Chapter Text
Why are you doing this?
What's the point of it all?
Do you really think running from your problems is the solution?
...
Fine. Don't answer.
I'll leave you to it.
[Wakey wakey, sleepyhead.]
J opened her eyes to the interior of the landing pod. Drawings plastered the walls, with stacks of paper shoved into the corner. There wasn't much to do to keep busy after so long, besides scavenging for parts for the pod, so she just started drawing whatever came to mind. It was a good distraction from her thoughts; thoughts that would creep into the forefront of her mind and assault her psyche with images she wished she could just forget. J got up from the chair she had fallen asleep in, walking over to the exit hatch and flying out into the snowy wastes.
It had been about 4 months, give or take, since her "boss" was defeated; leaving J to her own devices. She had elected to leave the planet rather than try and make amends, not like the others would even give her that chance. She had sided with the thing that had tortured them for so many years, there wasn't any going back from that. Sure she could try to justify it, say how she had no choice and if she fought back she would've been forced back under its control even harder, but they wouldn't llisten.
Not like she blamed them, she wouldn't either.
J landed in front of the pod, turning around to examine it. She was proud of how much work she had completed on the thing. Given her lack of technical skills, she basically had to teach herself how to construct it. Now it was almost fully complete, all it was missing was a power source. Though, the frustrating thing about that was the fact there was no where on this cursed planet that had one powerful enough, or portable enough.
J looked up into the night sky, pondering to herself where something like that could be. Though, as she did, she became aware of just how quiet it was. Besides the wind, there was no noise at all. There hadn't been much noise at all for the 4 months she had been alone here. It felt weird. She hadn't realized just how much she had gotten used to hearing N or V moving around, or bickering, or just doing whatever, really. Not like she actually missed them, or so she told herself, she didn't need those traitors.
Though, given who won, wasn't she the traitor?
J shook her head, snapping out of her thoughts. She just needed a power source and she could forget entirely about those two. Though, again, where would she find one?
Well, there was one place she hadn't looked. But even if she could get within 10 feet of that place, there's no way they'd entertain the idea of talking to her. She had done so much to both of them, there was no way either of them would listen. Especially not N.
In retrospect, all the reasons she ended up hating him seemed so petty. He was too nice, or he got more attention, or he was too much of a doormat, or he had the luxury of being able to forget everything.
That last one still annoyed J somewhat, though 4 months of being alone with her thoughts had left her to mostly blame the solver over N. It's not like he chose to forget it all; in fact, J figured he probally would have preferred to remember. But that's just how the solver was, it was a fucking monkeys paw.
Before J could continue on this line of thinking, a notification appeared on her visor reminding her about the checklist. Right. The checklist. She should probally focus back on that.
The only place that might have a suitable power source would be that outpost those 2 had started to live in, along with that weird emo drone they had seemingly gotten friendly with. After 4 months to cool off maybe they'd not shoot her on sight, but bargaining for a power source powerful enough to propel a space ship would be... difficult, to say the least.
Still, there weren't really any other options. So, J metaphorically dusted off her conversational subroutines and took off straight for Outpost 3.
...
She landed atop a skyscraper overlooking the entrance to the site. The flight over had been notably uneventful, there wasn't a single thing alive she could have noticed. Not a huge suprise given she hadn't seen a soul ever since Cyn died, but it was still always weird to J just how empty the city was. Surely after beating Cyn, making freinds with the dissesembly drones, (besides herself) and fixing the planet the workers would be out in force scavenging right? It just didn't make much sense to J why there was no one anywhere, the only justification she could think of was that the workers were just that incompetent.
Even then, she hadn't seen N, V, or that little emo they hang around with either, and they were definetly more competent than the average worker drone.
Well, maybe not N...
Regardless, it was strange just how empty the planet felt. And, peering over the edge of the building at the entrance below, that feeling only grew. The doors were wide open, and yet no one was around. Even with the relative pacification of the planet, J figured they'd keep the door closed just in case, or at the very least have someone standing guard outside. Were the workers really that much more incompetent than she thought? It kind of bummed J out, as it made a lot of her past kills on them seem a lot less impressive knowing they were this bad at self-preservation.
