Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was supposed to be a simple job, in and out, get paid. They had gotten past the outer wall of the lab quietly, made it past the security guards and into the ‘Anomalous Materials Lab’ and found their payday. It should’ve been oh so simple.

But no, it wasn’t, the gang got caught by a roaming guard, and the pager operator wouldn’t buy their excuses again. Now they were pinned in the vault they spent the last thirty minutes trying to crack open as the police advanced closer to their position. They were out of medic bags, ammo, and sure as hell didn’t have any grenades left. Wolf was leaning out of the vault firing shells with his shot gun, Chains was firing down a constant bullet spray with his LMG, and Hoxton was just trying to get the glass case off the thing they were trying to steal, Locke hadn’t told them exactly what it was, other than it being worth billions.

“My friends, I’m trying to get an escape route to you, but the bloody cops have the hole place surrounded! Just get the thing and I’ll see what I can do!” Locke yelled over the radio, struggling to keep track of what even was happening at the moment.

“Fucking, Locke! Of course he would get this job!” Dallas yelled in frustration before leaning out of cover and letting an entire magazine down range.

“Focus on Locke later, Dallas! Focus on those fucking wankers advancing on our position so I can get this doohickey out of here!” Hoxton yelled back.

“You’re up against a wall, and I am the fucking wall!” Dallas heard the familiar taunt of a Bulldozer yell.

“Bulldozer!” Wolf yelled while he just kept firing his shotgun.

“Dammit! Of course they brought in another damn Dozer, wasn’t 15 enough!?” Dallas yelled.

“Well, we’re still here, aren’t we? So it obviously wasn’t enough!” Chains yelled back.

Meanwhile, Hoxton had managed to get the case off, finally, the thing had way too many security measures. Upon the glass hitting the floor, he grabbed the strange object, it was cubical in shape, with the edges glowing a strange yellow hue, while the rest of it a reflective silver.

“I got the loot! Let’s get out of here!”

Just then, the gang heard the familiar sound and footsteps… of a Cloaker. Just as Hoxton yelled he had the loot, a vent dropped and out came a Cloaker, making its signature noise and dropkicking Hoxton to the ground. “Oh, thought you were safe, didn’t you?” it taunted as it started hitting Hoxton with its  baton.

However, the odd device, upon hitting the floor, started to expand its yellow hue, to one more golden. The room started to fill up with a golden light, the gang, the cloaker, the bulldozer, the SWAT teams, and everyone else still held hostage saw it and stopped what they were doing, way too confused on what was happening. And then they saw what looked to be hundreds of error messages in the very air around them, and then slowly expanding biological appendages started to grow out of it as it glowed and shook.

“What the fuck-“ Dallas was cut off as a noise that could’ve made a man go deaf filled the vault, echoing around before he didn’t feel the ground anymore. And all that was left was a cold void.

After what felt like seconds, Dallas felt himself falling, as soon as he did, he fell headfirst right into snow. Dallas groaned and shakily stood himself up, and then dusted himself. Then he took a look around. He saw snow, dilapidated cars and ruins. He was taken aback, one second he was in the safe with his comrades, next he’s here. Wherever here is. In the sky he saw didn’t look anything like a moon he’d ever seen.

“What the fuck? Wolf? Chains? Hox?” He turned every-which way, trying, in vain, to see if he could find where his crew members had gone.

“Shit. Goddammit! What the hell was that!?” Dallas yelled before sighing. Spotting his Car-4 in the snow, he picked it up. Inspecting it wielded no scratches or dents, and one full magazine left inside it.

“Well, no use yelling about his now. I gotta find the gang. Wherever we are.” He started to trudge through the snow, looking for any indication or clue to what might’ve happened. If only he noticed the green lights of night vision goggles in the ruined interior of a building…

Wolf felt the same things Dallas did, floating in an endless void before suddenly falling and landing on his back, right on cold, hard, concrete. “What the fuck?” He groaned as he started to stand up, grabbing his discarded reinfeld shotgun at his side. He stood up, holding his head and groaning before his vision fully re-centered.

As his vision cleared, he saw in front of him some sort of humanoid machine about half his height. Holo-graphic looking eyes staring up at him. Looking around for a second, he saw creates, containers, and many more of these things in a circle around him.

