Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The night was quiet, as quiet can be Empire City be after ground zero,Kessler,The First Son,The Reapers and pretty much everything that happend in the past month alone.
Cole was on one of many zeke's rooftops after another nightpatrol around the city, he dropped his sling back near the couch and dropped on it completly tired.

He wanted to rest, just for a little bit. Ever since he saw himself Kessler die, he was tired beyond belief staying many nights awake to make sure everyone was safe. But only making the 2 people that cared about the Conduit, worried to no end. Heavy eyebags were circling his eyes for the last couple of days, barely eating or hydrating himself.

To put it kindly, he was a mess.

The silence of the night definitely helped with setting the mood for a short relaxing break, unfortunately Cole's phone began to ring. Slowly and grouchily moving his arm to answer the damn thing, before letting his arm fall besides the couch. 

"Cole?........you there buddy?"

It was from Zeke. His "best friend", ever since he wanted to activate the Ray Sphere to give himself powers, kidnapped Trish and joining Kessler with the First Sons, definitely gave them a rocky relationship.

"What do you want Zeke?" Cole voice was as always gravelly and monotone.

"Just wanted to check on ya"

"Uh uh, sure" Cole knew Zeke like the back of his hand, and Cole knew he wanted to apologise for his actions, And Cole always refused them.

"Cole look, im sorry abo-"

"Your sorry, Kessler's sorry, everyones sorry! Trish almost died because of you zeke" Cole spoke with venom in his voice, taking a deep breath before continuing.

"I know you are sorry, Zeke. But every time i see or hear you, all i imagine is Kessler's face, laughing at me. And it makes me strangle the life out of you."

"I know."

"You and Trish are the only people I've got left, but by god, i hate your guts"

"I get it, i really do, but Cole buddy, Trish is worried sick about you just yesterday i heard hear cry to sleep again because of you." 'Ohhhh Trish, God bless her soul' Cole thought. Ever since the pandemic started, she overworked herself to sleep because of it.

"Just go and try to spend some time with her, she really needs it" Zekes tone was usually calm, which hurt even more. Slowly shifting into a sitting position on the couch, pinching the bridge between his eyes continued.

"Fine, ill go check up on her" Slowly getting up from the couch, and putting his sling bag back on. "Thats the spirit!" Zeke chuckled, "Yknow after this whole thing blows away, you wanna watch old western movies while drinking bear?"

"Maybe........but that dosent mean i forget you you, understood?"

"Hey it was worth the try"

"It was definitely a attempt" Cole reasure, knowing it will take some time to fully forgive Zeke. "Do you ever wonder what gender would the sun and moon be?" Asked Zeke out of the blue to change subject

"No actually, i never wondered before" Cole responded while looking at the brightly night sky. The moon looked absolutely beautfil, it reminded him of Trish.

.

.

.

.

.

He actually missed her alot after not seeing her for days on end.

"Personally, i see the moon as a woman mainly because-" Zeke was talking giving a multidude of reasons why he thinks Its a woman. But Cole didnt pay attention, while was he looking at the moon he noticed out of the corner of his eye a star at the far right being brighter then the others, he wondered wh-

"Cole, you still there?" Asked Zeke pulling Cole's head out of the clouds. "Y-yeah, just something distracted me. What were you talking about again?"

"I told you the many reasons why The Moon would be a chick, God you really need to retire for the night" Cole sighed, rubbing the bridge between his nose while slowly walking to the edge of the rooftop, ready to call it for tonight and go to his apartment.

However...

"Hey Cole, sorry to bother but...." Zeke went silent for no reason. "Zeke whats wrong?" Cole tensed out for bit, incredibly concerned for Zeke.

"Cole! T-The thing in the sky, getting bigger!"

"WHAT?!?!" Cole eyes widen in shock, snapping his head towards the sky and oh god.

It was getting closer.

"HOLY SHI-" Before Cole managed to finish his sentace, the thing crashed into The Historic District releasing a huge that almost knocked Cole off of his feet.

"Zeke you felt that?" Asked Cole concerned

"YUP I DEFINETELY DID FELT THAT" Yelled Zeke on the phone, "GO AND SEE WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!"

"Already ahead of ya." Cole was already running to the District while Zeke was talking. He cant let anyone down, he made a promise to himself for the thousands that day he will protect the others and be the city's saint.

———————————————————————————

Cole was sprinting after that he could ever do ' just what the hell was that thing' thought Cole, his mind was running just for the many possibilities for what it could be,

• A actual alien spaceship crashed

'Maybe'

• A sattelite crashed

'a little more possible'

• A Space pod 

'could be'

• A Meteor contained a symbiote that bonds with the user

'...'

'Unrealistic but i want to belive'

After being in close proximity to ground zero, he decided that maybe going head first could be a bad plan, he went to the closest bulding and see from afar. Staying on the rooftop,he was hunched, squatting like a gargoyle.

