Murder Drones Stories/Oneshots

Rainy Day Memories

Requested by DingyDingyWhole on Ao3
Woah! Angst and violence!! I am, once again, writing at one in the morning fueled on nothing but some chips, cookies, and an energy drink.
Takes place after episode three with no knowledge of what episode four could hold.
Depictions of violence and stuff!
Sorry it's so short, I got tired but wanted to publish it in one night
Proofread ✓

Uzi sighed, looking outside the window. She had taken N and V out so they could find something to eat, but they ended up having to take shelter in some old building because it started raining.

And if it had been normal rain, she would've just trudged through until she made it home; but no, it just had to be acid rain.

And something felt off about it.

It was like this sense of dread she couldn't pinpoint the reason of. She was just suddenly tossed into this tar-pit of a feeling, and it only grew the more she looked at the acid rain. It felt like the feeling would consume her.

The building they hid in seemed like some kind of office. N messed around with human trinkets behind the main desk and several smaller desks while V played with human corpses.

The patter of rain made Uzi feel sick, each small sound tearing at her mind. She felt lightheaded and wanted to go home- wherever that was anymore.

Her mind was being torn apart, as if something was clawing out of the depths of her mind to be freed. Uzi clutched the sides of her head, each falling raindrop seeming to slow down and crash louder. A tear fell from her visor with a soft plink, and Uzi remembered it all.

Back when she was still an Untrained Neural Network, she had lost her mother to disassembly drones. Now, she forgave and had forgotten the details. She had been so caught up in blaming everyone else for most of her life that she had forgotten the truth. Her mind had warped and bended reality over the years with every painful jab her classmates made.

It wasn't ever the disassembly drones that killed her mom.

Nori was dead because of Khan.

Uzi's own father had killed his wife: Uzi's mother. The memory flashed through Uzi's mind, painfully replaying over and over. Uzi was immobile on the floor nearby, watching the disassembly drones invade the colony before the doors were installed. One had grabbed Nori and stabbed through her thigh and upper arm with its nanite acid injecting tail.

The imagery of Khan raising the wrench and bashing it through Nori's visor made Uzi sick. Oil sprayed and dripped like the rain, purple lights flickering put of existence.

Khan always said it was a mercy kill, but was it really? He seemed scared. He was reckless.

Uzi's memory taught her another thing: when Khan left her for dead with N, it wasn't the first time he left her for dead. After caving Nori's head in with a wrench, he took it and ran. It was some random drone that found her and took her back to Khan. He played it off like he couldn't find her after the attack.

There was a light tap on Uzi's shoulder, snapping out of the trance and making her whirl around to be met with a hug.

"What's going on? Why are you crying?" N probed.

Uzi clutched N's coat in her hands, trying to hold back sobs as she pulled him closer. "I r-remember everyt-thing." She whispered, voice shaky.

N patted her head in comfort and she felt an additional hand pat her back. "What's wrong?" This time V was the one to ask, and Uzi was surprised by the genuine concern in her voice.

That was enough to break Uzi down into sobbing. Red lights flashed and a siren blared from the memory, her mind forcing her to relive the moment with no escape.

"Khan did it." Uzi choked out. Her breathing was ragged and she felt as vulnerable as she was as an untrained neural network. She just wanted to go home. She wanted it to stop.

But the rain kept falling, a never ending downpour of painful reminders. Her anger was unfocused, and she lived with the one person who most deserved it. She couldn't forgive now that she knew, and she could never forget.

The cracked screen and pleas for mercy her mom gave were burned into her memory, feeling just as fatal as the acidic rain outside actually was.

"He killed her."

Uzi knew the rain didn't sound like screaming and last goodbyes to N or V, but that's all she could hear. Rain traced down the window, blurring the world outside. Uzi was stuck in the maze of her mind, every dead end another swing of Khan's wrench.

"And he tried to give me the wrench he split her head open with."

Thunder rumbled and Uzi shivered. V hugged her from behind, which was more contact than the two had ever made. N squeezed her in a way as comforting as he could manage.

Thoughts were spinning through her head like a ferocious wind and she couldn't stop the crying. Her throat felt like it was being torn apart by the relentless sobs being ripped from her body.

She would kill that bastard. He was a coward, and he took away the only person that would've been there for her as she grew up.

She wanted to take that same fucking wrench and stab it through his chest over and over so he would feel the pain she felt. She wanted to make him drink the nanite acid he killed her mom over, making him even more corrupt inside than he already was.

"I'm sorry, Uzi." N comforted and she fell limp against his body. She was so tired. Her eyes hurt, and her throat hurt, and her head hurt, and the rain was making it worse: acid rain that burned through cold snow on the night Nori died.

Memories that sucked her into a vacuum of pain and tossed her around until she vomited up her insecurities. Memories that she couldn't escape now that they had been resurrected.

N hummed a sweet melody and V patted her awkwardly, trying to help too. The time slowly drowned put the harsh patter of rain and another memory resurfaced.

The onslaught faded to a gentle buzz and her eyes drifted shut as her sobs faded away. The new memory was peaceful and painless. This time, a good one; not brought about by the rain.

Uzi fell asleep in N's arms while V hugged her, reliving the memory of Nori singing while holding her. She hated the rain now, but she hated Khan even more.