|| Chapter 10: The Breaking Point ||
That night, the ravenette sauntered through the thick snow. His eyes looked exhausted and his hair was a mess. The harsh blizzard storm nudged him from side to side, yet he didn't seem bothered at all. He was dressed in a black longsleeved buttoned-up shirt, trousers, boots, and a long trenchcoat that had a company name - Ⲁⲧⲏⲉⲛⲁ-Ⲥⲟ.™ - stitched into its sleeves.
Ever since he woke up from that coma, he noticed that he was immune to the toxic air and inhumanely cold weather conditions. He also realized that he has random outbursts of anger and easily gets overstimulated from sounds, temperature, textures, and taste. So, he concluded; His body had mutated from the time he got slashed by N's stinger. That would explain his weird behaviours and loss of empathy.
His tired eyes glanced around in an unbothered manner as he shifted the sniper rifle on his back, feeling it bounce slightly at his actions. He paused in his tracks for a second and reached into his pocket. Causually, he took a packet of home-made cigarettes out and popped one out of the box. As he shoved the box back into his pocket, he bit the cigarette between his unexpectedly vampire-like teeth.
"Goddamnit..." He cursed under his breath, struggling to get his lighter out of his back pocket. Cautiously, he flicked the lighter open and watched how a bright orange flame appeared. The warm light reflected in his eyes, illuminating his pale face with a faint orange colour. Quickly, he lit the cigarette before the wind could blow it out and he continued his journey to the corpse tower.
Before he knew it, he arrived at his destination and entered the entranceway. He released a puff of smoke into the air as the snow crunched under his feet. In the corner of his eye, he spotted N sleeping upside down as if he was a bat. He raised a brow when the drone suddenly jerked awake with a startled expression. "Woah!" He shrieked when he slipped from the ceiling, crashing into the snow and pile of corpses.
With an amused scoff, the ravenette shook his head and approached the landing pod. Carefully, he climbed into the pod and announced his arrival, "Yo, I'm here." He was met with an unexpected scene once he was inside - Uzi was frowning at a shattered mirror while V was chained to the floor, blowing bubbles. Uzi didn't realize that he was there because she was lost in her thoughts while staring at the mirror. V, however, perked up at the sound of his voice and turned in her chair to face him. "Well, if it isn't our Mr. Half-Human!" She sarcastically greeted him with a scoff, crossing her arms over her chest as she glared at him, "I'm surprised that you're alive."
"I could say the same thing to you, Mrs. Psycho," He coldly retorted with a deep frown, showing that he was displeased with her attitude but he wasn't surprised. Irked, she clicked her tongue and placed her attention on Uzi, ignoring him. "That's weird and concerning," She mentioned with a smug smirk, gesturing to the shattered mirror. "Bite me!" Uzi snapped at her as she turned around to face her with fierce eyes, accusingly pointing at her, "This is probably ya weirdo's fault!" Amused, V giggled and tilted her head to the side while the ravenette casually leaned against the wall since Uzi still hadn't noticed him yet.
"I've never seen that symbol before," V smugly admitted with narrowed eyes, smirking at her before a crazed expression appeared on her face, suggesting, "Wanna do an autopsy to find out?" Immediately, Uzi leaned back with a creeped-out expression. A giggle escaped V, liking her reaction to her suggestion. "What'd you find?" N's sudden voice caught everyone off guard, causing them to look in his direction as he descended the ladder. Once his feet reached the floor, Uzi climbed on top of a box and slapped a captain's cap onto his head.
"Did you know that was a pilot hat?" She asked with a raised brow, curious yet suspicious as she kicked the box out from underneath her and landed perfectly on the floor. She placed her hands on her hip while staring at N. "I was the pilot?!" N exclaimed in surprise and excitement, clenching his hands in front of his chest with sparkling eyes, "That's awesome...!"
However, he quickly realized what that meant. "I crashed and ruined everything..." He stated with horrified eyes before gasping. No one was surprised when he ignored reality and proudly added with his hands on his hips, smiling, "Spaceship pilot. Origin story." He sent finger-guns to V and winked with a grin. Instantly, she aggressively hissed at him like a cat before innocently yet calmly blowing bubbles with a small satisfied grin. Uzi and N sweatdropped at her reaction. Meanwhile, the ravenette was standing in front of the gigantic whiteboard at the far side of the pod - he took out a pair of round glasses and placed them on his nose bridge.
Silently, his gaze was pinned onto the sketches and notes that had information about the pod's parts. "...Speaking of piloting to earth," N mentioned in a slightly nervous voice and glanced towards Uzi, who was scavenging through a toolbox, "Are we sure that murdering all humans is 'morality'?" She approached a broken communication relay and flipped it open before attempting to fix it with a screwdriver.
At his question, she looked at him over her shoulder with a deadpanned expression. Slowly, she turned around to face him and gestured to the relay behind her with her thumb, explaining in a sarcastic tone, "The humans sent you guys without a communication relay..." She pointed at them with the screwdriver as she continued, "...and reformatted your memories to soup."
