The Digital Plague (A Murder Drones AU)

Chapter 17

"Uzi?" N walked through the snowy campgrounds, the wind buffeting his hair. V walked beside him, her arms crossed as if she were cold.

"I'm telling you, she went that way." V spat, pointing in the opposite direction. "You go that way to find her and I'll keep going this way."

N glared at her, which was new to him. "You just want me to go somewhere else so you can kill her and blame it on something else."

V held his gaze for a long couple of seconds and then dropped her gaze with a sigh. "Well, it was worth a try."

N shook his head. "Look, there's a building over there. Maybe she found shelter there." V sighed again, long and deep.

"Fine, let's go then." The two walked towards the decrepit old cabin. The door was hanging off of its hinges and the windows were broken. A thin layer of snow covered the floor inside, blown in by the wind, which was getting exponentially stronger.

N stepped inside, his night vision clicking on. "Woah."

It looked like the break room for camp counselors or something; uniforms hung on the walls and there were moldy couches lining the walls. N walked over to the desk, curious.

"Uh, N?" V called from the window. No turned to look at her. She had a worried expression, her eyes glued to something outside the window. "I think I found your drone." N scrambled over the window, where V stepped back to let him see.

There she was, her purple eyes glowing against the dark snowstorm outside. "She's going to get buried! We have to go get her!" He made to dash away but V grabbed him by the collar.
"Numbskul, look at her back." Concerned, N looked back out across the frozen lake. Oh, biscuits.

Fleshy wings extended from her back and she had a maniacal look on her face. Her eyes were gone, replaced by the glyph that had become all too familiar.

Uzi looked up, apparently startled by something. V swooped down behind Uzi and with one clean slice of her blade, separated one of Uzi's wings from her body. Panic shot through N.

He scrambled, tripping over his own feet in a desperate attempt to make it outside before V absolutely destroyed Uzi.

—

V slipped quietly away from N, who was glued to the window, terror spreading across his face. This will be better for us all. Especially Uzi. V thought, trying not to feel guilty.

This is Cyn's fault. If she kept her end of the bargain and left us alone I wouldn't be forced to do this. If Cyn didn't destroy everything she touches none of this would've happened. We'd be back at the Manor and none of us would ever have had to have to kill another drone. She took to the sky in a fit of rage.

Silently she sped through the air, exchanging her hands for blades and diving towards Uzi. The drone didn't even realize she was there until V had one of her wings chopped off.
V was expecting a scream, a holler, at least a grunt of pain. Instead, Uzi just whirled around and grabbed V's tail before she could fly to safety. "What the hell-" Uzi tugged at V's tail and pulled her to the ground.
As soon as she was grounded, Uzi pounced onto V, like a cat onto a bird. V screeched as Uzi sank her fangs (where the hell those came from, V had no clue) into V's shoulder and pulled back. With a sickening pop, V's arm came out of its socket with a gush of oil. Uzi gobbled it up like it was made of sugar. V grimaced as a new arm started forming in her shoulder socket, flinging her tail around to hopefully catch Uzi in the head with the barb at the end.
Uzi was too fast for her and caught V's tail with a grotesque tail V hadn't even seen- a monster-like appendage with an ungodly amount of eyes and a mouth of razor-sharp teeth. V felt each one as it bit down on her tail and ripped it off.

V thrusted her upper body forward, slamming her head into Uzi's. Dazed, Uzi stumbled back for just a few seconds, but it was all V needed. She shot out from under Uzi like a bullet from a gun. Uzi grinned, the glyph on her visor following V as she flung herself into the air.

V exchanged her hands for guns, trying to ignore the steady gush of oil flowing from her tail. She shot a couple of rounds at Uzi, hoping but not believing they would finish her off.

She caught them with a floating glyph, similar to what she had done at the prom. With a flick of her wrist, the bullets changed directions and flung themselves at V. They came so fast that V barely had enough time to maneuver, and three of them caught in her left wing.
The damage caused her to spiral, out of control of her flight. She plummeted to the ground, where Uzi was, of course, waiting to intercept her.
V landed with a soft oomph, but she was back on her feet in an instant. Uzi flew towards her, fleshy wings beating, V's tail syringe in hand. They collided in a whirl of tangled limbs, Uzi biting and V kicking and punching.

It didn't take long for Uzi to get the upper hand. V left her right side undefended for a tenth of a second, but Uzi didn't need longer than that. She slammed V's tail syringe through the gap in her defense, straight into the side of V's chest. V wheezed, curling into a ball as Uzi stepped off of her, a maniacal grin on her face.

It was pain unlike anything V had ever felt. Fiery agony crawled up her sides from the puncture, gripping her ribcage like a clawed hand. She let out a strangled gasp, suddenly feeling remorse for every drone she had killed this way.

"V!" V looked up to see N flapping desperately towards them. V thought she might have seen the glyph on Uzi's visor glitch, but it was gone as soon as it happened, if at all.

N collided with Uzi, knocking V's tail out of her hand. Uzi fell back, tremors shaking her whole body. The glyph was quickly replaced by her eyes and then back again, and after a few seconds that felt like years, finally settled on eyes. Uzi blinked once and then her lights went out and she fell backward.

N shot one glance at Uzi's fallen body, apparently deeming her okay before rushing over to V.

"V! Are you okay?" She blinked at him, forcing herself to sit up.

"Yeah, N, I'm fine. I just have an ever-growing, gaping hole in the side of my body that hurts like hell because you thought you could 'fix her'. Yeah, I'm doing alright, N." She fumed. N drew himself up while V leaned over and spat on the hole.

"V, it isn't okay to abandon Uzi just because something attacked us through her. She just... needs some help figuring stuff out now. She's not so different from us now," He said thoughtfully.

V stood up shakily, her wound healed but still painful. "That... that thing is nothing like us." V spat, distastefully. N narrowed his eyes.

"Fine. But we're still going to help her."

"N, if you had any idea what that was inside of her, you'd be as adamant at me that we kill her. If you had any idea what it did-" V's voice cracked against her will as she spoke.

"I don't, V, because you won't tell me!" N cried, throwing up his hands.

V took a step back, trying to repress the surprised look she knew had spread across her face. Eventually, she settled into one of coldness. She was about to respond when a familiar voice cut through the tense silence.

"N?"

[Ngl I didn't expect to come back to this? I didn't formally abandon it, but I kind of lost interest in the little thing I had going. 

Somehow I ended up at Wattpad reading my old work and got struck with a bit of inspiration. 've been having really bad creative block recently so I seized the moment and word vomited onto the keyboard. and this is the result. 

I might finish this project, actually! I loved the finale and now that I know what each plot thread in the series is leading to I can focus on what I need to! It's actually remarkably hard to write long fiction for an ongoing series. 

I'm so sad that it's over but at least I can do this now. 

Anyways, bless you all for being here, and farewell! See you next chapter, hopefully!]