again. "Got an automated message from Joe," I said, voice heavy. "Dumbass even planned for his own death if it happened to be permanent. I'll… I'll delete the location for Vault 3 again, because I already did after we built it, since he's not actually dead… but…"
"He's a jackass who really cares about us?" Darren asked me.
"Yeah," I said.
"That's Joe alright," Rebecca remarked. "Jackass with a heart of gold who refuses to see it himself."
I snickered despite myself.
Then Darren said, "Ah, shit, we're gonna have to tell everyone else about this."
"Fuck!" all three of us said in tandem.
Two seconds passed, and we all started giggling.
"He really has rubbed off on us, huh?" I remarked.
"Totes," Rebecca agreed, and Darren rolled his eyemotes as we headed into The Scrapyard proper to bring my jackass of an unofficial brother back from the dead.
___
As soon as we sent the message out on the TNPAPT, there was absolute pandemonium. And I'd made sure to specify that Joe literally only needed some fixing up after his decapitation… though in hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have said:
Darkxwolf16: Joe got decapitated but we can fix him up no problem, don't panic.
Babeatron-Queenthousand: WHAT?!?
Thad_the_Chad: Holy shit!
Кукла: IS HE OKAY?!?
Your sudden elevated concern was not subtle, cuz.
KayKay: You said you can fix him though, RIGHT?
KayKay: I don't want to lose anyone else.
TheLastCrusade: Kelsey, they said they can fix him, I'm sure Joe planned for this.
TheLastCrusade: I'm still gonna pray while I get over there.
Кукла: PLEASE tell me he's okay!
Horror_Movie_Survivor: I'm gonna sneak out to get to the Scrapyard as fast as I can.
Матрёшка_гамает: Emergency?
TotesBestGirl: Not an emergency, we can put him back together without issue.
DarrenToDream: Joe EXPLICITLY planned for this.
Матрёшка_гамает: I'll run instead of teleport, then.
Dress-to-Impress: I'm on the way.
TheLastCrusade: Same.
KayKay: Yep.
Babeatron-Queenthousand: So am I!
Кукла: Liz, wait in your room for a second.
Babeatron-Queenthousand: Huh?
While that was going on, Darren got to using a IGMP to print a spare head and neck for Joe, while I gently took Joe's headless body and got it into the maintenance station, Rebecca booting up the console and yielding it to me as I got to work removing the partially severed neck, since it'd be easier to just replace that. I told Rebecca as much, and she gave me a nod before running off to get Darren to print that too. Two seconds later, there was a flicker of red static as Lizzy and Doll appeared on the other side of the Scrapyard. Cuz stumbled, exhaling steam, but Lizzy caught her. I heard Lizzy yelp from here at what I assumed was the sheer heat coming off of Cuz, and I was about to run over before cuz grit her teeth and pulled out an oil vial from her inventory before injecting it right into her collar. She sighed and visibly untensed, shook her head, looked up, her eyemotes snapped to me, letting me know she checked everything in her field of vision via overclock, and then grabbed Lizzy's wrist and teleported again, reappearing with her right in front of me.
"What…" Doll panted, and pulled out another thermos from her Solver, "What happened?!?" She started downing the thermos but kept looking at me.
I finally noticed Lizzy was just standing there blushing. "D-d-did you just… use your Solver to teleport swap my clothes and nightgown?" She squeaked out.
Cuz started choking on her oil. "I-- I-- Liz, I was in a hurry--"
"Did you just teleport to her room, Solver change Lizzy's clothes, and then teleport the both of yourselves here?" I asked them. I kept my hands busy by manually removing the busted neck and making sure the rest of Joe was secure in the station.
"Kukolka." I turned and saw Aunt Yeva running in. "That was reckless, irresponsible, a violation of Lizzy's privacy, and your cousin said that Joe was going to be fine."
"Mama--"
"No Doll, you're going to apologize to Lizzy, and then we're going to talk about this after we put your c--friend back together." I blinked, and then sent a DM to Aunt Yeva.
Darkxwolf16: You know too?
Cuz slumped, and turned to Lizzy. "I'm sorry, Liz."
Матрёшка_гамает: I figured it out the same night I got brought back. I'm fairly certain that's the same night Doll realized it herself.
