Witch of the Wastes (Ch 2)

Uzi taps the side of her pen against her notepad as she once again replays the scene stored in her memory banks. Firing her railgun, the massive beam completely disintegrating N’s head, and said head regrowing. Him regrowing a completely new head isn’t the problem that’s stumping her, though. No, clearly the Murder Drones’ heads aren’t a fatal weak spot like they are for worker drones, so next time she runs into one she’ll just have to aim for center mass instead. Whether or not that actually manages to keep them down is another problem entirely…

Regardless of her inevitable future battles though, her focus right now is on trying to regulate the amount of energy her weapon expends when she fires it. That thirty minute cooldown was entirely unnecessary! Sure, it was a sick as hell, incredibly badass scene worthy of the cinematic debut of her sick as hell railgun, but for anything more than a finishing move it just won’t work. Which means that she needs to fit in a redesign for a better transmission from the power core to the barrel of the gun in order to prevent it from just shooting as much power as the safety features allow it. A bonus perk of doing so is that the power core is less likely to get damaged, drained, or explode!

Then again, maybe she shouldn’t fix that. Instead, she could keep her sick as hell railgun as is and make it into an actual finishing move! Yeah, for fights that basically amount to boss battles or for her to intimidate other drones she would be able to keep it as is! Maybe increase the amount or efficiency of the cooling rods, to reduce the cooldown, but what she should be focusing on is a different kind of gun! Heh, maybe she should make the gun she’s named after, that would be pretty funny. “Uzi shot you with an uzi,” she says quietly to herself before chuckling and making a note to raid the junkyard for more parts.

It’s annoying that she can’t just buy them with the money she gets from her part time jobs, but Khan has apparently decided that the best way to make sure she doesn’t try to build another sick as hell railgun is to randomly burst into her room and search it for anything he thinks she can use to make things, as well as monitor what she brings into his house. Which unfortunately means that her room is no longer the safe space it used to be. It’s a good thing that doesn’t have any friends… except maybe Thad, sort of. Anyway, thanks to not having friends she’s explored most of the bunker, including parts of it that people don’t think to explore! For example-

Uzi’s pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of Khan knocking on her door followed by his voice. “Uzi! It’s time for dinner!”

She sighs and puts her pen and notepad to the side, right next to her tools and half completed new sick as hell railgun, before moving from her seated position onto her hands and knees so she can crawl towards the exit. She pushes open the vent with long familiarity before a strange symbol materializes in the palm of her hand. The symbol is made up of a purple hexagon with three arrows extending out at separate corners to make a triangular shape.

It’s something she found out she can do a couple days after she came back from her… calling it a fight feels weird, so she’ll just say ‘encounter’ with N. Of course, she has no idea why she has freaky badass witch powers now, but they’re freaky badass witch powers so she’s happy with them. She has no idea why mirrors are so scared of her powers that they shatter when the symbol appears in her reflection instead of her right eye, but Uzi is of the firm belief that it’s a small price to pay in order to have them. Especially since it makes it easier for her to screw the air vent closed again after she jumps back down onto her bed.

She ignores the small increase in how thirsty she is with the same ease that she’s been ignoring it all week. She’s only been using her powers in small amounts to get used to them and to try to figure out what they can do, which is how she found out that using them makes her thirsty in the first place. Not that it helps with figuring out what she has to drink! Seriously! They’re her freaky badass witch powers, she should be able to figure out what liquid she needs to drink to power them! Maybe she should just put aside some credits to buy a ton of liquids at the store later to figure out what she needs…

Still, it could be worse. It’s not like Murder Drones are infectious or anything.

That thought popping up in her processors causes her to freeze with her hand on the handle of her bedroom door. Digital synapses rapid fire as she pieces together the timeline of when she found out she has witch powers. After coming to the logical conclusion that N did, in fact, somehow give her badass witch powers, she can’t help but sigh at the sheer ridiculousness of that probable fact.

“I really hope N didn’t give me the equivalent of Murder Drone rabies,” Uzi jokes to herself with a wry chuckle before schooling her expression and opening the door to the sight of her former dad.

`~`

Khan absently chews one of the copper burgers he picked up for dinner on the way home, which he’s pretty sure is one of his daughter’s favorite things to eat. Not that she’s told him that. In fact, she hasn’t said a single word to him since the day she snuck out of the bunker. He just doesn’t get it! Why can’t she understand that he just wants her to be safe? All those crazy ideas, all the times she’s blown something up while tinkering with her toys, none of that will keep her safe!

He didn’t stop any of that before because he could see that she enjoyed them, even though he knew that they were responsible for the problems she used to mention having at school. But sneaking out of the bunker? That was the last screw! The fact that she somehow managed to damage her processors enough that she thought she encountered and killed a Murder Drone was just the finished door’s first slam. He had to put his foot down to stop her from going out again and getting herself killed.

He can’t lose her. Not like he lost her mother.

He can admit that he might have gone a bit… overboard, with breaking her gadget. He could have just put it in the same closet as he put all of Nori’s kooky insane stuff, hell, maybe he could have made an entirely new closet for Uzi’s kooky insane stuff! It certainly would have been a fun project, making another door to put in their home.

Khan shoots another glance at his daughter and internally sighs. She’s eating, at least, but there’s no expression on her face. Nothing to tell him what she thinks of the food. Nothing to tell him how she’s feeling. Nothing to tell him… anything. It’s just blank. It’s an awkward dinner, but he’s gotten used to that over the last week. He did try to talk to her the first couple of days, but there’s nothing he can do if she doesn’t respond.