Worried, N frowned with furrowed brows as he stood next to the ravenette with his back facing the board. V seemed displeased by her words before unexpectedly licking the bubble blower stick, shrugging. The ravenette noticed that N was unconsciously scooting closer to him and held back a laugh at his actions, reminding him of a cat. "Covering their tracks means they're past negotiating," Uzi added with a scowl as she slammed the semi-functioning relay closed and impaled the screwdriver next to it. "Not that they tried negotiating with my mom," She muttered, clenching her fingers around the wench in her hands - the sheer force caused it to bend in the middle.
"Or you missed the negotiations!" V snarled as she lunged at Uzi with a crazed smile, "The humans programmed us to solve a problem!" It was fortunate that the chains prevented her from reaching Uzi, who stared at her with wide eyes as she leaned back to create distance between them. Immediately, N was behind Uzi, holding her shoulders with narrowed yet cautious eyes. A startled yet angry expression appeared on Uzi's face. "Where's proof of your backstory?" V taunted her, tilting her head at her as her eyes glimmered in bloodlust, "The one where your kinds' so conveniently innocent?" A dark yet high-pitched giggle escaped V's mouth when Uzi looked pissed off at her taunts.
"Enough," A cold voice silenced her while a harsh tug at the back of her chained collar pulled her backwards, choking her, "You should behave yourself right now." V glared at the culprit, baring her vampire-like teeth at him. However, she tensed up when she made eye contact with a pair of heterochromia irises. The ravenette's left iris was a bright sunset colour while his right iris remained dark and eerie. A menacingly cold yet merciless look was seen on his face as he scowled at her. She grumbled something under her breath and looked away from him, silently showing that she understood. N, who noticed this, took that as a chance to slowly slide Uzi away from her.
When V made eye contact with N, he glared at her and she rolled her eyes at his behaviour. Slowly, the ravenette released the chain and leaned his hand on the backrest of her chair, irking her. "J was getting orders from someone," N mentioned with furrowed brows, glancing down at Uzi, who was still in his hold, "If not the company through that relay, then... uh... who and how?" Perplexed, the ravenette hummed with a displeased frown, not liking how mysterious this situation got. He wasn't the only one who felt like that. Annoyed, Uzi plopped her back against N's chest with her arms crossed over her chest, startling him.
"Quit complicating my murder plan," She groaned out with a pout-like frown, glaring at the floor. Awkwardly, N raised his hand to give her a reassuring pat on the head, but he got slapped away before he could touch her. V narrowed her eyes at them as she felt something in her chest tighten when a strange feeling bothered her. Noticing her confused frown, the ravenette sneakily tapped his fingers against her shoulder in a reassuring manner, surprising her.
"...I can try to patch up the pod with the scraps from my lab," The ravenette suggested, ignoring how V glanced at him for an explanation about his gesture, "But I don't know if it would work though..." Everyone stared at him in disbelief, gaping at his words. "You Disassembly Drones make it easier for me to get scraps from worker drones," He explained with a smug yet dark smirk.
Uzi sent him a disapproving frown, feeling uneasy while N awed at him. Suddenly, V's stinger swung towards him and wrapped itself around his throat in a tight yet loose grip. "How are you going to do that, huh?" V demanded with glaring eyes and the tip of her syringe tapped itself against his cheek, "I don't trust you at all..."
Uzi and N were on edge at the situation - they were taken aback when he remained calm and composed. "All your food scraps that I found will be melted down and shaped into parts for the pod," He stoically answered her, maintaining intense eye contact with her as his fingers trailed against the bottom half of her tail around his throat. "It's only your choice to trust me," He added with a small smirk, pushing a sensitive spot on her tail, "I won't force you."
A weird tension surrounded those two as they glared at each other, almost as if they were observing each other. Slowly, V's tail unwrapped itself from his throat and tapped its stinger against his cheek one final time before returning to her. "We're going to look around for any clues," Uzi mentioned with a frown, clenching and unclenching her fists at what she just witnessed.
N noticed her actions and glanced at her, curious as to why she was behaving like that. "Be safe," The ravenette nonchalantly told her as he turned his back to her, approaching the whiteboard again, "Don't cause any trouble." Quickly, Uzi snatched N by the wrist and pulled him out of the pod with her. Once they were gone, a dense silence surrounded him and V. Casually, he took out a sharpie pen and tugged his coat off. From the corner of her eye, she watched how he started scribbling on the board. She pulled her gaze away from him and kept herself busy by blowing bubbles again.
After a while, she got bored and sighed. She stared at the ceiling for a few seconds before turning around to see what he was doing. "What the..." She uttered in astonishment when her gaze fell onto the whiteboard, which was filled with dozens of equations and sketches. In the middle of the board, a neat sketch of the landing pod with arrowed labels was seen. The labels 'Recommended: Metal Sheets, stainless', 'Install temperature sensors', and 'Pure tungsten landing beams' were seen all over the sketch.
In his one hand was a leather notebook, he would occasionally write down the notes from the board into it. She spotted an earpiece in his ear that blinked a few times as he inaudibly mumbled under his breath, completely immersed in his concentration. Sneakily, she cut her chain in half and smirked when he didn't notice her actions. Satisfied with herself, she started to fiddle with her hair as she looked away from him.