Darkxwolf16: LMAO!
Red eyemotes flicked to me and looked a tad bit annoyed.
Матрёшка_гамает: Uzi.
Darkxwolf16: Sorry.
Lizzy swallowed, freezing for a moment before her blush suddenly started to die down. "Just… don't… change my clothes again… without-my-permission," she muttered that last part really fast.
Aunt Yeva and I both gave Lizzy a deadpan.
"Liz?!?" Doll yelled, blushing herself.
"Nothing! You heard nothing!" Lizzy shouted. She snapped her gaze over to me. "Is Joe okay?"
Doll brought the distraction instantly, and I resisted my urge to facepalm via overclock. How the fuck was the Isekai Protagonist who used being a jackass as a coping mechanism for his own crippling lack of self-esteem the most mature person out of the three of them when it came to romance? "Cuz?" Doll begged.
I sighed, rolling my eyemotes, and started a group call with everyone in it.
"Joe got decapitated by a laser from V, he explicitly planned his black-box that every one of us that isn't a Solver Drone has for stuff exactly like this. As long as that's fine, Joe's fine. His body isn't even scratched, so his black-box is fine, ergo he's fine. We beat N and V," I swallowed at the memory of that caustic yellow text on my HUD, and resolved to wait until Joe was awake to reveal that particular tidbit, and continued, "and downed J before we recovered Joe's head and body-- the former's over there by the way," I said as I gestured to the dead head I was pointedly not looking at one a nearby table where we'd left it for now.
"The whole reason Joe came up with those for all of us was to make us as hard to kill as possible, for stuff exactly like this. His processors or even head aren't necessary to his continued survival, so decapitation can't actually kill him. Or any of us for that matter. Hell, he could even survive his head getting vaporized without issue. As long as the black-box is fine, and believe me, he invested in making that thing as close to indestructible as he possibly could, the rest of his body could get reduced to slag, and we'd just have to pop the black-box into a new body and he'd be good as new. We just gotta put a new head on him, and he'll be fine, and probably make some dumb quip about how his K/D ratio is fucked now."
"He would," Thad said over the call.
"He totes would," Rebecca agreed as she and Darren came in with a new head with neck attached. Rebecca took Joe's wig off the old one and slapped it on the new one.
"So he's gonna be fine?" cuz asked.
"Yes, he's gonna be fine," Darren said.
"Thank robo-god," Lizzy sighed.
"Did you two seriously think he wouldn't plan for his own death?" I asked.
"Like you didn't panic when he got decapitated, Hot Topic!" Lizzy shot back, but I was mostly sure that was fear instead of venom in her voice.
Joe's head rolling in the snow.
Those last words in the message.
"I trust you all, okay?"
His body dropping to the street, no oil spilling from the cauterized wound.
I flinched. "You're right," I admitted in a soft voice.
Lizzy blinked. "Uzi?"
"Cuz?" Doll asked me.
"I… It was scary," I admitted. "But… he said he trusted us to get him back home safe. And… I wasn't gonna let him down." I swallowed. "I… also might've flirted with N and V at the same time."
I got a round of unimpressed stares from cuz and Aunt Yeva.
"In Hot Topic's defense, it was a really good distraction that threw the both of them off," Rebecca said.
"That was definitely not her entire motivation in shooting her shot though," Darren added.
Cuz sighed, looking conflicted. "I'll allow it," she conceded. Because I'm totally into Joe and that move helped save him was something she did not say aloud, but I could tell she was thinking.
"I want to be upset with you, but it worked, and I hate that it did," Aunt Yeva said.
From the side, where they couldn't see, Lizzy flashed on her visor, [Respect, Hot Topic].
Darkxwolf16: I'd snark about asking when YOU were gonna confess to Doll, but I'm not in the mood for antics right now. Thanks, Lizzy.
Lizzy blinked, the slightest of embarrassed blushes creeping up her visor before she forced it back down.
Babeatron-Queenthousand: You're welcome, Uzi. And… thanks for not teasing me.
