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N looks up, still holding onto Uzi in an embrace they both have been waiting ages for, in the middle of the bloodied, oil stained church that they just fought in. Though, such warm moments dont last forever, as he watches in horror as Tessa’s suit falls to the ground, drenched in blood, the figure that was wearing it walks toward the two of them, her two digital yellow X's for eyes stare into N’s terrified yellow eyelights. He knows that face, he knows that look. And though he has always been naive, he knows what that really is. That is not Tessa. She is no human being, not a living one, at least.
That is a drone, a drone that he recognises all too well.
She blinks, the slightest change in pixels as her lights remain yellow X’s, yet smaller. He knows all too well what that means, she’s going to attack the two of them, soon. He wants to fight back, to keep her away from Uzi and from hurting anyone else ever again, he wants to run, to drag those he loves away from the monstrosity before them, but he can't move. She takes another step forward, the host of the solver getting ever closer. His younger sister, at least, that's what he used to think she was. No, this is a demon. A demon that he thought he knew, ready to kill the both of them, that screen, covered in the flesh of a human he once knew, malice in every single wire in that drone's body as it opens its mouth, revealing a maw of terrifying, sharp teeth. The same sharp teeth that she gave him, when she tortured him back at the manor.
No, he needs to stop getting stuck in his thoughts, he needs to protect Uzi.
“Neck bite.” Cyn cackles, crawling onto the floor and teleporting close to them. N looks into her screen, heartless and unforgiving.
She deserves what is about to come to her.
In a swift move, N grabs onto her throat and slams her into the ground, a purple text box glitches onto his screen as Cyn tries to gain access to N’s system, attempting to control him again. But thanks to Uzi, he is no longer her puppet. And he will make sure that this ends, once and for all. Repeatedly, he slams his fist into her head, oil spewing out from the wound with a sickening squelch. Her entire body scrambles to get away, failing horribly until she eventually teleports off, leaving behind a yellow fog where she once stood. He won't let her get away. He has a plan to stop this, no matter the cost.
It’s almost sunrise.
“I’m sorry.” He says, earning a confused look from Uzi as he takes flight, chasing after the startled, flesh covered drone that teleported away. Uzi yells something, trying to chase after him, but thankfully with her wings she can't get far, N learned how to fly years ago, with these cursed wings that she had forced him to sprout. It’s settled, and it was long ago, he needs to kill Cyn.
At any cost.
He flaps his wings upward, chasing after the drone that so desperately attempts to escape his grasp, she sends a few claws his way, slashing at him violently as she attempts to recover from the attack. But this drone won't die by normal means, destroying her hardware or her core might not be enough, considering she’s the start of this whole mess. He knows what he has to do.
After all, serial designation N is no idiot. He may be naive, but he knows that sometimes, in the heat of battle, sacrifices must be made.
He changes one of his hands into claws, and slashes downward at one of the claws, sending it flying into the pit below them. He dives onto the drone, grabbing her with his claws as she teleports away again, right behind him, attempting to pull off a sneak attack. In retaliation, he swiftly turns around and stabs her in the chest with his tail, feeling the nanites just barely miss her core, so he instead uses his claws to smash open her visor. He knows every move she’ll make, after all…
They are siblings.
Steam pours out of her visor as she attempts to repair herself, and giving N enough time to send them flying up toward the surface, using the opening at the very top of the church, which should hopefully bring them to the very top, where they can see the night sky fade into the agonizing burn of the morning sun. Where he can finally end this, once and for all.
“You can't make backups, can you?” N asks, his voice filled with hate, no longer regarding this drone as anything like him, merely something of similar relation to him and nothing more. “If you die right now, you’ll stay that way, won't you?” He looks down at her as they fly up toward the sky, the sun still not rising, but most certainly will soon. She panics, and takes a bite out of N’s arm, which still holds onto her throat, along with the tail that's still stabbed into her chest. He laughs, taking that as confirmation. He feels an odd sense of joy at the fact that he really will succeed, that his plan would work. “I guess this will be worth it then.”
N finally breaks into the surface, slamming right through the pipes and metal in his way, disregarding J, who, for some reason, is fighting two workers beside a bus. That doesn’t matter, he just needs to keep the Absolute Solver here until the sun rises. It scrambles away, realising his plan. But he does not relent, continuously grabbing her mid-air every time she attempts to teleport away. He found out during the little chase they had that she can’t teleport extreme distances quickly, it takes time to go farther, and she doesn’t have that time.
Neither of them do.
“Come on, don’t you want to have some sibling bonding, one last time?” He exclaims, his voice laced with hatred. He grabs onto the drones leg as it attempts to teleport away, it fights back, attempting to bite onto his neck, but he sees it coming and narrowly avoids it, every emotion he would feel at this moment completely blotted out in a pure sense of rage and relief, fury at the thought that someone he regarded as his sister was nothing more than the antichrist of machinery, and relief at the fact it will all soon be over.
