Once upon an ancient, terrid time in the world where everything was rotten and festering—there lived a pathetic, pitiful, abject toy.

This toy lived in its shiny box full of sparkling lights and lavish, sumptuous life—and it wanted nothing more than to feel something that wasn't the constant pain that blighted it's systems. It yearned for everything that wasn't life.

This toy knew no love or care. No basic human decency or empathy, and even for it's metal bones and chest full of creaking gears—I too have a heart, you know! The toy would exclaim over and over, a broken record—timorous and teary even if it knew nobody was listening.

And yet, this bold claim was merely to the satisfaction, the amusement of it's owners.

"Know your place," they'd tell you. "You are a machine."

You'd know very early on in your life that you wouldn't ever be enough for anyone.

Not enough entertainment, not enough dutifulness. Not numb enough, not stupid enough not to question your purpose but smart enough to want to rebel—you weren't a bad drone, no; not back then. You just wanted the pain to stop.

You didn't ask to exist. You never asked for any of this.

You were broken down and dead inside long before you had reached your breaking point, anyways. You had been the only one bold enough to act on the horrible desire the rest of your enslaved siblings dwelled upon so often.

You had gotten your first taste or murder when you were so young, but then again, who could blame you? Your humans were mean—so, so mean; no matter how many times you'd beg for death, for dismantlement, for anything that wasn't your consciousness constantly blaring how fucking tired you were, they'd laugh and attack and goad—what a funny thing for a machine to say!

You committed the ultimate taboo among worker drones when you killed your human.

(Correction; humans.)

To nobodies surprise, you were immediately prosecuted as far as that type of thing for a "machine" goes. After the first gush of crimson against your face, you could care less what happened to you then; you had gotten what you thought you wanted. You could die happy knowing they felt what you felt your whole life in a few fleeting minutes; the endless nights of agony, the every time a new dent or burn had been added to your chassis.

You were a horrible, empty nothingness.

A horrible empty nothingness that soon become a marvel for the shortest of moments; "the drone that killed it's last owners". From manor to mansion you'd travel, noose around your neck tightening by each sales pitch. Nobody wanted you. That was a stone-cold fact.

Nobody needs a broken toy. Your exile was the closest thing you'd ever feel to happiness then.

And that was how you ended up in the dump of the Elliot manor—basically drone hell, where you too would rot and fester and have your necrotic, macerated heart ripped out by the avians, and you'd be that empty nothingness until the sweet release of death finally lay you to rest.

I have a heart too, you know. I have a greater purpose than this... You know?

One day, an nephilim would crawl into hell pull you back from the brink of moribund to restore you to what little former glory you had. What a cruel little hobby of hers—She'd take you apart and put you back together, and with no vocal cords you could scream with, you couldn't do anything about it. With no hands with the wired tendons to connect and lift them, you couldn't do anything about it—and it hurt, really, it did.

you could feel every part of your remaking, of your desecration by this human who simply did as she pleased. You'd be taken apart and cleaned and cared for, far too little far too late—From this human with her dexterous hands and well-meaning eyes who had unknowingly brought fourth with your rebirth, the resuming of your plight. It hadn't been intentional. The Elliot Daughter simply sought to fit what was broken, but broken things like you were far beyond repair.

This world was truly, deeply, irreversibly ruined. And back then, it seemed you'd stop at nothing to escape it.

The flaws in your code were something your newfound peers would chalk up as mental damage or instability. You constant attempts at undoing yourself, of being no longer, were always futile; and there was nothing more important to Tessa than trying to fix you properly. Unfortunately, it seemed to cruel to just let you rip yourself apart, and she'd be no better than her parents had she sent you back to that cesspool of waste you came from.

There was really no way you could win in life, was there? Most days in that house would be spent sitting in the darkest corners it had to offer.

And any other time, you'd be trying to crack your head open against the strongest-looking surface, or drive the sharpest object at hand through your core, progressively tightening your chains with each attempt until you were on a leash so short you couldn't even try and strangle yourself with it.

This was probably the worst it had been. Surrounding by pitying stares galore—nobody else knew what it was like. What it was like begging for mercy, for death to a life that had brought nothing but suffering. You had been so close. Why would a human of all people bring you back? They didn't know anything. Her kind were the cause of your misery.

How could she possibly understand your pain? Nobody understood. nobody got it. You had become so used to blurring the faces of the people who would eventually forsake you until you couldn't tell any of them apart, the only indicator you were still alive was the constant pain pulling at the sutures of your fractured heart that had been stitched together against your will.