I activated the maintenance station. "Alright, let's put a new head on him already," I said, watching the arms unfurl and start properly installing the new neck and head. It was done in just a couple seconds, and I let out a sigh of relief as I saw a boot-up sequence start on Joe's visor in a familiar shade of light grey.
Now… Now I was just gonna have to break the news about my Solver to everyone once Joe woke up.
___
(Joseph)
Awareness came back in an instant, staring up at the ceiling giving me a sense of deja vu, except this ceiling belonged to The Scrapyard. I overclocked, pushing it to my limits as I took a few milliseconds to process HOLY FUCKING JESUS FUCKING FUCK SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK SHIT FUCKITY CHIRST FUCK I FUCKING DIED HOLY FUCK--
That went on for a while in relative time, but the next thing I did was run back through all my memories just to double-check that everything was intact, though I'd still cross-reference it with my thumb-drive in Vault 3 later--
I remembered more. A new memory of checking the date on my phone-- June 15th. Definitely days after that, and the whole of May 10th to June 15th were more clear. A couple more updates from V Potter by The Priors-- awesome fic, you should read that, 4th Wall, would recommend --some more fanfics in general, like a bunch of updates to Murder Drones: Integration by AxisRouge, including Parsons cloning John and Haze back as Dextro and Sinistra, the Elliot gene-donors doing their completely expected to everyone on my side of the 4th Wall betrayal on Josephine, Frumpterbucket getting saved, the rest of Arc 2 in general, and the first round of interviews… Damn, Absolute Warp Shennagins by RadiantVoid probably only had like two chapters left and I still couldn't remember them, and that fucking sucked… but that just meant my Isekai date was further ahead than I thought… and now I was really starting to wonder how much further ahead from my memories was it, and why I had corrupted memories in the first place. On the one hand, I might actually remember the end to AWS, but on the other I was also deeply concerned by the fact that between Nori, Yeva, and myself, I now have an established pattern of nearly dying somehow fixing faulty memories.
I took a few more minutes in overclock to compose myself, and also internally lament that my perfect K/D ratio was now forever out of reach, and then lowered just how hard I was pushing it as I sat up before speeding it up again and taking in the room. There was Uzi at the controls for a Drone Maintenance Station, and I surmised I was sitting in the one in Vault 1 by the background-- Note to Self: Remind everyone that they can do repairs in Vault 2, it's closer to the secret tunnel entrance. --I kept looking, and saw Rebecca, Darren, Liz and Dolly, and Yeva. Huh, I thought, the nicknames I've been internally using really should have made me realize I liked them too. How did Lizzy and Doll get here though?
"Did you teleport to Lizzy's house and then to The Scrapyard?" I asked Doll as I turned down the overclock and shifted my position, getting back up to my feet--
Dolly teleported again, appearing in front of me before I was suddenly being hugged by her, and I froze for a moment as she sniffled. "Don't… don't you dare get hurt like that again!"
"Dolly--"
She pulled back and slapped me in the face. "I was scared sick!" she said, optics ringed out.
My own eyemotes hollowed, and I just hugged her back. "I'm sorry," I told her, and I meant it. I should have been expecting the lasers sooner or later, even if they got used about twice in the whole of canon, so this fuck-up was on me. I was gonna code up something to pick up the charge-up on those lasers later tonight. I couldn't dodge a light-speed weapon after it fired, but I very much could dodge before it was shot at me. I just needed software in place to warn me of the energy signature or pick up that yellow glow and crank up my overclock while alerting me about it.
I felt two more drones slam into us, two more pairs of arms wrapping around me. I checked and saw Uzi and Liz hugging me too.
"Don't… don't scare me like that, Joe," Uzi said.
"Yeah," Lizzy said, just tightening her own hug.
"Hey," I said, trying to inject some levity into the situation, "At least I planned for this shit."
"That doesn't make it less scary," Liz said.
"I saw your head roll," Uzi told me.
"I'm sorry," I repeated.
"Try not to do it again," Dolly requested.
"Si, signorina," I told her.
"Yes, we're all hugging him!" Uzi suddenly said, and I blinked. "And cuz did slap him in the face too, Thad!"
"Are you in a call with everyone else?" I asked.
Uzi blinked next. "I forgot to add you to the call," she remarked in an even tone. Dolly snrked. Liz giggled. Uzi untangled herself from the hug. "Bite me!"