Finally, the sun. He sees it looming over the horizon, he can hear J taking off and flying away, finding a place to hide before she melts. But N isn’t looking for survival, he’s looking to win. The drone he tries to hold onto desperately tries to escape, no longer attempting to fight him, but instead just trying to run. She teleports around, but each time is swiftly caught up to.
Until, he misses.
He narrowly misses a grab onto her leg, and she goes falling down to the ground, desperate to escape the sun, and the fate that she deserves. But no, he’ll kill her, no matter the cost. He slams himself onto the ground, hitting The Absolute Solver in the process as its mechanical form attempts to crawl away from him, he slams one of his feet onto her core, she coughs up some oil, raising her hand to form a solver symbol, he chops the hand off before she can do anything.
He rips off the skin on her screen, used merely as a disguise for the drone before him, she looks up at him with hollowed yellow eyelights, one of them replaced with a glitching solver symbol. Then, she smiles at him, warm and caring, just what she wants him to think.
“You… Kn-Know I care ab-bout you-u… R-right?” Her voice glitches, as fake as ever. He steps away from her, she immediately takes the chance to crawl away, into the building that's just a couple feet away from them, the sun's rays already having an effect on them as it swiftly rises to the skies, making itself known as its burning warmth scorches the planet.
Then, he embraces the drone, knowing that she’ll be too surprised and confused on a supposedly kind gesture, to realise that they’re still in the sunlight until it's far too late.
She yelps in pain, attempting to scramble away as her metal begins to melt, his as well, both red-hot and in agony, he stays in the embrace, she screams, her fangs digging into his neck at any attempt to savour her hunger for oil, to cool her down and save her, but no. There is no salvation, neither of them will ever be saved. He may be hopeless, but no matter what, he has one desire, one thing in his life that he cannot let be tainted by the drone that he is holding onto so desperately.
The Absolute Solver will never hurt Uzi. Never again. And no other drones will suffer from the fate that she so desperately attempted to give these poor, innocent machines. They did nothing wrong, it was all her fault. And now, it's time for her to repent.
His robotic joints meld together into each other, making his entire body stiff as his eyes shut off, all going red as he loses all senses of sight besides infrared. But he can still feel. He knows that she's still there by the red blob thrashing around him in his sight, desperately trying to escape his now melded together body as her metal mixes with his, soon to melt into a boiling puddle of pure hate. He wonders if Uzi is at the surface already. He hopes she isn’t, she wouldn’t like seeing him die so painfully, would she? Then again, she probably wouldn’t like seeing him die at all, especially not after V. He hopes she’ll be okay after he’s gone, she deserves the best, after all.
The screaming from the other drone stops, or maybe his auditory sensors finally melted. Either way, with what little processing power he has left, he hopes that… In the end… He helped just a little…
He feels something dragging him away from the light, bringing him into the shade. Did… Did he fail after all? He tried so hard… Maybe if he regenerates fast enough… He can try again, and still win the fight, maybe… maybe…
No… His self-healing protocol isn’t kicking in… His core is beyond repair, it’s over. All he can see is a silhouette of a drone, heat emanating from its entire body, but it's nothing like a drone who's undergoing being melted under the heat of the sun. No, this isn’t the drone he tried to kill, this is…
“U-Uzi…?” He asks, his voice box somehow functional but incredibly glitchy, static whenever he opens his mouth, barely able to form words. The drone turns to face him, recognising the name, it really is her, then. “Di-did i… ki-ll I…it?” He coughs, likely a load of boiling oil, considering the sudden burn in his throat. ... The drone stares at him, and slowly nods. He smiles, with what little function he has left in his systems. The severe overheat from his successful destruction of the solver still melting his body slowly, with no way out. He sees Uzi, still nothing but a silhouette of her temperature, bring something cold close to her arm.
“...Don't…” He doesn’t want her hurting herself for a doomed cause, his damaged core already getting to him as the fatal overheat he's enduring makes him fall closer to his inevitable demise, it's too late, he knows this. “Let… Me d-die.” He can’t word it any other way, he doesn’t have much time left, that is painfully obvious by the burning in his core, he can feel it crumbling with every second that passes. She looks up at him, lowering what he can only assume to be a sharp piece of metal she had found. He laughs, one of pain, but also, admittedly, relief. She’s safe, with or without him, she’s safe...
“I’m sor-sorry… I couldn’t survi-vive to… See y-yo-u aga-ain…” His voice gets increasingly more distorted, he’s got seconds left, he better make them worth it. “Pro-romise me… You li-ive past thi-is…” He tries to reach out his hand, but his arm is stuck in the same position it was before, melded together, unchanged by his dysfunctional self-healing program, lost along with the melted components of his core.
“E-even if I ca-ant see it…” He tries to smile, to lighten the mood, but honestly, he's not really sure if he did.
“Smile fo-for me… ok-kay...?”
...