Eyes squinted to prepare for anything,Electricity flowing through his hands for safety. Looking over the crash site, he saw a futuristic space pod, smoke still rising from it 'just what the hell is that?' Before he started to ask even more questions to himself, the door to the pod opened and Cole tensed.

"What the hell?..." Cole quietly whispered, the thing that exited was, a small robot? Drone? Cole really didnt known, she had purple hair with a dark beanie, dark hoodie and boot's and purple socks and carried a large....railgun?

"N, this is the last time im letting you pilot anything." 

"Sorry Uzi, they never actually learned me to drive those things" Cole eyes moved to the second robot that also exited from the pod. He was a bit taller then the other, he wore a fully black trench coat with a pilot hat and had pure silver hair.

"Uggghhhh, fine lets just search for those humans so we can kill them." The smaller robot replied, taking the railgun(?) and checking it. "I still think this isnt a good idea." The taller one responded clearly anxious about this.

"N, look into my visor and remember what we came from. To take out revenge on humans for what they did to us," The gothic drone sayed firmly to the taller one.

'That dosent sound to good' Cole thought.

"Our first step is to look for humans, tell me if you find some." The drone started walking with the railgun in hand, while the taller one started to look around the place, eyes darting all over the place until he found the building where Cole was sitting on the edge like a gargoyle.

"UZI I FOUND ONE!" Cheerfully yelled to his smaller friend. The drone named Uzi spinned around and quickly aimed the gun over the bulding Cole is.

'You gotta be fucking kidding me' 

Chapter Text

Quickly pressing the trigger, the railgun began to charge up while Uzi cackled  maniacally. She waited this moment all her life, to kill and act a revenge on the humans. Her sick as hell railgun finally charged ready to fire. With a smile on her face he yelled one single thing.

"BITE ME!"

Then the gun fired.

A vibrant flash of white and green light blinded everything and anything around it. Leaving nothing but absolute destruction leaving the building in ruins. Quickly spinning her gun and putting it in her back (in a cool angsty teen way), she turned to N facing him.

"See N? Its not that hard, you just point and-" Uzi made a *POP* sound with her mouth. "They are completely gone, simple is that." The worker drone sayed with smugness in voice. Quickly hearing behind them some grunts, both of them turned around and noticed that Cole was still alive, and getting up from the street.

“HOW IN ROBO-GOD DID YOU SURVIVE THAT!?!?” Yelled Uzi, clearly flabbergasted at the concept of someone surviving her sick-as-hell railgun.

“I jumped off the roof, now talk!” Spoke Cole now raising his hand directly at them, it started to spark with electricity.

“N?”

“Yeah Uzi?”

“Humans aren't supposed to shoot electricity out of their hands, right?” 

“Why are you asking that?”

“You were around humans before right???”

“Yeah but they didn't shoot electricity out of their hands-”

“Can we hurry up already, I'm supposed to be somewhere” The duo quickly looked over to Cole, still having his arm up in the ear with electricity around it , but having a bored expression on his face.

“SHUT UP YOU TALKING MEAT-SACK, N THIS IS OUR CHANCE JUST SHOOT AND DON'T TRY TO THINK ABOUT IT HOW HIS BODY WORKS TOO MUCH.”

“YES MAM!”

Quickly switching his hand to a mp3, he started spraying Cole with bullets.

Unfortunately.

Cole activated the polarity wall, which absorbed almost if not all of the Bullets that were shot at him.

Shortly N stopped firing, lowering his gun he had an expression that was confusion mixed with frustration.

“HOW!?!?” N shouted. “HOW CAN YOU DO THAT, THAT'S PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE?!?!”

“It's electromagnetism, I don't need to explain shit.” He quickly deactivated the wall then threw a shock grenade at him which was promptly stuck to N's face.

“Hey that didn't actually hurt at a-” Before N could finish his sentence, the grenade went off which destroyed the dissesambrely drone's face and higher torso.

Quickly after a deep breath, Cole relaxed a bit knowing that he could finally rest for the night.

…

‘Wait where's the smaller one?’

*click*

Turning back on his heels, he saw the purple smaller robot. She had dark purple hair with a bat beanie, purple eyes displaying on her screen, had a choker, wore a jacket with a battery symbol on it and combat boots.

And she was directly pointing the railgun at him, finger on the trigger.

“Any last words before I blow you to dust?”

Cole did not say anything, he just sighed and moved his arms in the electro-absorption-pose. Electricity quickly exploded around the railgun, blinding Uzi in the process.

Absorbing every last ounce of electricity from it, the railgun completely lost energy and made it useless.

Uzi stared at it as if she puked out a bunch of hats. Her mouth left agape, eyes going hollow, she felt an emotion she had not felt ever since she first met N.