I started laughing, and she pouted. Then I got added to an in-progress call.
"Joe, are you okay?" Penny asked.
"How did you get decapitated?!?" Trevor added in.
"Thank the Lord you're okay," Emily said.
"Joe, please tell me this was an honest mistake and not you being a jackass," Thad said.
I did a mental sigh in overclock before replying with, "In order, I'm fine now, by a laser that was travelling at light speed, thanks, Emily, and in my defense, they used the lasers like twice in the show and it'd been months without seeing them, so they slipped my notice, and V already shot by the time I noticed it. Me not being on the look out for them is on me, and I'll be working on that later tonight, but actually being hit with it on this specific occasion wasn't down to me being a jackass."
"Oh thank frak," Thad said.
"At least you're learning," Yeva said, and I glanced over.
"Sorry," I said.
She used her Solver and pulled what looked to be my own severed head over to her. "So what are you going to do with this?" She asked me.
I untangled myself from hugs from… I wasn't actually sure what I could term Dolly and Liz as right now without getting slapped with allegations, so I just settled on "very close friends" for now. But I definitely had an idea. "Can I have it?" I asked.
Yeva raised an eyemote, but shrugged and passed it over to me with her Solver. I picked it up and held it by the truncated stump of neck at the bottom, at arm's length, the dead visor facing me. Huh, this really didn't look like me without the wig and the visor dead. That was kinda creepy. But still, "Essere o non essere? Questa è la domanda!"
There was a good five seconds of silence as the room stared at me.
Liz slapped my severed head out of my hand. "Did you literally just wax Shakespeare with your own severed head?!?"
"How many times does someone get the opportunity to do that?!?" I defended.
"You kinda gotta give him that," Penny remarked over the call. "Uzi, did you record it?"
Uzi sighed. "Yeah, I'm sharing it in the TNPAPT."
The thread pinged, and I checked the clip. "Damn, you got a good angle of that!"
"Joe!" Dolly protested.
"Come on!" I shot back.
"...It was funny in a morbid way," Yeva admitted, a small grin on her face. Darren started snickering, Rebecca grinned as she shook her head, and Uzi facepalmed but had a smile on her face.
Liz gave a disappointed sigh, and Dolly put her face in her hands and said, "You're right, damnit. You're right and I hate it." She was actively fighting a grin.
"Like, only you would be presented with your own severed head and then wax Shakespeare with it," Rebecca said.
"Well, at least we know the death didn't make you less sane. Just the same amount of crazy," Thad remarked, and I started laughing.
"I'm glad you're okay, Joe," Kelsey said, and I overclocked to speedrun the rest of my laughter before taking a breath.
"Sorry to scare you, Kelsey," I told her.
The secret door opened up, and I glanced over to see Emily and Trevor finally make it in. They both took a look at me, and I saw some tension visibly leave them, and that made me feel guilty. And I kinda deserved it too.
"Hey!" I called out. "Still alive!"
I felt a tap on my shoulder, and looked over to see Liz with her arms held out. "Another emotional support hug for scaring the crap out of me," she demanded.
I snorted in mirth, but complied. "Sorry again."
"Don't do it again, dingus," she whispered.
"I'll try my best," I told her.
We went through some more idle chatter as I went and recounted what I knew about the lasers from canon (which was admittedly very little), and clarified every weapon and gadget I could recall the MDs using in canon when Uzi asked about that. Penny, Kelsey, and Thad arrived next, and with the whole group present, we started a debrief on what happened, what went wrong, and what could be improved. Rebecca's use of my own Dysentery Darts to incapacitate J was a stroke of genius, and I told her that remembering to shoot it out so J wouldn't wake up in agony was great too. Then Uzi started recounting her own perspective of the fustercluck, and…
"I'm sorry I literally flirted while your corpse was in the background," she told me.
"Nah," I said. "That's fucking funny--"
"Of course," Thad sighed.
"--and it worked as a great distraction, too, and it's in character for you since you had that moment with N while…" I trailed off as the memory of Doll's body flashed through my mind again. "And hey, maybe they'll internalize that like you did my own initial comment and this'll slowly but surely nudge them to defecting." I got a couple concerned gazes, but no one commented on how I suddenly changed verbal tracks.