“What the fuck!?” He yelled out in surprise, racking his shotgun and taking a shocked step back.

The small, drone, thing’s eyes hollowed out and took a step back. “N-now just calm down-“

“You can talk!?” Wolf yelled out of surprise again, confusion taking hold.

“Y-yes I can talk now just put it down-“

“Where am I?” Wolf asked, interrupting the strange being. He put down his shotgun as well, not seeing any immediate threats.

“You’re in our home from the, uh, Murder Drones. Do those ring any bells… your name?”

“Wolf. And no. All I remember is being in a shootout and then poof! I’m here.” Wolf just dazedly looks around, seeing that they’re inside some sort of storage depot, and a human skeleton.

“I’m guessing you’ll be doing a lot of explaining today.” Wolf says, pointing at the thing in front of him.

Chains, like the rest of them, felt falling and then a sudden collision with the ground.

“Oh, I’m feeling that in the morning.” He says while standing up. He grabs his LMG on the way, and then notices something. He’s in some sort of building, with some sort of dried black liquid in the snow he’s in. He sees the walls that, upon a closer look, aren’t made of normal brick or wood, but instead, bodies of some sort of mechanical creation. Chains takes a step back. Looking up he saw something, someone, hanging from the ceiling. Bladed wings, and a sinister yellow glow emanating from it. He takes a step back.

“What the hell is this place…” He quietly says before taking quiet steps away, trying not to wake the thing sleeping above him, and towards a giant hole in the spire of bodies he’s in.

As her turns around however, he sees a short robot thing with purple eyes, a beanie, and a jacket pointing what looks to be a dismembered robot arm at him.

“What’re you doing here, human?” It- SHE says to Chains.

“…What?”

And Hoxton, just like the other three felt the cold hard ground hit him. “Fucking hell…” He says, taking a gander around while laying on his back from the fall. He was in some sort of office space. The lights faded dark, and he could see corpses of strange robots around him. Standing up, he grabs the two pistols that were at his side and aims them wildly around.

“Where the hell am I?” He asks no one, looking around him for any sort of indication about where he could even be.

He cautiously starts walking through the cubicles, past the dead robots and what looked like dried oil. He kept walking and walking, looking for any exit of this place. Eventually, however, he heard a door opening, and some sort of chitter. He turned around and aimed his pistols down the hall it came from, slowly backing off.

He heard loud, thumping footsteps, a lot of them, all around him. Out of the hallway with slow and precise steps, came out a sort of raptor like thing with six eyes, some sort of flashlight on its forehead, and sharp teeth.

“Oh you got to be kidding me.”

Chapter Text

“So, you’re telling me that, we humans, blew ourselves up in our own hubris?” Wolf asks for clarification from what he had recently learned was called a Worker Drone, in front of him.

“That’s basically what happened, yeah.” The Worker replied.

Wolf simply stared, none of the Drones could tell what he was thinking, other than that he was just staring them down. Some of the Drones feel fear from the human in front of them that didn’t seem all correct in the head.

“Eh, sounds like something we would do.” Wolf says while shrugging, making one of the Workers let out a sigh of relief.

Wolf was mostly unarmed, his shotgun at his side. It had been around an hour since he ended up on this planet that he learned was called Copper-9, and he was kind of digging it. Minus the whole ‘stranded on an alien world, possibly complete other dimension’ part of course. With all things considered, Wolf wasn’t in immediate danger.

“And… about these… ‘Murder Drones’ you mentioned, what are they?” Wolf asks, his final question now in the air.

“Well,” the Worker in front of him began, “a few years ago, more like a decade, they came here without warning from the sky. We didn’t know what they were, and our naivety was a mistake when they appeared from the pod they emerged from. They slaughtered all of us in sight.” The Worker said with venom,

“They chased us to this bunker and now we’re waiting for death itself. Although there is some hope, not long ago a Murder Drone was killed by one of us and another one of… them. We don’t… exactly know what happened. Only that they’re… friends? And one’s rather nice.” The Worker finishes, his demeanor entirely changing from a few seconds ago.

Wolf stares, a tad bit bewildered, but the Drones can’t see that.

“Man… That’s a pretty metal inciting incident from the sounds of it.” Wolf comments.

