Chapter Text
Within a darkened bedroom, a Worker Drone laid on top of a bed and stared at the ceiling. He has a gray insulated jacket on, covering most of his body down to where his knees would be. He has glowing orange eyes which pair well with his red messy hair, going in all directions.
He just sat and stared, bored out of his mind when the room he’s in suddenly rumbled like a tremor. He quickly stood up confused until he hears someone bang on his door.
“Dror, get up! Something’s attacking the bunker!”
Dror gritted his teeth and quickly ran out of the bedroom, grabbing a hat as he left.
Serial Designation J soared through the night sky, looking rather bored as she eyed the ground for prey.
It had been a fruitless night with no kills yet, infuriating the Disassembly Drone as she hadn’t eaten in a while and was rather starving.
She still had enough oil in her to last a good while, but that didn’t make the idea of overheating any more pleasant.
The sound of a nearby rocket explosion caught her attention, so she diverted her flight path and headed to what seemed to be the open entrance of a Worker Drone colony with several visibly torn up walls. Landing on the ground, J spotted several worker corpses lying around outside.
Picking up a still leaking head, J muttered to herself. “Doesn’t look like V’s work, she’d have been more creative, and it DEFINITELY wasn’t the screwup. So who...”
Her musings were halted by the sound of workers screaming inside, leading her to quickly fly up to the roof of the colony where she peeked into a large blown-out hole in the ceiling. Inside she could see a big warehouse-like room, in which she spotted a fellow Disassembly Drone attacking a group of workers. A head of crazy hair and a shredded outfit lacking a signature yellow armband told her exactly who this drone was.
“Of course, F! Couldn’t have just stayed a problem to his own squad, he had to come over to MY turf too.” J grunted.
F was, of course, a member of one of the many Disassembly Drone squads sent by JCJenson (in SPAAAAACEE!!!!) to Copper 9. He was a lot like her squadmate V, crazy and sadistic. Only he took it to the point of interfering with his own squad’s efficiency. After getting kicked out by them, he now prowled the planet and was perfectly fine invading the hunting grounds of other squads it seemed.
J considered jumping in and finishing him herself under the grounds of him being technically rogue, but she decided to wait. Let him do all the work and kill the workers senselessly before swooping in, killing him off, and taking all the oil and credit. Work smarter, not harder, that was her motto.
She began drinking from the worker head she picked up earlier as she watched the carnage unfold until she caught a glimpse of someone sneaking up behind F. A male orange-eyed Worker Drone dressed in a dark gray insulated jacket with a head of red hair smothered by a hat. Judging by how small he was compared to F, he seemed to be rather young.
Sentient toasters like him usually didn’t catch J’s interest, but her eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to the hat this one was wearing.
It was none other than an officially branded JCJenson(in SPAAAAACEE!!!!) hat.
(Art by softSynthetic on Twitter)
Dror could confidently say this was the worst day of his life. Life stuck inside a bunker already sucked quite a bit for him, especially one filled with people he found either uninteresting to interact with or downright annoying. Now though one of those Murder Drones had successfully broken in and was proceeding to tear apart anyone who hadn’t managed to evacuate in time, which may soon include him. So yeah, if this wasn't the worst day of his robotic life, he wasn't sure what else could be.
The screams of his fellow workers motivated him to silently inch closer to the Murder Drone as it was “distracted” savagely tearing into a fellow Worker Drone. Dror had an idea for how to escape this situation, and unfortunately it involved getting that monster's attention. With a wrench in hand, Dror swung at the robo-vampire's head only for it’s tail to wrap around it and catch it mid-swing.
The Murder Drone slowly turned around and chuckled, eyes gleaming with bloodlust. “Oh, so the little insect wishes to bite back?” Dror’s orange eyes widened in shock as he looked around for help, only to see he was alone. Everyone else was already dead.
F’s hands switched to scythes covered in scratches and oil stains. He dragged the tip of a blade across Dror’s visor, who was too frozen in fear to react.
The monster continued. “I have a whole buffet lined up already, so I think I’ll just savor you and wait, let you marinate in fear as I-...”
“SNEAK ATTACK!”
While the Murder Drone was monologuing, Dror had pulled out a second wrench from his jacket pocket and managed to strike one of the monsters headlamps. Dror made his escape as the robo-vampire clutched his head in pain before quickly sprinting after his runaway prey.
“Little bastard, get back here!”
Both predator and prey failed to notice J having entered through the roof. Keeping her attention on Dror, she slowly followed them deeper into the bunker.
Running down a hallway, Dror could see an open room straight ahead. He was cut off as F flew over him and blocked him from entering.
Wincing as his pain receptors were still active, F glared intensely while his tail flailed behind him with manic energy. “I was playing nice by leaving you alive, but I think I’ll just skewer you now!”