Uzi took in a breath and winced. "J shot at me with armor piercing rounds when she came in and my Solver went active to deflect a round from hitting my core," she said in a rush.
I froze. The room was quiet. "Fuck," I said. "I… fuck…"
"Cuz?" Doll asked, her own eyemotes hollowed.
Yeva stalked forwards and wrapped Uzi up in a hug. "I'm sorry, Uzi," she told her, and Uzi hugged her back. "I'm sorry Nori and I gave this curse to you and Doll."
I stood there, silent, eyemotes hollow, as Doll ran forwards and hugged Uzi too. Liz walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. Emily started praying, and Trevor joined her. Kelsey sat down. Darren raised his hand to his mouth, worry on his face.
Rebecca pursing her lips. "I should have been faster and shot J right off the bat."
Thad grimaced. "We need to step up our training, so we can back them up sooner."
"Yeah," Penny agreed, looking worried herself, but her gaze starting to shift to something determined.
I just felt so fucking guilty right now.
"I…" Uzi trailed off. "It was gonna happen sooner or later. I… I was gonna ask Joe to unlock mine when I hit 12 anyways. This is just… a bit more than a year early. And… that's an extra year to practice, right?"
"Uzi--"
The now-active Solver Drone cut me off. "I just said I was gonna get it anyways, and if I got it early by helping save your ass, then it was worth it!" she barked.
I started walking forwards without properly thinking, and Uzi wriggled out of her own hugs to meet me partway. We hugged. "I'm sorry," I said, regardless of whether or not she blamed me.
"Just don't die on me again, Joe."
"I'll try my best," I said, voice cracking. Fuck… I didn't deserve her. She really was the best sister ever, unofficially adoptive or otherwise… even if she was my only sister in two lives… which makes her best by default… which is the best way to win… but I was digressing in my typical manner to distract myself from my own thoughts. "I don't deserve you, Uzi."
"You do," she told me. "And I'm happy you're here with us. That you're still here with us."
I swallowed. I was sure I had digital tears threatening to spill from my eyemotes. "I'll do my damndest to make sure I don't leave anytime soon."
We just hugged there for a few more seconds, before Darren finally cut in. "So… I don't wanna interrupt the moment, but maybe you should add some kinda squad comms to automatically provide a live status feed on both frames and black boxes to everyone when we're outside?"
I blinked, and pulled back a little to look at Darren as he gave a sheepish grin and rubbed the back of his neck. "Great fucking idea, Darren," I told him.
Rebecca sidled up to him and hugged him. "You're full of those Dare."
"Thanks Becca."
"Get a room," Thad deadpanned.
Rebecca blushed but grinned. "Maybe we will," she said.
Thad gagged. "Gross!"
"B-Becca?" Darren said, blushing.
She looked over at him. "I trust you, Dare," she said.
"I--" Darren seemed at a loss for words.
"Please go to one of the spare rooms in Vault 2 and remember to lock the door when you do," I cut in. "And clean up any mess you make!"
Rebecca squeaked, but then instantly (so probably an overclock) steeled herself despite the blush on her face, and grabbed Darren's wrist and began to tug him towards Vault 2. "Wait, actually?!?" he shouted as Rebecca kept dragging him off. He glanced back at the rest of us, a blushing mess, completely gobsmacked. I tugged a hand free and gave him a salute. Uzi was just staring, jaw hanging. Trevor gave him a nod, from bro to bro. Thad looked torn between wanting to congratulate Darren for what was about to happen and being disgusted with the knowledge of what it was. Also, if there's a reality where my second life is on a Spacebattles thread, I'd like to politely say to the mods there that due to a slower planetary rotation and longer orbit, that the longer days and extra days outright mean that Copper 9 years in this timeline are 1.51 Earth years, which means that Darren and Rebecca not only not human, but are both over 16, and therefore her dragging him off to get to third base without describing what they actually do there doesn't violate any rules.
"I did not think Darren and Rebecca would be the first two out of us to get laid," Penny admitted.
"No, they definitely were," Kelsey disputed.