Fear.

Pure primordial fear.

Slowly moving her head to get a look at him, Uzi asked one single thing.

“How……..?........” asked him in a scared and shaky tone.

Cole hesitates, having his arm raised at her electricity sparkling around it. Wrestling with himself trying to think of an option here.

“Put an end to her, she tried to attack me.”

“But she can't fight, she's defenseless.”

“She will come back later and try to kill you again!

“Maybe i could restrain her with the Arc Restraint or maybe-”

Before Cole could finish his thought something explosive directly hit behind his back, which sent the conduit face first into the ground.

Closing her eyes and shielding herself from the explosion, Uzi slowly opened her optics to see N not too far away from her, his head fully regenerated. Hand transformed into a rocket launcher.

"UZI!!!, OH MY BISCUITS ARE YOU OKAY?!?!” N sprinted over to his worker friend and hugged her, Uzi came back to her senses and realized where she was.

N broke away from the hug and looked at her. “We need to get out of here quickly before more people come.”

A lighting bolt almost graced them.

They looked back.

Cole was back on his feet, he didn't look mad, he looked PISSED.

“....Uzi I think we should run away before he fries our circuits.”

“NOT WITHOUT A FIGHT THAT IS!!!” Uzi grabbed her depowered railgun and held it like a makeshift baseball bat.

“God she is that stubborn, reminds me of someone i know.” Cole jokingly  thought to himself.

“.....”

“N, c'mon it's a 2V1 we can totally beat this guy if we want to”

“Yeah…..No.”

“OH C'MON!.” 

“Sorry for the disturbance sir!” N replied before grabbing Uzi and flew up high in the air….

….While Uzi yelled insults at Cole.

“BITE ME YOU ELECTRICAL SON OF A GLITCH!”

“YOU ARE A SACK OF BUZZNUTS!”

“YOU’RE A POPPY HEAD!”

“YOU LOOK LIKE YOU PUT A RULER UNDER YOUR BED TO SEE HOW LONG YOU'VE SLEPT!”

“I HAD SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH YOUR MOTHER!”

“ONCE I FIX MY SICK-AS-HELL RAILGUN YOU ARE FIRST TO BE TESTED BY IT!”

“I WILL HAVE MY REVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…………”

This went on for 5 minutes, after that the worker drone duo got so far away that Cole couldn't hear Uzi’s deranged yelling.

“I hate teenager’s” Cole deadpanned as he simply wanted to Trish's apartment and go snuggle her up in her sleep.

Unfortunately his phone began to ring again and it was from Zeke again.

“Hey brother,”

"Hey Zeke.” Cole tiredly replied back to Zeke.

“Jeez you sound like you finished a 24 hour shift.” Zeke laughed himself for a sec

“Zeke, I'm genuinely not in the mood for this.”

“Right…....Anyways found out what crashed?”

“It wasn't a meteor full of alien symbiotes, that’s for sure.” Cole said as he slowly approached the space pod to get a closer look at it.

It looked like a space pod mixed with a mechanical Spider, that's the best way Cole could describe it. Regular pod, but with 4 huge mechanical arms. Cole got a bit freaked out by it.

“Uhh Zeke? This thing gives me the creeps,”

“Wow, the Demon of the Empire City Is scared of a spaceship? Never thought I'll see that day.”

“Oh ha ha, you are hilarious Zeke” Sarcastically replied Cole while taking pictures of the pod.

“ I cannot wait to see Zeke's reaction. ” Cole thought.

“Jeez, you weren't kidding. That does look like a mechanic spider pod. So what are we gonna do with it now?”

“I don't know Zeke, maybe tomorrow? I'm way too tired so I'm going to Trish's apartment so I can rest.” 

“Going to your girls apartament so you could rest? Classic.”

“Zeke, she almost died.” Cole deadpanned, reminding Zeke of the event.

“Right, sorry…Welp see you tomorrow Cole.

“Night Zeke.” After turning off the call, Cole looked one final time at the weird space pod and then started running to Neon District.

Chapter Text

“HOW DID HE DO IT, JUST HOW?!?!”

Uzi was currently massively ranting to N about that certain electric conduit they had met a few minutes ago. While N is carrying her through the ear bridal style.

"AND HE HAD THE FREAKING AUDACITY TO GET RID OF THE POWER-CELL OF MY SICK-AS-HELL-RAILGUN!!! YOU KNOW HOW LONG THIS TOOK ME TO BUILT IT N?!? WEEKS N, WEEKS!!!”

“…..Are you done?” N deadpanned, understanding that her best friend had every right to be mad.

“Yes, I am,” Uzi huffed.

“Look Uzi, i'm your best and only friend-”

“Ugh don't remind me.” Uzi interrupted.