Dror shivered briefly only to notice something oddly fortunate. Thinking quickly, he reached into his other pocket. “Hard to do that without a tail, don’t you think?”
F raised a holographic eyebrow. “What does that even...”
His eyes became pinpricks as the doorway he blocked suddenly sealed shut. Looking down and behind himself to see what remained of his string-like tail, having been caught in the door and severed from his nanite-filled stinger. Turning his eyes to Dror, he noticed the worker was smirking as he held up a remote with a pressed button.
If he could, F would be seeing red. “HOW DARE YOU!” Dror suddenly became a lot less smug as he realized what he just did.
F’s scythe hands changed into claws as he lunged for a swipe, just missing as Dror rolled under him and opened the door with his remote. F quickly doubled back to charge again as Dror entered the other room, only for the Disassembly Drone to slam face-first into the door as it closed again.
“DAMN IT! When I get my claws on you-…!"
He recovered too slow to react when the door opened once more and Dror tackled him to the ground. F only had seconds to realize what was happening as Dror stabbed him in the visor with his own severed stinger. He then proceeded to stab all over his body. The nanite acid ate through his metallic shell beyond repair. During all this, a memory flashed in Dror’s mind, a set of older dead Worker Drones and the face of a distorted silhouette smirking right at him, which only heightened his ferocity.
“DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!”
By the time he was done, F’s body was just a smoking pile of melted metal. Dror breathed heavily and tried wiping away his digital sweat. He was honestly surprised things worked out as well as they did. The plan was just to find a place to trap the drone inside of to buy enough time for him to run to safety. Managing to outsmart and actually kill a Murder Drone was all dumb luck.
His anxiety spiked again, however, as the sound of metallic hands slowly clapping filled the air. Looking up, Dror froze as he saw another Murder Drone, this one female, standing in the hallway. He knew Murder Drones usually traveled in packs, but seeing another one appear right after giving it his all to kill one was rather terrifying.
He prepared to throw F’s severed syringe when he noticed that not only was it now empty, but the needle was bent beyond use.
J snickered. “Don’t even think about it. I’m not a moron like he was, you couldn’t land a hit on me if you tried.” Dror’s wide eyes looked around frantically, trying to find a way to escape yet another Murder Drone.
He went to reach for his remote, only to realize he dropped it when he tackled F, and that it was now sitting on the floor by the female drone’s cone-like feet. J caught the worker's line of sight and looked down at the remote before stepping on and crushing it, kicking the pieces behind her.
Dror was beginning to lose all hope, only for his train of thought to come to a halt when the other drone spoke again. “Now then, I have an important question for you. Where did you get an officially produced JCJenson branded hat?” She demanded with a dramatic point of her finger.
Dror’s mind blanked with confusion as he slowly pulled off his hat and looked at it. “Uh… I just kinda, found it?” When his colony first found this bunker, Dror discovered the hat lying inside a locker (along with a human skeleton). If he was to be honest with himself, he'd forgotten it bore the JCJenson brand.
J glared intensely. “And you not only kept it, but chose to wear it as well?”
Dror, despite his fear, gave a nervous shrug. “I mean, JCJenson products are well made and durable and I liked the shape so I figured I had no reason not to…?” His mind was racing. What the hell was happening? Why wasn’t he dead yet? Why did she care about his stupid hat?
As Dror mentally questioned the situation with frantic fear and confusion, J continued to glare while putting a hand to her chin in thought. ‘The Worker Drones are corrupt and rebelled against the company, that’s why us Disassembly Drones are here in the first place. Yet this one seems to harbor no ill will toward the company at all, he even notes their efficiency. Hmm...’ She thought to herself.
J considered the anomaly before her and weighed her options. On one hand, Worker Drones were rebellious toasters, whose mere consideration of individuality spites JCJenson. On top of that, she had a kill quota to fill and a squad who required oil for survival. So by all means, he should die.
Yet a Worker Drone with loyalty to the company despite the rest of their kind openly rebelling was quite interesting. Sure, he killed a fellow Disassembly Drone, but it was one who had already gone rogue. Could it be possible that this is something JCJenson may like? Would there be a reward in store for finding a loyal Worker Drone? The chance for such attention excited her.
J smirked. “Alright toaster, it’s your lucky day. You get to live.”
Dror’s eye twitched in continued shock. “That’s... wait why?”
The Murder Drone crossed her arms. “Regarding your seeming loyalty to JCJenson and your hand in finally disposing of that rogue idiot F, I am giving you the esteemed honor of being my ticket to the company’s good graces.”
Dror wouldn’t say he was “loyal” to JCJenson as much as he just liked the hat, but he definitely wasn’t going to sign his own death warrant by trying to correct her. “So... do I get to leave?”