"Before marriage…" Emily muttered. "So immoral, but I'm also happy for them…" she looked so torn.
"Well, I wasn't expecting that tonight," Yeva remarked
I saw Liz look at me, and just deadpanned, "Your birthday making you legally an adult and not a day sooner, and I am not jumping straight to third base regardless." She sighed, but nodded.
Doll just started blushing worse and worse, and I realized that I was definitely gonna have to deal with that later too…
Right! Before I started having thoughts that wouldn't be appropriate for several more months, "If there's nothing else pertinent, I'm gonna start working on those squad status comms." When I didn't hear any objections to that, I took one last look to see Darren having stopped looking back and walking hand in hand with Rebecca towards the breakroom with the entrance to Vault 2, I added. "I might wait five more minutes to head to Vault 2 for that though… really glad I soundproofed the spare rooms in there."
Eh, at least this coding might be kinda interesting to any techheads watching my second life. The 4th Wall was gonna love that! Give Darren and Rebecca another five minutes to literally get a room to go to third base in, and then I'll head to the Quantum PC in Vault 2, and then I can show off all my pirated knowledge! Or the 4th Wall will transition to someone else in a few seconds and skip that, or it wasn't on me to begin with, and I'm just looking like a total fucking moron right now.
___
(Serial Designation V)
As soon as we'd gotten back to the Spire after that engagement with the Scrapper. J went off to her quarters, looking deeply disturbed by something. I was sitting on a pile of workers after grabbing a new pair of glasses, N on another pile nearby. We were both just staring into the middle distance. The Scrapper was finally dead, and hopefully, his plans to try and fight Cyn would die with him. All I'd have to do is deal with the final loose end of that other worker who was infected by Her while she was still herself, and things could go back to some semblance of normalcy.
"Sooooo…" N started.
I glanced up, optics hollow. "Please don't--"
"Darkxwolf16 just confessed to us both," N remarked.
"She's corrupted, N!" I lied to his face while keeping my own anguish off my optics. "That's not an actual confession." I didn't want to have this conversation. I barely knew how to process someone besides N actually liking me romantically, nevermind the fact that she liked N too, so she wasn't trying to steal him from me, but wanted us both?
"Maybe she's…" he trailed off on seeing my glare. "Okay, reaaaaally corrupted, got it." He blinked, and his optics hollowed. "Is this like, reverse bestiality?"
I had to fight to not… laugh, cry, puke? I wasn't really sure, but I forced whatever it was down while hoping my poker face didn't crack so much that N saw past it. "N, please change the topic," I got out.
N looked contemplative. He opened his mouth, stopped, shut it, sat for a few moments, opened it again, and aborted a second time. "Not… I'm not saying she is… but just as… a thought experiment… what if Darkxwolf16 was sapient?"
I looked at him. "What?"
"Do you… swing both ways?"
"N?!?" I said, reeling back, "You're--" into me, was left unsaid. And I want to love you back but I can't, was also bottled down as a part of my soul deep down in me died just a little bit more.
"I don't--" N cut himself off. "I--" he glanced away. "I'm giving you space, but yeah, I like you, V," he settled on. "I… I don't know… romance. I… the idea of someone else isn't immediately a turn-off though… and I was just curious?" he finished in a hesitant tone.
I paused myself. Was I okay with that as a hypothetical? I'd… I'd only ever liked N. No one else. Then this random goth worker had come up to me, and I couldn't even fully blame her for fighting me given what I was and the Scrapper being a friend of hers. She said I was hot that first time she met me. She called N handsome not even two hours prior. She said she was into both of us and got both of us gifts. A tablet for N to draw with, and he'd been over the moon about it, and… four hundred pairs of glasses in my prescription for me. She was… she was serious about this, that was for sure.
That girl liked me. Romantically. And didn't want to try and pull me apart from N. That would have been an immediate dealbreaker if that wasn't the case, but… I thought of N, and felt those butterflies in my core. I put in a mental image of him as a her… and I was still into her, because she'd be N. So… maybe I was only into some people? But gender didn't matter more than the individual in question? I'd… I'd never been into anyone else, not that I'd really gotten to know anyone else in the Manor besides Tessa, J, the DNA Donors, and Her. I… I was more shy around N at first, than attracted to him. It was only after I'd gotten to know him that I'd started to crush. I… I was friends with Tessa for sure, but we weren't as close friends as I was to N before I started to full-on love him.