“Right…I just think maybe, you are exaggerating just a bit?” N replied in a slightly worried tone.

“N, look at me. We now have a new priority right now,”

“And what is it?” N asked cheerfully with a bit of intrigue 

“Well it's actually multiple priorities now that I think about it.”

“ONE: Fix my railgun,”

“TWO: We need a to find a specific weakness for that talking meatsack,”

“AND THREE: We kill the bastard and continue our original mission.”

“Then what?” Asked N curiously.

“....Haven't thought about it too far. I don't know, we will wing it through.”

“Great! Now where do we start?”

“By setting up a base of course, we just need to get all of our stu-…..” Uzi went completely silent, eyes going hollow.

“Uzi? You there?”

“....N, i think i forgot all of our stuff in the pod.”

“Oh biscuits!!!” N suddenly stopped his flight, and just hovering in the air.  “Welp looks like we are gonna have to turn around Uzi,” 

“But what if the meatsack ,” Uzi said the last word with venom in it. “Is it still there?” questioned Uzi.

“Oh come on, I'm sure he won't even be there let alone fit in the pod,”

“Considering the fact that he can shoot lightning from his hands, allow me to doubt it N.” Uzi responded clearly hating encountering the electric man. And wanting to kill him as soon as possible.

“C'mon let's skedaddle out of here and hurry up to the pod while it's still night. What's the worst that could happend?” Replied N trying to cheer Uzi up. 

“Never say that again.” Deadpanned Uzi.

“Sorry.”

“How the hell am I going to explain this to Trish and Zeke?”  Was the only thought running through Cole's mind right now. Running back to Trish's apartment, he just constantly thought of what the hell were those things.

Jumping across rooftop to rooftop, Cole prayed to hell and back that this was a horrible dream and he just fell asleep on Zeke's couch.

After reaching the Neon District he slowed his run to a light jog, Trish’s apartment wasn't far only needing to scale the building onto her apartment window. Quickly scaling the apartment complex with his parkour skills, he reached her apartment window.

“Trish, I'm home!” entering the small apartment Cole noticed a few things.

1:Trish did not respond to him entering the place,

"She usually does that when im entering," Cole thought

And 2:The lights were turned off, and Cole could barely see anything,

"Damn, is Trish already asleep???" Before Cole could finish that thought he bumped his foot into something on the floor 

"Huh, looks like Trish dropped something,let me pick it up for her-”

When Cole crouched down to pick up the object on the floor, he noticed something

Interesting.

"Wait…..Why am I feeling hair????"

Before he could ask himself even more questions, he heard some soft grunts from the thing.

The gears in Cole's head metaphorically started turning and came to a realization.

"Oh my god…" Cole quickly puts his hand over his mouth struggling not to laugh when he realized that,

Trish has fallen asleep. On the apartment floor, head first. 

After taking a few deep breaths so he can control himself from cackling, he gently picked up Trish from the floor. First by the shoulders and then the legs,

“Gee, you are really light, you know that. How did you end up sleeping on the floor exactly?”

“Shuddup.…..i had to work a…...12 work shift……at the hospital…and i didnt get a break” Trish tiredly mumbled.

“Alright sleeping beauty, time to get you and me to bed.”

Cole delicately put Trish in the bed and changed into his PJ pants, and dropped off in the bed. Tucking himself and Trish in.

“Hey Trish?”

“Hmmm…?”

“Are you still……..Mad at me?” 

“Mad at you for what?”

“For everything that happened this past month, with Amy, the blast, quarantine and with Kessler

Cole asked curiously knowing how their relationship was after everything that happened. To say that their relationship was complicated, was putting it lightly. Now all Cole had to do is  pray for an answer.

“Oh yeah that ,”

Trish turned around so he could face him, even when she's tired beyond relief she still wanted to talk to him. The nurse put her palm across the conduit's face and responded in a tired manner.

“Well i'm still kinda mad for what happened to Amy, i know you didn't mean to kill her Cole, But i still I still love you, you dork. Now let's just sleep already, I got my job to do and you to help people.” After yawning for a sec, she went to hug Cole's body cuz of his unnatural warmth the conduit gene gave him.

"Yeah, I just hope so." Cole thought before both of them started to draft to sleep.

“Good morning Uzi!!! How was your recharge sleeped?” N asked the gothic drone from their new base, which was the spacepod……just placed in a half-destroyed and abandoned warehouse so that people couldn't find them.

“N, both of us know that we spent the majority of the time here trying to put the spacepod here, only for us to have time to recharge for like 3 hours” Deadpanned Uzi.

“Oh come on Uzi, look at the bright side, we got a new place to stay at!” Enthusiastically replied to the goth drone.

“N! What has been our mission since we got here???”