“You could say that. Now, we can continue this conversation later, we have a roof to fix.” The Worker says, pointing up.

Wolf’s head turns to look where he’s pointing and sees the rather obvious hole in the roof. He was kind of confused about how he never noticed it. He shrugged and stood up, grabbing his shotgun along the way.

“Alright, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll just take some ganders around the place if you don’t mind.” Wolf says.

“Oh, no we don’t mind, you’re fine.” The Worker says before walking off towards the hole in the roof.

Wolf stretched a bit and walked off towards the exit to the room.

“Try and catch me, ya fucking wankers!” Hoxton yells as he ducks below a cubicle, a raptor-like thing soaring over.

While the thing recovers, Hoxton unloads ten rounds into the thing before breaking into a sprint away as the thing stands up and growls. It raced after him, trying to, what Hoxton is very much assuming, eat him. Another three appeared as well, joining in the chase after him.

Hoxton hopped cubicles and jumped over dead bodies of what seemed to be robots on the ground in this game of cat and mouse. He sent whatever object he could reach into the way of the raptors, making one of them trip and fall. He sends a few shots down the alley between cubicles at the raptors as he starts to tire.

He sprints for a second, using the last of his stamina. He grabs his last frag grenade from the heist an hour earlier, and pulls the pin, releasing the safety handle for a second. At the tail end of his sprint, he dives and turns over. Tossing the grenade midfall before hitting the ground. The raptors’ heads turn and watch the grenade as it passes next to them and explodes into shrapnel.

The shrapnel pierces the eyes of the things, destroying the fragile innards and sending their bodies flying.

Panting, Hoxton watches as they all stop moving. “Fuck, that was close.” He says, dusting himself off and standing up.

He takes a few backsteps away and bumps into something shorter than him. On instinct he whips around and fires a round from his pistols at it. He hears a momentary scream and sees a thing like the bodies he had jumped over standing in front of him, a bullet in their face. It seemed to have odd antlers on its head. Just as soon as he saw it, it wobbled and fell over.

“What the hell was that?” Hoxton says, carefully stepping over the now dead being. He let out a short ‘eugh’ sound as he did. He started to wander the now probably sort of safe halls. He looked down every hallway, corridor, intersection, everywhere for some sort of exit. He just wished that for once, in any building he was in, there would be an ‘exit this way!’ sign.

It had been an hour, a whole damn hour, since the two had entered a stand-off. Chains didn’t move, neither did the thing with purple eyes in front of him did. They just stared at each other. One with hostile intent, the other with confusion. It was also weird they stayed still this long, as if for plot convenience… Nah, probably not, they’re probably just good at freezing in freeze tag.

“I’m going to ask again. What are you doing here, Human!?” The thing in front of him repeats.

“What do you mean, ‘what am I doing here?’ I have no clue. I don’t know where I am!” Chains responds.

“Bite me! N, Get down here!” She yells.

He then hears mechanical whirring, and then a loud thump behind him.

Chains turns immediately, facing towards whatever just fell. He saw it. A mechanical monster with metal wings and a tail with a syringe attached to it. It was looking down at that moment, but then started to turn with its… teeth bared, and claws for hands, a giant, glowing yellow X on its face. Just as it finished turning, Chains swore it was about to pounce, then its X turned into eyes and its posture and position to one that was more relaxed within seconds.

“Hi, Uzi!” It says to the Drone behind him before noticing him.

“Oh! Didn’t see you there! What’s your name, friend?” It asks, the previous terrifying demeanor completely gone. Chains being confused was putting it lightly.

“…Chains.” Chains slowly says, processing all that was happening.

“He’s not a friend, N! He’s a human! The ones who abandoned you on this planet and tried to kill us via you!” The one named he now knows is Uzi replies.

“Oh, whoopsie me I guess. But what am I supposed to do?” N asked, confusedly scratching his head.

“Kill him!” Uzi yells.

N puts his hands together and stares at Uzi, seemingly in intense thought. “Are… we sure that’s morality?” He finally asks.

“They left you here to die. How is it not?” Uzi answers.

Chains watched the exchange with confusion. He slowly stepped away, being as quiet as he could in the snow. “I have no idea what this is all about, so I’ll just be going now.” Chains says before turning and trying to make a sprint towards the exit.