But… Darkxwolf16… and I just now realized it had to be a username that she was using as an alias. This was a girl that was into me. She… she hurt me a lot… but that was down to what I was. I was trying to kill her. I was trying to kill her people. Everyone, because of Cyn. She… she apologized for hurting me, more than once. I've killed her family, if that comment about killing her cousin's parents was true. But she still saw something in me.
I…
I… I could…
I might…
I couldn't hurt myself. Whatever I felt… Cyn would take all of it away regardless. If… If I even tried to explore whatever I felt… I'd lose it all anyway. That girl liked me. The best thing I could do to her was give her the mercy of a death N and I couldn't have ourselves. Just like I did to the Scrapper. I could still make sure that girl was free from Her. I could let her die without having to face what was coming. That was the best I could give the girl who said I was worth something. The best I could offer the girl who got me four hundred pairs of glasses… even if that was another pair down now.
"I don't know," I whispered, just loud enough for N to hear, before adding, "I… I can't talk about this right now." I deployed my wings and flew away.
I couldn't bring myself to talk or even think about this right now. But…
I could still hurt someone else to save them.
I could still kill that girl to free her from my own fate.
I could still feel the pain inside as Cyn took another part of my soul away from me.
___
(Serial Designation N)
I wanted to fly after V… but I got the impression that following her right now might cause her to freak out more. I lowered my hand from where I'd shot up to reach out towards her, and just… slowly sat back down, a frown on my face, facial optics hollow.
Why did I even ask V that?
I slumped more, and put my face in my hands. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," I muttered. "Why did I think stressing her out over this would help me figure out how to react to what's basically an animal saying she's into me? And her?" I groaned and flopped back onto the pile of disassembled workers I was sitting on--
"Ow ow ow ow!" I nicked my ankle with my tail because I wasn't paying attention and spat all over my hand before I shifted back to a sitting position to rub the spit covered hand all over the sting. I waited until the damage was fixed to make sure my tail was out of the way before I flopped onto my back again. "Biscuits, I'm an idiot…"
But still, my mind wandered back.
"You're handsome and I'm crushing on you and V!" she shouted, right to my face.
Just… that non-sapient girl straight up said she was into us both. How the heck do I react to that?!? Yeah, she was kinda cute, but I was into V even if we both agreed to pause whatever was going on between us, and I still had no clue if I was okay with polyamory or not! It'd never came up before! And then… Darkxwolf16 was a worker. Corrupted. She wasn't sapient, however much she acted like she wa--
I paused.
"What if…" I wondered aloud, "Romance… and working up the nerve to confess after a bunch of gifts and stuff… maybe Darkxwolf16 specifically is different?" I paused. "The workers are corrupted… but maybe that worker specifically is so corrupted that some part of runaway code crossed a line and she passed into outright sapience?"
I sat back up, putting a hand to my chin, contemplative. "That'd… bear investigation for a root cause to see if it's gonna be a concern among the wider quota base, right?" I asked. Then I froze, and glanced around, embarrassed. "Maybe I should stop using buzzwords so much… especially when J isn't here. That just felt weird to say…"
But… the sniper girl was cute… and she only tased him because V killed her friend… "Maybe she's sapient but doesn't realize the Scrapper or the others aren't!" I was still definitely into V, though. While I still wasn't sure how to react to that confession, it would be nice if I could have an extra friend
I hummed aloud. "Maybe if I try to disassemble DarkxWolf16 just a little… just her arms and legs, and then I could test her to figure out if she's really sapient, and if she is, I'll apologize and get her new arms and legs and we can all be friends!" I smiled to myself. "Yeah! Now I just gotta kidnap and dismember a girl who has a crush on me and then interrogate her to find out if she's really the exception to the rule or not aaaaaand-- oooooooooooooh, biscuits, that sounds so messed up without context," I finished in a horrified tone.
I got up to go get my tablet. Drawing was a great way to distract myself from the moral implications of what I was doing!
___