“Hmmmmmmmmm….OH RIGHT! We are gonna get rid of the entire human race!........right?” Questioned N.

 “No N, our current mission is to get rid of that electric bastard that BROKE MY RAILGUN!” Emphasized Uzi. 

“OOOOOHHHHHH RIGHT, THAT GUY.”

‘....I think we need you to get some robo-Methylphenidate’  Thought Uzi. After groaning at N's usual forgetful nature, she turned around and walked to the destroyed wall that directly showed the view of the historic district street. 

“I just…....don't get it N.” Replied the emo drone before sitting down.

“What do you mean Uzi?” Questioned N, He walked and sat down in the same place as her, curious about why she was in such a state.

“It's just…..I thought when we went to Earth it was gonna be fun y'know? Killing humans with you and me.” Uzi looked at N with a hopeful smile. Before looking down again at the street.

“But…..BUT WHAT IN ROBO-GOD HAPPENED HERE LOOK AT THIS N!!!” Uzi showed all of the destruction around the view of the historic district, destroyed cars, dead people on the street, and many, MANY buildings in shambles.

“I WANTED TO DO THAT, BUT NOOOOOOO. THOSE DUMB MORON ALREADY DID IT AND IT PISSES ME OFF N!!!!!!!” Uzi shouted, clearly frustrated that somebody already did her only mission.

“Uzi, look at the bright sight of this. This is only a part of the whole world, there are probably more cities to cause mayhem right?”

“Heh, maybe you are right N. Maybe we could just stay around here, or heck even maybe. Just maybe become friends with the huma- ”.Before having time to finish the sentence the wind picked up alot and resulted in a poster hitting her smack dab in the middle of her face.

Before even having a chance to rip the thing into a million pieces, she noticed something.

It was the electric bastard from yesterday, holding a lightning bolt, while people looked at him in a hopeful awe.

Uzi stared at the poster HARD for what seemed like forever, a small giggle escaped her voice-box that devolved into a maniacal cackle that even scarred N for a bit.

“Uzi are you ok???” The cackle suddenly stopped and Uzi looked at her bff with a large smile and twitching eye.

“More than fine actually IM. A. GOD!” Uzi blurted out, and started laughing again

‘Ok we definitely gonna talk about this later, just need to play it cool.’ N thought.

“Soooooooooo, what's the plan now?” N questioned her

Uzi once again stopped from her laughter. Looked at N with a large grin

“OHHHH I'M GLAD YOU ASKED N!. You are gonna explore the surrounding cities to find any powersource for my railgun,” She pointed at her depowered railgun on the workbench.

“Understood mam!” After a quick hand salute, he sprouted his metallic wings and flew out of the warehouse at high speed.

Uzi only watched as N flew away, with the biggest smug grin her face could have.

“Ooohhh you'll regret ever the day you messed with me, electric man.” Said the gothic drone, and once again starting to laugh maniacally.

Chapter Text

As the light began to slowly creep into Trish's apartment the nurse began to wake up, only to find out that Cole is not in the bed.

…Only to spot him facing her apartment window with 2 cups of presumably coffee in his hands, after doing a quick Ahem to catch his attention Cole turned around and walked to Trish.

“I made you some coffee.” The Conduit handed her one of the mugs.

“Thanks…” After having a few sips, she found the coffee….decent. Not bad but not good either.

Looking at Cole's face, Trish noticed that the Conduit had dark circles around his eyes, clearly because of lack of sleep.

“So. How does it feel when you actually get some sleep for once?”

“It feels nice.”

“Yeah after several days of non-stop hero work, I bet it sure does.”

“Yeah…” Cole took a long sip of his coffee. “Anyways you might want to get up, we have our usual work today. ” The Conduit continued, putting his mug down on the nightstand next to Trish’s bed.

“Ugh, don't remind me,” Despite her being a nurse and essentially that being her job, it felt tiring taking care of multiple people at same time, securing medical supplies etc etc.

“Anyways, how are you feeling?” Trish questioned him while putting on her nurse blouse.

“After what?” 

“This. Whole month.” 

“Tired…” Was what Cole had to say while zipping his bike courier jacket.

“Me too…” Trish responded awkwardly

“Hey.”

“Hmm?” 

“After this day is over, wanna have a night together with only the two of us?” Questioned Cole  with an anxious smile.

Trish turned and flashed him a smirk. “Sounds great, see you then.” Before putting her syringes in the syringe holder on her upper bicep.

“Actually….” Trish continued. “Why don't we,” She started walking closer to Cole until the nurse was mere inches to his face. “Start doing it right now?” While rubbing her finger across his chest.

“That would be lovely.” Was all Cole had to say before they were slowly inching towards each other, slowly getting closer

And closer…

And closer…

And closer…

Until….