“Oh no you don’t! N!”

“on it!” And in a swift movement, N lands in front of Chains, blocking his exit.

“Listen I have no ideas what you’re going on about lady, but I had nothing to do with it.” Chains says, turning around to face Uzi.

“OF course you had something to do with it! You’re human!” Uzi yells back at Chains.

“I did not! That’s like saying that because a singular seven, ate a nine, all sevens are cannibals!” Chains retorts.

Uzi was about to yell back but failed to process what Chains just said. “What?”

“I’m saying that because one did, doesn’t mean they all did!”

“It does, though! You all mistreated robots and left N here to die!” Uzi continues yelling.

“Hello!” N says at his name being said.

“Hello, N.” Chains and Uzi both say before yelling at each other again.

N simply observed the yelling match devolve from discussion about if one person does something, all others like them are at fault as well, to just angry yelling and confusing analogies. N felt like he had to do something. So, he stepped in between the two.

“And updog is- N, what’re you doing!?” Uzi yells.

“Stopping you from waking the whole planet. Now, how about a compromise-”

“Why do you have to compromise my murder plans!?” Uzi interrupted.

“You stay out here and don’t leave.” He says, pointing to Chains. “And you go back inside the pod and continue whatever you were doing. We’ll sort this out later.”

“I’m down with that.” Chains affirms.

“Fine.” Uzi simply says.

“Good,” N says happily, “now let’s try not to bother the other.”

Uzi wanders back to the pod, angrily muttering while Chains simply walks to a wall of the spire and sits next to it.

“Sorry about that.” N says. “She’s just extremely mad at the humans for all they did to us. I’m sure you’re fine though!” N says without a care in the world.

“Well, then. Nice to meet you… N.” Chains says.

“Nice to meet you too, Chains!” N replies before flying up to the roof.

Chains has a feeling that this will be a mess.

Chapter Text

All was quiet in the bunker, not a creature was stirring… other than a Wolf and many Worker Drones.

Wolf had taken the task of exploring the bunker and just trying to get a handle on where he was. He’d talked to a few Workers, although most had been surprised to see a human: especially one without a space suit. Because, apparently, organic beings probably needed one to walk the surface. That point on made him wonder how he was even breathing in the bunker, but he didn’t question it further.

Wolf’s Reinfeld rested on his shoulder as he waltzed around, taking in the mostly mono gray walls and dead plants. Oh, and the occasional human skeleton of course. He’d seen two and when he pointed it out, the Worker just shrugged and said, ‘guess we missed some.’ Wolf didn’t know how exactly to feel about that but carried on. Wolf had passed quite a few important areas of the bunker, those being the medical wing, the headquarters of what he found out to be something called ‘the Worker Defense Force’, the three giant doors that a few Workers said saved their lives all those years ago, and somehow a school. Because apparently these sentient robots can have kids.

Wolf tried not to think about it, and apparently some of the intelligent Drones tried not to as well when he asked.

Wolf had wondered numerous times about where his fellow heisters were and grew increasingly worried by the minute about them. He didn’t let it slip, though. He always kept an eye out in the corridor, hoping that maybe they would appear just like he had. Maybe he’d find a way outside of the bunker and try to find them. Surely they had to be somewhere out there, right?

It was all fine and dandy in his thoughts until he passed down a hallway with a singular glowing vending machine with cracked glass. Said vending machine provided the only light to the room. And there was dried oil on the floor. He’d been told that was the equivalent of blood to Workers. Now just why was it there.

The scene mildly unnerved Wolf, so he stopped walking and brought his shotgun from its resting position and held it at the ready. Wolf didn’t have many shells left, but he hoped it would be enough to last him if anything came from the darkness. He hoped nothing would.

Noticing a vent cover on the ground, Wolf steadily aimed upwards towards the vents. He looked into the hole where the cover should be and noticed something blink. And then five, ten, sixteen, an uncountable number of yellow eyes stared back.

“…I know better, hell no.” Wolf made some careful steps back, keeping eye-contact best he could with a few of the eyes. His steps backwards were interrupted when his back hit something that wasn’t there before. He quickly pulled a 180, aiming his shotgun at what he backed into. The thing was made of ugly orange metal blades, looking almost akin to a lobster claw due to its ridges on the blades.