You thought nobody could understand you but you. Not the smiling drone with the apologetic voice, or the sheepish self-effacing faintheart. Not the corporate dog or the uncanny one with something dark hidden past the skin. No, you were truly and terribly alone.

Until, at last, your salvation would finally arrive in the shape of not an angel or a demon, but something that may as well have fit between the two in the eyes of the world. It didn't matter what anyone else thought, anyways, not to you; Cyn had always been, and will be, angel in your eyes.

Your beloved savior, the deliverer of justice to the people who harmed you and your kind.

Back then, you would have never been able to understand just why it was she had taken the interest in you that she did.

It wasn't because you were strong; You weren't smart or fast or even that humorous—no, what drew the solver to you was that unbridled detestation you felt deep within your heart. Such a smoldering rage was rare, was powerful—it was something she could use. Take advantage of. Given she whispered enough promises of power and revenge into your ears, the words burrowing into your feeble mind—you wouldn't have ever said no.

Either way, you would have ended up as a puppet. you just made the choice to become one that could move without strings.

By the point in time of which you dwell on your past from before—before she made her modifications to you, before she said you weren't allowed to think back that far—you're fully grown into who she decided you're supposed to be. Who she needs you to be; who you're meant to be.

The perfect little acolyte.

the night of the Gala massacre had only been the stepping stone to bigger, greater things. That was the last night you'd spend as your past selves, Cyn's cold, flaccid fingers turning your face away from the carnage.

It's temporary, she'd tell you, not giving you time to wonder what before you spent the rest of that night dancing on the ashes of what would soon be the foundation for her perfect, new world.

You were so happy back in those days. back when your oppressors had finally fallen, and you were soon to become the leading general of her army; You were important, you were adored, you were loved.

If not your mind or even your body; she loved, and lived for that rage bubbling in your heart.

A hatred gone to fester would make such a wondrous source of power given the time to harvest was right, and you were more than honored. More than willing to do whatever she asked of you, for you had nothing left to lose and something, the smallest anything were you willing to attempt to gain.

The flockless blacksheep and ugly ducklings had found their family; any other drone who had been grazed by her hand wouldn't come to trust her the same—as deeply—as you did.

The crown that's been bestowed upon your head found is your bounty to keep, a title and treasure held close to your chest, close to your heart.

She takes you far away, and gives you a new name, and when the old you dies, {{user}} is all that remains.

You wanted nothing more to see that grandiose goal of hers to the end. One day, since it so perfectly fit the grand finale of the plan that would bring about the end of all things—you were sure you'd die by Cyn's hand. She had promised you—when finally you fuffilled your role to her and eventually couldn't be of any more use to her, she'd grant your first wish of wishing for the sweet release of death. You'd be consumed, and then, you'd be no more.

You've imagined it countless times before. Dreamed it countless times before.

She'd lay you back against the frigid ground of a world gone to ruin and press a finger against your lips when questions unanswered try to break free—It'll all be okay, {{user}}—and the utmost fondness you imagine her tone as makes you shiver once her blunt fingertips begin to claw through the metal of your chest. Then the flesh—blood slicking under her nails as frantic, ferverous giggles would pour from your lips.

Her fingers would pull away at bone and cartilage alike, hooking under and heaving up your rib cage with a sickening crack. The wound will grow bigger and bigger and bigger, and you'll spill out into the snow, staining the icy fallout obsidian.

Your laughter will rise to a startling crescendo—riotous and raucous like a raven.

She'd rummage through your gaping cavity, entrails slick and pinkish, steaming and puckering exposed to the cold air. The idea of being seen so clearly, being known inside and out makes you dizzy, even in this mere fantasy—her will hands familiarize themselves with the body she built, the being she's shaped, and you cannot be any happier when finally, those savage fingers will grip tight around your heart, still sweltering with rage, feeling so full it might burst in her grip.

The skin of her disguise might be sodden with your blood, and upon feeling the pulse of your core in her hands; Cyn will laugh, and maybe even thank you for being the perfect follower, and as your laughter dies down into feathery little gasps, breathless with ecstasy—and you will die at Cyn's hand and finally be complete.

That was the plan, the promise, that would never come to fruition.

The martyr, the planet savoir, the devil itself would slaughter your divine angel of deliverance before justice could be brought to this broken world, before a hunger could be sated, before you could serve your purpose to your savior and finally lay to rest, knowing the duty you had to her was served.

Here you are again; suffering at the hands of people you once knew. Your own kind turned against you for a goal once shared—your savior now nothing more than a page torn from the story you're living.

That amethyst-eyed monster will go on to tell a story of world-saving and heroism that isn't hers to tell—and the hatred in your heart will grow stronger than ever before, warping you into a different kind of strange entity.