“[Nurse Trish Dailey, you are required to be at the hospital right now!]” Erupted from her medical cellphone. Which brought back the couple to reality.

With Trish being the first one to realise the situation she was in, and slightly blushed. “Oh god, we are such dorks aren't we?”

“Maybe……But you are still my favorite dork.”

“Stooooopppppp, you are making me blush.” Trish put her hands on her face to avoid the blushing mess she is.

Until once again,

“[Sorry to interrupt your tension with Trish. But we got problems.]” The Warden called from Cole's own cell phone. The Conduit swore under his breath.

“Sorry Trish, the usual hero work.” Cole apologizes while taking his courier bag and wears it around his shoulder.

“Hey. Do not apologise for basically being the city's hero and helping the residents, understood?” Trish demanded from Cole while putting her medical bag around the shoulder. “And try to forgive Zeke, got it?”

“Yes mam.” Cole responded while doing a salute pose, and also completely lying through his teeth about the last part, Zeke WAS his best friend after all. But god damnit if he didn't want to choke the living hell out of him. And opened the apartment window.

“Can't you just, take the stars like any other regular person would?” Complained Trish.

“You see Trish,” The electric conduit climbed over the ledge, and flashed a smug grin at the nurse “That's the thing. I'm not a regular person.” Before jumping out of the apartment. 

Trish groaned and shook her head at Cole's low levels of self preservation skills, the nurse picked up everything else she needed for the hospital and closed the door to her apartment.

‘Just what in the actual biscuits happened here???’

That was the only thought of Serial Designation N as he flew through the Warren district part of empire city. He thought only the small island he and Uzi landed on looked like that. However it somehow managed to extend to this part of the city too.

Majority of the buildings were either debris, abandoned or boarded up. which prompted N to remember some…..

Not so pleasent memories

About his time on Cooper-9 as a Disassembly Drone, and he responded with those thoughts and memories like he always does.

By repressing them of course!

Everytime he goes into sleep mode, he can still hear the screams of the victims…

Haha that thought is definietly getting repressed!

”You are soooooooooooo damn lucky that the company doesn't allow team killing otherwise you would have been shredded a long time ago!” J yelled at her him while having her blades near his neck

That memory is also going to be repressed!

…

What was he supposed to be doing again?

Oh right. Search for another battery or fuel cell for Uzi’s gun! Now he remembered. Anyways he somehow flew past the warren during the time of the memory repressing moment, and he accidentally reached the neon district. And nearly hit a water tower, which he narrowly avoided.

Landing on the top of the tower he looked upon the city, it was still better than the other 2 cities he was in. Majority of the buildings were still standing, still a lot of dead people, people searching through the garbage and corpses on the road……

God, actually scary how similar Cooper-9 is to this place. What even happened here??? Did bombs go off and leave earth a post-apocalyptic setting?!?! Did aliens come here before us and kill everyone???

God he hoped not, imagine how disappointed and mad Uzi would be if that happend. What if th-

Before N could ask himself any more questions he noticed down an alleyway, two figures wearing. One wore a red hoodie with a skull logo on top of the hood. It also completely covered his face and made it look like it was just void there and holding presumably a shotgun.

And the other wore a long black and white trench coat adorned with a hood with also a skull logo, as well as ripped jeans and white wrappings running along their legs, and carrying presumably an assault rifle. Both of them had multiple huge stains of a black liquid. 

Zooming on them he noticed that they were carrying several packages of….something, that were glowing with a weird shade of light blue. N programming came to a conclusion that. ‘If something glows, it's probably usable as an energy source.’

He watched curiously as the two hooded figures entered a building directly in front of the one N was standing on, the windows were boarded up and dripping with probably the same liquid it was covered on them.

N knew the logical thing to do here was to investigate, however, he didn't want to leave Uzi alone. So he marked down this specific zone on his JcJenson™ tracker and GPS, and sprouted his wings and took flight back to his and Uzi’s safehouse.

***********************

The flight only took like several minutes as per usual, N dropped down directly onto the open view wall as N likes to call it. And spotted that Uzi was sitting and probably tinkering something at her workbench she setted up not too long after they made this warehouse their base of operation.

After walking to his Gothic Worker Drone friend, N noticed that Uzi wasn't simply tinkering on a new project. Oh no sir, she was working on a design for mechanical wings that looked like a cross between a Disassembly Drones wings and ones of a bat.

“Oh that's so awesome Uzi!”

“OH ROBOCHRIST!” Exclaimed Uzi and almost falling out of her chair, she spinned her chair around to face N. “Don't scare me like that again,” While taking a few deep breaths. 

“What was that thing you were working on?”

“Nothing, bite me!” The gothic drone responded,putting her blueprints in the drawer and moved in her chair to be more comfortable. “So found anything remotely close to an energy source?”

“Actually I did! It's somewhere in the city, and I found it to be carried by two people.”