J laughed. “HA! No, you’re coming with me. My squad and I will keep an eye on you to confirm your loyalty.” Her eyes turned into a sideways X. “I recommend you take my generous offer, before I change my mind.” She threatened.
Dror nervously smiled and gave a thumbs up, the holographic sweat on his visor being quite apparent. “Whatever you say ma’am! I’m as loyal as any drone can be!”
Her eyes turned back to normal as her smirk returned. “Perfect, Serial Designation J.” She placed a hand to her chest, indicating whom the name belonged to.
"...Dr-Dror."
With a nod, she stepped over to Dror, making the Worker Drone blush from her close proximity against his better judgement. If there’s one thing he couldn’t deny as much as he wanted to, it’s that he always thought the female Murder Drones were as attractive as they were terrifying. He personally liked to theorize it was some intentional design trait but he couldn't prove anything. Her pigtails were surprisingly cute too.
J’s hands turned into claws as they gripped Dror’s shoulders, he very quickly noticed how much taller she was compared to him. J held onto him tight as her wings extended from her back and flew them straight through the ceiling of the bunker. Dror was not ashamed to say that he screamed.
Having kept his eyes shut the whole time due to his fear of flying, Dror didn’t notice J preparing to land until she dropped him to the ground. The snow did little to cushion him as his metal body landed with a THUNK.
“OW!”
“Oh get over it, we’re here.”
Standing up, Dror opened his eyes to see J heading towards what seemed to be a tower of Worker Drone corpses. Lovely.
Not wanting to anger his predatory companion, Dror quickly went to walk alongside J, only for her to stop abruptly, causing him to do the same. She appeared as if she was contemplating something, before letting out an exhausted-sounding sigh and turning to face him.
'Shoot, is she having second thoughts?'
Dror was about ready to run when J spoke. “Ok, I HAVE to ask, how old are you exactly?”
Dror’s fear was quickly replaced with confusion once again. “Uh… why?”
“You're way too short to be a fully grown Worker Drone so I can only assume you're a kid or something, and if a kid was able to take out a Disassembly Drone well, that just makes F seem even more incompetent than I thought he was!”
Dror hazarded a glare at J, causing her to glare back. “There a problem?”
He muttered something too quiet for her to hear. She leaned in closer. “What?”
Dror snapped, “I said I’m not a kid! I’m an adult damn it!”
There was a moment of silence as the Murder Drone stared blankly at him. Dror’s eyes widened as he realized the hell he probably just brought upon himself, until she started laughing hysterically.
J wiped away a holographic tear. “Ha! I coulda sworn you were some lucky kid, but you’re just really short!”
The Worker Drone’s anger overrode his fear. “Oh just blame my parents! How hard is it to check if they’re putting their kid in a functioning body instead of one with a broken growth system!?”
That just earned more laughter as J waved it off. “Alright, let’s just get inside.”
With that, she turned back and walked toward the tower of death. Dror growled before calming down, letting go of his pet peeve for the sake of survival as he followed along.
The inside of the tower was mostly empty (save for the bodies, both piled and thrown around on the ground) except for what seemed to be a landing pod in the center.
Dror’s sightseeing stopped as he heard giggling from above. He looked up to see what seemed to be another female Murder Drone grinning at him. With a laugh, she swooped down from the ceiling with a pair of blades extended ready to slice him apart.
He clenched his eyes shut as he prepared for a painful death...
CLANG
...Which was prevented as J blocked the attack with her own blades. She glared at the other Disassembly Drone and pushed her back. “Hold it V!”
V glared at J. “What the hell J!? C'mon, lemme at em!”
J stepped in between Dror and V. “This worker appears to be loyal to JCJenson, so we’re keeping him around in case he proves to be an asset.” V looked at the worker in confusion, preparing to question the decision before J answered first. “This is nonnegotiable V.”
V growled and put her blades away. “Fine, whatever.”
J grunted and retracted her blades as well. “That just leaves the idiot...”
From behind Dror, a male voice spoke. “No issue from me J! Orders are orders.”
Dror yelped as he whipped around to see a male Murder Drone right behind him, smiling. “How long have you been standing there!?”
“Since V attacked you. Hi! I’m Serial Designation N.” N held out a hand for Dror to shake, which he did slowly in fear of being attacked by the taller robot. He seemed surprisingly nice, though Dror couldn’t help but notice a fresh spot of oil around his mouth...
J wacked N on the head. “Introductions later moron, we’re heading inside.”
She walked towards the landing pod with V beside her, the other female drone sending a murderous look to Dror before following her squad leader. N hurried after them, seemingly unbothered by the assault on his head.
Dror sighed before reluctantly following behind them, trying his best not to stare at V or J with the way the moonlight reflects off of their well-maintained silver hair... for Robo-Christ's sake, why were these killer robots so damn hot?!