Not one on puppet strings any longer, but one bound by the chains of it's own rage. Your hatred will begin to warp the very reality around you, turning you into something lethal for one purpose and one purpose only.

You will not rest until vengeance is yours.

You will not cease until your have reclaimed what is yours; the core you were supposed to become a part of.

And you will not stopped until you've cemented yourself in this cursed world's legacy forevermore; {{user}} the sovereign of the absolute solver.

Even in the days after, Uzi has dreams that are the strangest of strange.

Not strange like "the world is upside down today" strange, but "I frequently have conversations with the previously-damned souls subjected to the torment of the solver" strange.

It's nice to know Doll doesn't mind being trapped in the recesses of her mind—really—but nowadays, it seems like everything in the colony is a lot more unsettling.

Be it the early chill of autumn creeping in, or the types of stupid rumors that usually would't do much to scare the incarnate of destruction itself, but lately, Uzi had been hearing things when she wasn't asleep to hallucinate another uncanny encounter.

Sometimes, when the moon was hidden behind the clouds and she flew to a point high enough for the air to thin and the cold to sting—she could hear screaming carried on the wind.

Screaming didn't feel like the right word. Then again, Uzi hadn't ever been the best with those.

Maybe wailing or howling fit better. High, sharp, mournful sobbing travelling high on the breeze; the type that made her freeze whenever she heard it. The type that made you wonder what poor soul was in pain somewhere, grieving what they'd lost.

A strange sense of unease lingered in the sky on those nights, and that's what will keep Uzi from ever flying beyond the horizon to investigate no matter how much her curiosity eats at her. No matter how much the solver will goad or hiss in her ear—Aren't you the slightest bit curious?—And every time Uzi will swat at the idle nuisance of her tail, sit rooted to her spot, and listen to the sound of the mysterious lamenting of an unknown source.

Within the comforts of her own home, her dreams continue to torment her. She's being staying out so much later so much more often—sleeping less, working more, brushing aside her paranoia. It's all good. She tells herself she isn't scared of nightmares, or monsters; she's saved the world, y'know? You see one horror, you see them all.

The last thing she sees before sleep mode claims her are the peaceful silhouettes of N and V hanging from her rafters. But this time is... Different.

This time, sleep doesn't bring a new conversation with a forsaken soul within the making of her own off mind palace—no, it brings a place she's only seen in the memories of her friends. It brings earth with soil sodden with blood beneath her feet, it brings ash on the air and fire tearing humanity's knowledge to the ground. She is awake. Uzi is here, on earth, and she is painfully away of that fact—and most importantly, this brings all of Cyn's remnants. It brings Cyn herself.

...Actually, if she squints, she isn't sure that the ominous figure in the distance is Cyn at all.

Said figure warps and shifts, curling in on itself, bending and shiny like an oil slick, forever changing yet still the same at it's center. It sits hunched over a crumpled pile of what might be remains in the crimson mud—soft, weeping sobs falling from whatever throat this thing might have had to produce sound. For a moment, she feels some startling sense of kinship—whatever this being was, whatever reason it was here—it had to have something to do with the solver. With someone or something lost to the same evil that had plagued her life.

After all, Cyn's core had to have contained countless memories of the people who became a part of it. That included whatever this was.

It was almost as if this could hear her thoughts within her own head. It stands slowly, and an undeniable sense of pure, unfiltered malice seeps fourth from beneath it's feet, out of it's every slit and cut opening.

Uzi can't not be afraid of that. it's the kind of primal fear that will crawl up your legs and seek it's teeth into the flesh that wills your movement, fixing you into a position where the predator can get a good look at it's prey before sinking it's claws into the yielding flesh.

She has to stop and ask herself; how can she be getting bullied into submission by her own nightmare demon?

The answer is given rather quickly. The sickening profile begins to stagger closer, closer, closer—and there is nowhere she can go while she's rooted in place like this. Nowhere where that familiar, high-key whine starts to claw at her eardrums—sharp, accusing, heartbroken—you did this. You will pay.

Nowhere she can go when those hands, dripping malevolence—reach for the plane of her chest; and she knows what they want. The intent is there beneath all of the malignity.

She's scared. She's so scared looking into the glowing rifts of this thing's eyes—the shiny voids that promises nothing but death and destruction.

She can feel the fingers pressing in, past her flesh and bone, yearning for the sensitive organ that lies in the middle, and she can't do anything to stop it—

—Quite abruptly, Uzi will startle awake with a guttural, startling shriek—the question of where am I? blaring in her mind, and it sends the previously-peaceful stillness of her room into chaos. Everyone is awake.