“Are you like, 100% sure it's a actual energy source and not some th-”

“Uzi cmon, first it was glowing, second it was carried by weird people,” N answered while counting the reasons on his fingers. “And third…..I can't think of a good enough third reason but it's there!”

“Okay okay, you convinced me,” Uzi admitted while giggling at his enthusiasm, she got up from her chair, went to her bat-themed backpack and started to pack things up for the scavenger hunt.

Her non-functional sick-as-hell railgun, a couple of batteries as snacks, a random knife she found around the warehouse, and an actual functional pistol. 

“Where did you find that?” Asked N, kinda concerned about seeing Uzi without a sci-fi weapon.

“Looted a dead body not far from here, looked like a homeless person or something. I didn't pay attention to it.” Responded Uzi the Disassembly Drone in a way to casual tone about looting a corpse.

“That's very concerning.”

“Eh, don't worry about it too much, and besides with the thing you found we can finally have our revenge on that electric son of a gun!”

“Still. I think th-”

“He blew your head off.” Uzi quickly jogged N's memory the night before.

“....Okay I see your point now.”

“Finally, thank you!” After putting all of the important things in her backpack she went over to him, and left in a quick burst into the cloudy sky.

After jumping again from Trish's apartment, Cole began sprinting down the street, whatever The Warden called him must be important to call him this early in the morning.

“What's the problem? Aren't you usually reporting stuff that's happening at The Warren?”

“[I know., but there have been some multiple sightings and reports of the Reapers carrying packages with blast shards around The Neon District.]”

“You dont think Sasha is behind this, right?

[“Believe me, I wouldn't know. But we need to find out what they are doing with it, and we need you in particular to investigate and get rid of them as soon as possible!”]

“Fair point, I'm on my way!” 

Cole got the coordinates in the specific zone of the building thanks to the Warden, and continued on running, while running through the city, he still managed to help people whether they were hurt, or a Reaper was shooting at them. With every new Reaper he encountered and defeated, he knew was closer to the building.

“Alright, so how close are we to the damn building? I'm getting bored.” Uzi complained. 

“Uzi, we have been flying for a couple of minutes. You usually spend your time building machine's and stuff, and that takes really long. What's up with that?” N pointed out to his emo friend.

“First, those are 2 completely different situations, and second you usually fly faster.” Puffed Uzi.

Being a few hundred meter’s above ground, the duo were locating the location of the tar filled building N alleged “ Was probably filled with powercell replacements” , Or whatever he said.

“Looks like we’re in luck, Uzi we reached the place.”

“Ugh finally, my joints were getting still.” Groaned Uzi.

After landing safely aka: almost crashed into the damn thing at high speeds bc Uzi told N to do a front dive, bc it would be “Cool as hell” and a “ Sick as hell entrance” . Uzi starred like a deer in headlights at the tar infested building.

“How in robo-god sake does that happen!” Uzi pointed out.

“Geez, the more I stare at it the more questions I have.” Pondered N “So got any ideas on how we could infiltrate the building.” continued N.

“Oh so guess we are ignoring why the building is covered with freaky tar ok.” Thought The Emo drone to herself. “I got a foolproof plan, if there aren't any people protecting the place, we steal as much as possible and make our grand escape!” Triumphally responded Uzi.

“Ok, but….What if there are people guarding the place?”

“We go guns blazing, it's not that difficult, you're pretty much made for killing drones or people in this case.” Uzi deadpanned.

“Good point!” N changed his arm to a MP5 and changed his visor to an ‘X’, “THEN LET'S GIVE THEM HELL!!!” N yelled.

“Now that's more like it!” Uzi responded enthusiastically, before both of them bursted in the building.

There it is.

Cole looked in awe across from another rooftop at the building where Sasha is hoarding multiple blast shards. Knowing her this place was fortified head to toe, with multiple Reapers guarding this place.

Turns out, he was right.

Who would have guessed?

The reapers guarding the front entrance were the usual, red hoods, face obscured, either carrying guns or bazookas, or wearing a white coat which were a pain in the ass to deal with.

He dropped down from the rooftop and used his thunder drop to take out the closest reapers to him. Cole wasn't good at many things but there's one thing he's always good at,

Beating the living shit out of scumbags.

Kicking one of them in the groin, drop-kicking them, exploding them with the megawatt hammer, and sending one of them into the wall with the shockwave, and dealing with the last one by making them bite the curb.

After Cole's little squad-wipe , he looked at the front entrance, and blasted the door open, and finally entered into the new Reaper layer.

Sasha won't know what hit her.

Uzi was shocked,

And somewhat excited!

But mostly shocked.

Turns out, N wasn't lying.

In front of her lie 7 to 15 packages, which were presumably filled with energy sources that could replace her broken powercell from her railgun! 