She leapt off the building, her wings spreading and gliding her down to a gentle landing in front of the entrance. Now being able to look inside, there was still no one. The lights were on, the ventilation was running, there was even a table set out with a deck of cards as if some people were getting ready for a game.
And yet, no one was around.
J started to feel uneased, there was clearly something wrong with this place. The lack of anyone around despite the signs of life screamed trap. And yet, J started to walk inside the bunker. Curiosity got the better of her, and she wanted to see if there was a reason for the workers not being around. Besides, if this did end up being a trap at the very least she'd get something new happening.
Her legs clacked against the metal floors as she went deeper in, their sound echoing down the empty halls. More and more evidence of life passed her by, with still no one to be seen. A shop with the shutters open and a bag set on the counter, ready to be checked. A restraunt with food still set out on the tables. A little indoor playground that still had toys in the middle of play, despite no children to play with them.
The sense of unease J felt had now grown to paranoia. Something was deeply wrong with this place, she just had no idea what. Her first thought was that N and V had descided to just kill them all, but that would have left plenty of evidence of a slaughter. What she was seeing was more like everyone just vanished one day on the spot, and it started to freak her out. There was no way this was just a trap at this point, most of the facility had just been abandoned, this was far too elaborate for a trap. Something had to have done this deliberately. Maybe she should just leave at this poi-
"J?"
Someone called out to her from down the hall. She swore she could recognize the voice, but there was something subtly off about it that threw her off. From around the corner a tall figure came into view, wearing a pilots hat. It was N, but again, something was off about him. J couldn't place what it was, but she felt uneasy looking at him. Then again she hadn't seen him in months, maybe she had forgotten exactly what he looked like?
He quickly sprinted down the hall to her, stopping a bit in front of her. He seemed happy to see her, given how much he was bouncing on his heels.
"Wow! It's been a while since I've seen you! Where have ya been?"
J didn't know what to make of this. He was happy to see her for some reason, and he was acting like everything was totally normal and not like everyone hadn't just vanished.
"I... what? N, what the hell happened? Where is everyone?"
He stayed silent.
"I know you can hear me, dammit! Where did everyone go?!"
He just stared blankly at her.
"Fucking answer me!"
She tried to grab his shoulders to shake him out of it, but her hands didn't grab anything, they just passed through his body like he wasn't there. His body started to become fuzzy, like it was made of TV static. J took a step backwards, horrified.
"Your not N... wh-what the fuck are you?"
It's voice changed to one she was, unfortunately, all to familiar with. That same broken cadence she had gotten to know so well spoke back from N's body, like it was puppeting him.
"Oh, J. You know who I am. How could, you not?"
A sickening smile spread across its face, the head tilting sideways at an impossible angle. J felt like she was going to be sick, her chest heaved as she started to hyperventilate. She should have known it wouldn't have died that easily, and now here it was staring her in the face. Her arm transformed into a rocket launcher, with her raising it up at the hologram.
"Your not gonna fucking control me again. I'll kill myself before I let you."
It giggled, as if this was just some game to it.
"You don't have much of a choice in the matter. Jaybird."
"Don't you fucking call me that!"
In her rage, she failed to notice the claw that had sprung out of the floorboard behind her. A sudden sharp pain peirced her abdomen, and looking down she found herself stabbed on the claw. Before she could react it swung sideways, flinging her across the room into the wall headfirst. Her visor shattered, with all of the sensors on her headband being destroyed. She crumpled to the floor in a daze, her vision just barely making out the fuzzy silhouette of the monster that had done this to her. Her audio sensors were stuck in a feedback loop, meaning all she could hear was ringing.
As it started to walk over to her, J just accepted her fate. She shouldn't even have tried to fight back; she knew it was futile. Though, just before it reached her; another, shorter silhouette appeared and started arguing with it. She couldn't make out what it was they were saying, but eventually it vanished, leaving only the short silhouette in its place. It walked over to her, kneeling down. She felt her head get cupped into its hands as it lifted her head to meet its gaze.
Two purple eyes stared back at her.
Before she could properly react, J finally blacked out.