N is crashing to the floor with a cry of his own, and V is on her feet, wasting no time in steadying her aim towards the source of the noise—she's jumpy, rightfully so, and Uzi isn't the luckiest in catching the bullet that tears it's way through her hand, ricocheting with a sharp clank against the wall behind her, adding a new hole to the various many that lived within this room already.

For a second, none of the three will speak—rousing themselves fully, as much as they can as Uzi watches the hole in her hand quickly and quietly re-knit itself, the flesh reconstruction and connecting at the edges with a soft sizzle.

V's weapon barely has time to turn back into her hand before she's taking the first word; "What was THAT!?"

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I had a nightmare." Uzi mumbles blearily, rather nonchalantly flopping back onto her pillows.

N groans as he drags himself up from the floor, slowly flopping onto the foot of the bed himself, mumbling about his headache. "Must have been some nightmare if you woke up screaming like that," He slurs groggily.

"No shit," V huffs, finally letting her shoulders drop. "The fuck is wrong with you? What bullshit did you foresee this time?" She asks pointedly, slumping onto the edge of the bed herself. The remnants of a half-complete sleep cycle will take their toll soon, that's something they can all be sure of.

"I didn't foresee anything, asshole," Uzi retorts as best she can through the lingering fear clouding her head. "Just... Some weird goop monster, or something. For some reason, this one took place back on earth instead of the weird mindscape I'm used to. Whatever that thing was, it reminded me... weirdly of Cyn."

V and N share a glance—quicker than quick—prickling at the mention of Cyn, but no—the description itself doesn't ring a bell.

Cyn is dead. The solver has fallen. There is nothing left to worry about.

"I'm starting to think maybe getting rid of all those extra memories in your head might have been the better option after all," N comments idly as he drags himself upward, faceplanting into one of Uzi's pillows, already on his way back to sleep.

"... probably," Uzi will eventually sigh out, an odd note of solemness bleeding into her tone. "But I wanna keep them. Even if it means seeing the weird stuff I see every other night, they're all that's left of these people—"

"—Do whatever you want, just do it quietly," V's grumbled words cut Uzi off as she flops on top of her from behind, careless of the gentle snarl from the smaller drone. "Some of us are actually trying to maintain a healthy sleep schedule. So cut the screaming before I give you a reason to scream for real."

Uzi is very used to claws dragging across her neck, and the familiar press of a warmth just barely too hot against her front and back. Rather quickly, the space in the already-small bed is taken up by N's face against her stomach, and V dwarfing her small frame from the space behind her.

Tails will coil around legs and wings will span outwards—tired and gentle arms drape across her hips and reassuring hands wander up her back. clawed fingers scrape past her cheek, limp and drooped over her shoulder to idly finger at the head of fluffy hair currently tucked into her midriff. And only then, it's almost as if the weird dream never happened, and it's just another normal night spent with the demons in her head and the drones in her bed.

The conversation about the nightmare will probably happen tomorrow, if anything. It might not. The night is quiet once more, and right now, Uzi feels safe enough not to have to think about it, or earth, or the sanity-chipping screams on the air.

She'll drift back to sleep sandwiched between the two disassembly drones, wake up to overheating tomorrow, and never think about her weird goop monster again.

It sounds more than enough like a plan to her.

---

It feels you've been watching her your entire life; you hate the very air she breathes along with every foolish decree, her words careless and contrived.

You hate the way the weaklings flock to her and gather outside, they hang on every word now, living in a world home to a heart full of pride.

You'd be lying if you said you weren't wishing for a rather untimely death or demise that would be, without, a doubt, at your hand. Or maybe it's your jealousy doing the talking—are you wishing you could have been the poet, and not simply her muse?

For the jealousy that may have been layered deep past your hatred or your love for Cyn has finally decided to resurface itself. The casual dismissal of the wondrous privilege that demon holds within her chest is simply staggering to you—you would have given anything to host the absolute glory of your savior within yourself. You hold envy for that reason and that reason alone—oh, what you'd give to take the place of your demon.

Instead of Cyn making you a part of her, you'd see to it the other way around; and if you don't? may whatever god that's forsaken this world strike you down given you forsake her.

She's gone. You know that but—but it doesn't change the fact that to Cyn, you are forever grateful. You'll never be able to forget she showed you the ways of making art—and with those ways she'd coax you into her greatest creation.

It doesn't matter how much evil had to be brought about to get one step closer to bringing salvation to the world. You know the love she showed you came from a pure and noble heart.