Scratch that, with the amount of packages there were she could build like 10 railguns! Maybe even something even more powerful!

‘With all those new power sources available, I just can't WAIT to get rid of that electric guy!’ Uzi giggled to herself while rubbing her hands together.

But something in N CPU felt odd to him, yes he did expect to be a few of them like Maybe 5 or 3 but 15?!?.

It was possibly a trap.

Keyword, possibly. There was a chance that there wasn't anything suspicious and just that there were just, many weird glowing packages, so he ignored it.

“C'mon N, what are you waiting for? Let's grab as many you can!. Take off your hat so we can put more of them on!” Uzi requested N with excitement.

Just as she reached for one of the packages, a million alerts started blaring into N’s visor, clearly something was wrong.

He looked above to find a multitude of the same red hooded wearing people holding guns and such.

“UZI, IT’S A TRAP!!!” N yelled at his smaller statue friend.

“What did you sa-”

Before managing to finish her response, a bright red flash appeared out of the tar on the floor, and something grabbed Uzi’s hand.

“Well well what do we have here?”

Cole was trying to walk across the corridor of which’s entire floor was filled with tar,

and you know what that means for Cole?

That’s right! Getting downright creepy mind messages from Sasha!

Like the usual:

“Sweet delicious Cole, coming back home at last? I've been waiting for you. We are gonna have so much fun…”

Introduction the new!:

“I can't believe you Cole, running back into her arms, you deserve BETTER!”

With a side order of:

“Only I love you Cole, but you just can't see that!”

and don't forget the best part!:

“YOU DARE TO COME BACK HERE? AFTER WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME?

To say Sasha was delusional was a complete understatement.

Cole responded to all of this with his good old reliable, thinking about how beautiful and caring Trish is, to negate the psychological manipulation.

And brute forced himself deeper into the building with every step, taking down each and of the reapers he came across.

He was almost at the front entrace..

‘Just keep pushing Cole, just keep pushing.’ Was constantly running through The Conduit's head while he continued moving.

To say Uzi was scared shitless, was a complete understatement.

In front of her, holding her arm was a bald, gray skinned woman with sharp claw-like hands. Which reminded Uzi of claws that a Disassembly Drone would have, which only freaked her out even more. 

The frankly strange woman also wore only a long-sleeve jacket with a red hood up, and also bears some sort of device on her shoulders and upper body that was probably used for something. And the lower half of her body appears to be naked, aside from being covered in what Uzi hoped to be a red-colored version of tar and not blood.

Uzi just stared at the tar-lady not knowing what to do. while Sasha was still grabbing the drone's arm.

“Could you uh…. Please let go of my hand please?” Uzi broke the tense silence, and gave her an awkward smile.

The Tar-Woman responded with her smile, but it was less of a smile and more of a malicious grin. and slowly cackled.

“My, oh, my. Look what we have here, a lost little girl just planning on stealing, is that so?” The woman concluded, hardening the grip on The Emo Worker Drone.

“Look-Look-Look-Look-” Uzi squeaked, “I wasn't trying to steal your uh, glowy packaging collection. i was just planning to-”

“LIAR!” She raged, nearly crushing Uzi’s hand in the process, while the drone just hissed in pain. “Did the dustmen send you? the first sons? Or Kess-”

“LADY! I have no clue what in robot-hell you are talking about, but for the love of robogod, let go of my hand! You are crushing it!” Uzi barked, trying to make the weird half naked tar lady let go of her arm

Only for the tar lady to let out a small growl in annoyance. “Doesn't matter,” the women settled, and threw Uzi back at N, making both of them fall on the ground. “He will be soon anyways…” And with a snap or long tendril fingers, the reapers jumped down from the ceiling one by one.

“Oh my biscuits, Uzi are you okay????” N sobbed, “Yes. I'm fine, the chick probably got scared of my super awesome coolness.” Uzi remarked as usual trying not to make the situation seem out of hand, while in reality…

it was completely out of their control, and about to be killed by the reapers.

Until..

Several shock grenades fell directly near the reapers and Sasha, which the former quickly teleported back into the tar on the floor, the grenades managed to takedown several of the armed reapers. Uzi’s optics quickly darted to the hall entrave to find…

ITS THE FUCKING ELECTRIC MAN, SON OF A BI-

“Alright Sasha, hand over those blast shards and i'll kick your ass in least painful wa-” Cole quickly eyed, both of the 2 drones,

That he just met yesterday.

The same 2 drones that they were trying to kill him.

Were several meters away from him,

The purple one clearly has the “i'm going to kill this son of a bitch.” Look on her face, while the yellow one with the hat had a “WHY IS HE BACK???” Look.

“You have to be fucking kidding me.” Was the last thing Cole said before shit literally hit the fan.