Just as he opens his mouth to try and have a conversation with her (again), she pushes her chair away from the table, startling him slightly. A glance down shows him that she’s finished her food, and before he can say anything she’s already walking away, back to her room.

Khan sighs out loud this time when he hears her door close. Not slam, because that would at least mean that he would know that she’s feeling something, but just the quiet click of the door fully shutting closed.

He doesn’t regret putting a stop to that dangerous stuff, but he does miss when the two of them would occasionally talk at dinner.

`~`

Doll exchanges yet another baffled look with Lizzy, though with more than a little worry after Uzi returns to her seat after giving her oral presentation on how the drones of Copper 9 adopted credits as their form of currency instead of trying to choose one of the many different monetary systems the humans used. Which is definitely weird. Not that her fellow purple drone did the project, Doll knows her cousin well enough that she’s positive she would have found it interesting. Even if they aren’t close anymore and she’s… self aware enough to know that she and her girlfriend are considered two of Uzi’s main bullies, if not anywhere close to the worst. The point is that she’s positive that Uzi would have been excited for the project and somehow turned it into an opportunity to explain some sort of insane plan on how they can kill the Murder Drones through the power of capitalism.

At least, that’s what Doll would have thought a week ago.

Word spread very quickly when Khan publicly declared his daughter to be damaged in front of the bunker doors. Which isn’t something that’s considered news to the residents of Outpost 3, but for him to evidently get mad enough to shout it at her out in public instead of putting it on one of the many posters plastered around their home meant that everyone was talking about it. There are even some betting pools on some of the group chats Lizzy made Doll be a part of that were wondering if Uzi would finally say ‘frick it’ and become a school shooter like is documented to be a semi-frequent occurrence back on Earth with the humans.

For the record, Doll put her credits on it taking at least until prom before anyone would have to worry about that.

But what everyone agreed on, though, was that the purple haired outcast would be even more chaotic and aggressive than she usually is after the much-talked about confrontation with her father. But when the weekend passed and school rolled around again, they were all shocked by the fact that Uzi had… mellowed out. Or, no, that isn’t the right phrase. It’s more that she’s closed herself off. Before she would always react to any taunts or provocations the other students threw at her, often escalating things to the point where Doll genuinely wondered if Uzi was going to physically attack someone.

Thankfully (depending on how you think about it) she never did… But making a device to temporarily steal someone’s sentience and somehow permanently lighting their head on fire isn’t much of an improvement. Or any kind of improvement, really. It’s why she doesn’t think it’s unreasonable that she freaks out most of the class.

Doll determinedly ignores the voice in her head saying that she’s much more of a freak than her cousin, even considering that she has the excuse of being influenced by the equivalent of robot satan’s power. No one else has their parents’ corpses sitting at their dining table, after all. At least from what she’s been able to find out.

Where was she going with this…?

Oh, right. The point is that Doll is starting to get genuinely worried about the girl, and it’s making her feel weird given that she’s been part of so many of the problems she’s had over the years. Not that anyone other than Lizzy is able to tell, which the blonde showcases when she drags her to an empty classroom once school comes to an end.

“Ok, spill Doll,” she says after she leans against the locked door and crosses her arms. “Just because freakazoid what’s-her-name-” Doll gives her girlfriend an unimpressed look that causes her to scoff and turn her head away with a flip of her hair. “Fine; just because Uzi finally gave up on getting her dad’s attention doesn’t mean you need to be all worried or whatever about her. If you can deal with your whole cannibalism thing like a big girl then she can deal with her daddy issues.”

Well, when she puts it like that…

“[You act as if you aren’t worried as well.]” Doll points out in Russian, the language she was born with. Yes, she can speak English like all the other drones after she downloaded the language packet, but it makes her feel closer to her dead mother to only speak in her language. The fact that she can curse out people who didn’t bother to download the language to their faces is just a side-benefit. “[Why else would you have not taunted her this week?]”

The blonde blushes and turns her face away. “None of your business! It’s-” She cuts herself off before getting her face under control and letting out a sigh. “Look, point is that she can handle herself. Why do you think I poke at her all the time?”

“[Because it’s fun.]” Doll says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, which it is since Lizzy has directly told her that before. A fact reinforced by her nodding.

“Exactly, it’s fun. Everyone else is too held up on the fact that my dad’s the teacher to argue with me. Uzi is literally the only drone in the whole damn school that has the nerve to sass back!” She puts a reassuring hand on her purple haired girlfriend’s shoulder. “She’ll be fine, but that’s literally the first time she’s ever gotten into a fight with her dad. She’ll be back to her freaky chaos gremlin self before you know it.”

Doll lets out another sigh but reluctantly nods. “[I suppose…]” She trails off before forcing a smirk on her face and asking in a teasing tone, “[I wonder how she’d feel if she heard you say that~.]”

Lizzy flushes again and points a threatening finger at her face. “I SAID NOTHING!”

Doll lets out a loud laugh before wrapping the girl in a hug. Lizzy is taken aback by the action since she’s very familiar with how rarely her girlfriend ever initiates physical contact, but returns the hug after a moment all the same. They stay like that for a few moments before Doll pulls back and meets Lizzy’s optics with her own. “[Thank you, Lizzy.]”

Doll gets a lopsided smirk in return. “No duh, dork. That’s what girlfriends are for.” Internally, though… That crazy bitch better come through on her side of the deal!