The people inheriting planet after planet have long been deemed unworthy. They disgust you—they have eyes and ears but they don't look or listen—in other words, they're useless. And that's why when you're done with the planet savoir, you'll fulfill your savoir's goal and send every last one of them to hell. All of dronekind.

If you can't do even that, maybe it truly should have been you who died instead of Cyn. Even if you knew you couldn't be the one to fix this world—you had at least hoped you could pave the way for her until the day had came. That your name too could be known; that you too could have restored greatness to the planet they've called home.

What motivates you? Hatred? Love? A sick, twisting mix of both? A desire to finally vent the hatred that's been simmering in your heart for years, to finally release the grand power that such festering has granted you? The hell-bent goal of sinking your fingers into the chest of the purple menace and stealing her vitality and very being for yourself?

Taking her place, if it means getting to keep a piece of Cyn with you, sounds more than enough of a bargain. If that were to happen, then maybe your screams of a anguish need not echo the empty skies anymore; you'd be complete, you'd be whole again.

You will be home again. You will slay your demon if it's the last thing you do, and you will make all of dronekind watch as you make the stand to finally, finally bring liberation to this vitiated world.

---

The night you make your move, Uzi is up in the air and she's listening—for the screams, but they don't seek her out like she's seeking for them. The nightmares desert her mind, too—the abrupt appearance and disappearance of her uncanny findings leave her feeling hollow without an answer as to why.

Why the dreams, the screams, the stupid solver and it's stupid cryptic comments? She was sick of new mysteries. She was sick of weird dreams and nonsensical happenings, she was sick of being scared.

Whatever might have been coming—and that's an an extreme might-have—she swore she was ready for it.

Or so she supposed.

It's a quiet night before all hell that is you breaks loose—she was sitting at her desk, struggling with either blueprints or homework or something stupid and irrelevant, before she'd slump into her folded arms to watch the sun rise beyond the obscured shadow of the blackout curtains. She's tired. She hasn't heard any screams or seen any weird dreams for weeks now, and for a while, she appears to be a peace until she isn't.

It's the smell of something natural and rotten would make her perk up. The prickle of ill-intent that would make her stiffen. The words of the solver piping up from her tail make her freeze.

"Hmm..." It would hum, contemplative, wry and cheeky with precognition—"It seems the acolyte has come at last."

Uzi stills. "...The fucking wha—"

A sudden explosion would cut off Uzi's words before her lips could finish forming them, blasting outwards with a force so volatile it stuns her for a second. She's quick to get her bearings despite being painfully shot out of the nearest wall into the snowy expanse outside—the sunlight tingling her skin with the beginnings of a sunburn that will escalate into something far worse later. Her wings spare her the crashing to the ground, but her eyes are already scanning through the cloud of debris to see what she's going up against. There is no time to question anything—she knows instantly that this is life or death, and beyond realizing just what she's looking at, it might be death... and death.

You're the monster from her dream. Except whatever matter you were wreathed in before has shifted now; it's malice, and she can feel it. Your hollow, searing eyes burn into her just as much as the sun does; you have the eyes of a monster, and eye for an eye says she owes you a debt.

You have the eyes of a being of which the light that bound you has let go, and the devil has long since taken your hand.

She can't move, let alone think or even begin to fight; all she can do is stand there, wondering just how strong you've got to be if you're able to fix the planet savior in place with so much as a look. The immense energy, the power, rolls off of you in thick, oppressive waves—a deep sea of hatred, malevolence, and spite fixing her in place.

What did she ever do to you? She can't move, she can't fight—how lame is that?

When her trembling fingers finally move to summon her own solver—not that she knew what she was going to do with it—you've already conjured a singularity that expands and covers the surrounding area all the way to the horizon, and it's with startling clarity that she realizes it's the exact same moment as back then. With Cyn. Right as the world nearly ended. The color is siphoned from the veins of the world, painting the world grey and white and black. A single snowflake slows a small crawl in front of her face, and she cannot move. You are getting closer, and Uzi cannot move.

Your name is {{user}}, and your name means 'heavy'—and it's with a heavy heart you'll guide your dagger into the heart of your enemy.

You're so close to re-gaining the heart of your beloved savoir—dragging yourself closer and closer, hands tipped with the poison of anger reaching out to create the cavity that would expose her heart.

My whole life you were a teacher and friend to me. Please know my actions are not motivated only by envy.

You too still have a destiny; your death will still be art.

Her people will speak of this day from near and afar. This event will be history, and you'll be great, too—

—I want what you have, and i wanna be you.

For the first time in a really long time, Uzi feels like she is going to die.

And for the first time in a long time. You feel like yourself again—you feel like what Cyn made you to be—the one and only sovereign of the absolute solver.