Suddenly, he scrunched up his nose and frowned, pausing all his motions. "This is going to take weeks if we need that many replacements," He talked to himself out loud, pushing the sharpie between his vampire-like teeth as he glared at the chaotic board in front of him, "No, it's going to take months..." He raised a brow when he felt something slither around his leg, crawling up to his hips.
Slowly, he lowered his gaze downwards and felt his blood run cold when he saw a swordwhip-like tail curled around his lower half. Completely frozen in his spot, his notebook slipped out of his hand, dropping to the floor with a thud. The sound of the thud startled V, causing her to spin around with wide eyes. "Fuck no," He growled out, snatching the tail wrapped around his lower body and glaring at where it came from. His blood boiled in anger and horror when he realized that the tail sprouted from his tailbone. He estimated that it was at least four or five meters long if it were to be fully stretched out.
Angrily, he tossed it to the floor and stormed towards the shattered mirror. "Ha!" He scoffed out in fury and disbelief when he saw his reflection in the shattered glass - his left iris was brightly glowing with a sunset colour. His iris glitched into a sideways '⪤' with ' ̗̀➛' surrounding it in a diamond manner, running around in a clockwise direction. "So, I was right," He muttered with a vicious smirk and his eyes trembled, confirming his suspicions, "Those damn nanites...!" Not even a second later, he felt an agonizing headache pound against his skull, causing him to clutch his head with a clenched jaw. He stumbled backwards, hitting his lower back against the control panel behind him.
With squinted eyes, his hand fumbled around on the panel until he felt the screwdriver. "Fuck off already!" He roared as he picked up the screwdriver and pulled it towards him, aiming for his glowing iris. However, an inch before he could impale the screwdriver into his eyeball, the dagger-like stinger wrapped itself around his wrist, stopping him. His hand was trembling from how much pressure he was putting in to push the screwdriver into his eye, yet the stinger showed no signs of budging. As a last attempt, he used his other hand to assist him; his actions were futile. He wanted to move his head forward but it felt like his body refused to listen to him.
"Warning: Detecting rising levels of threats and self-harm in User," His lips moved when a mixture of his and Ellipse's voices escaped them. He could feel his blood boil under his skin from how he was fuming with anger and bloodlust; tempted to rip Ellipse apart from limb to limb. "You fucker," He growled out in resentment, watching how the stinger pulled his trembling hand away from his face. Ellipse internally forced the nerves in his hand to unclench, releasing the screwdriver from his palm. For a moment, he had control of his other hand and he didn't hesitate to grab the base of the stinger. Savagery was seen in his eyes when he used his other hand to hold the tail in place before plunging the stinger into it.
Blood splattered over his face and torso as he brutally severed the tail from his tailbone, repeating this process whenever it attempted to regenerate itself. V watched in a calm and collected manner how he bathed in his own blood, splattering the reddish-orange liquid across the floor and walls. This went on for at least fifteen minutes before he slid to the floor with a deep yet hoarse sigh, leaning his head against the panel behind him. Silently, he observed how every single drop of blood retreated to the gorey wound on his tailbone, restoring the tail to its original state. "God, I wish that bastard was still alive so that I could strangle him right now," He tiredly uttered, laughing in despair as he glared at the ceiling.
He was referring to his father; he knew for a fact that he somehow evolved Ellipse's program when he was in that cryonic. What he didn't expect was for Ellipse to be one of the experimental programs that was used to test whether AI could merge with a human's nerve system and mind. 'I'm so stupid for not noticing the signs,' He rubbed his face in frustration, degrading himself further, 'Why didn't I find her coding suspicious...?'
His blade-like tail flicked around on the ground in a slow yet menacing manner, reflecting the emotions that he was feeling. "Are you done now?" V's voice snapped him out of his thoughts, causing him to tense up with his hands covering his face. "Yeah..." He mumbled, peeking at her through the gaps of his fingers, "I'm all done with my tantrum..." She watched how he slowly got on his feet again and rubbed his left eye, which started to return to normal. "I would appreciate it if you don't tell N or Uzi about this," He mentioned with a strained tone, glancing at her with slightly pleading yet exhausted eyes, "It could be our lil' secret, okay?"
Silently, she stared at him for a few seconds before nodding as her stinger slithered to his tail. He watched how her stinger lightly tapped itself against his tail, almost as if she was reassuring him that everything was fine. "But you owe me," She sternly told him with a scowl, clicking her tongue in distaste, "Remember that." A small laugh escaped his lips at her words and his tail unconsciously wrapped itself around her stinger before uncurling itself from it. "Yes, yes," He mused a bit and picked up his jacket, tugging it on with a huff, "When the time comes, you can use that 'I-owe-you' card whenever you want." She watched how he placed the notebook on the panel next to her and handed her a pencil.
"There are some puzzles in there if you get too bored with blowing bubbles," He mentioned with a smirk, amused by her glare, "Try not to destroy the notebook since all the notes and equations of the pod's parts are in there." Without another word, he climbed out of the pod, leaving her inside. Quietly, she opened the notebook and grinned when she spotted the dozens of sudoku and crossword puzzles inside it.