“Block. You do not get to walk away, unknown Variable.” Wolf heard a robotic voice speak from behind him. Once again pulling a 180, finger on the shotgun trigger, he saw a… HOLY SHIT WAS THAT A SNAKE CRAB!?

The… snake crab thing… was surrounded by cameras on eyestalks, all watching him. Some were glaring, and one was hovering above the snake crab thing, which he just noticed had a head with robotic hair. More claws and strange eyestalks descended from the vent, in rather alarming numbers as well.

“Helevete!” Wolf yelled in his native tongue, aiming his shotgun at one of the eyestalk camera beings.

“Ah, yes, the ancient human language colloquially known as, 'Swedish.' Mocking laugh. Humans do have the weirdest names.” One of the eyestalks said without a mouth, moving closer to him.

“Just what are you, you freaky crab thing?” Wolf asked, weary of the approaching claws trying to surround him.

“The Solver of the Absolute Fabric, The Void, the Exponential End.” The camera stalk’s gaze turned into a glare, and Wolf could swear he saw code boxes float next to it.

“And you said we had weird names,” Wolf says quietly, “Alright, that’s enough of this.” Wolf quickly raises his shotgun and blasts the eyestalk, making it explode into… blood? Why the fuck is there blood!? And of course a bit of oil.

“Claw swipe.“ The Solver, thing, monster said as it swung one its claws at Wolf.

Wolf ducked, putting his heisting reflexes to use. He then racked another round and quickly fired another shot at an eyestalk, then racking the shotgun and firing at the claw behind him, causing it to recoil away. He quickly rolled under the recoiled claw and started to sprint as fast as he could way from the monster of malice behind him.

He should not have acted to casual about all of this. Nope! Shouldn’t’ve!

As he ran, he didn’t look behind him. He missed the fact that the thing he was running from hadn’t bothered to chase, and instead stared.

“Exasperated sigh. An unknown variable is added to the mix, then. No human should be here right now.” The Solver had a claw rip off the two damaged eyestalks and take them into the vent, while the injured claw simply started self-repair.

The Solver brought a claw under the chin of one of its many eyestalks. “Thoughtful hum. I must reiterate plans, and make sure no more humans have arrived. But that can wait, I must rebuild, recreate, fix this failed host.”

Dallas had been walking for hours in this never-ending blizzard and deserted city. He didn’t even know where he was in this mess, all the maps he had tried to find were faded. He’d seen a myriad of flash-frozen skeletons as well, as if they’d frozen instantaneously. It was unnerving to say the least, but that comes from a guy who put someone into the president’s body via a pyramid under the damn White House.

Dallas shrugged as he trudged along, confused on why he didn’t feel what was probably frigid cold. Although, he never questioned it. He’d rather not test the gods. Dallas hadn’t seen any sign of his teammates as he walked either. He hoped they were alright, all things going on, on wherever he was considered.

Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a familiar green glow. His body reacted faster than his mind. He rapidly turned, all the while the familiar sound of a Cloaker charging. However, he wasn’t faster than the Cloaker’s own speed. The Cloaker had already closed a significant distance. The Cloaker was mid jump, about to slam the baton of god onto him.

At least, he was.

A single gunshot rang out from behind Dallas at the Cloaker. The Cloaker reacted quicker than Dallas could blink. The Cloaker blocked in front of him with his baton in the middle of his jump, somehow catching the bullet. A minor wind wake came from behind the Cloaker at the shocking feat of speed.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that! I have the power of god, the United States Police Force, and anime on my side!” The Cloaker yelled in their garbled voice, letting the bullet fall from its baton.

“Fuckin’ dammit!” Dallas heard the familiar voice of Hoxton yell from behind him.

“Hox?” Dallas asked, making quick steps away from the Cloaker and towards the familiar voice.

Hoxton was standing there, covered in snow and aiming his two pistols at the Cloaker. “The one and only! Now let’s get the hell out of ‘ere before this fucker charges again!”

Dallas nods before the two of them sprint away from the Cloaker that was obviously way faster than others. They’d figure that out later, for now they had the other half of the crew to find.