dronebiscuitbat

[dronebiscuitbat]

I was reading polarity and realized i happened to have a red flannel and boots similar to tera's so i took parts of my uzi cosplay that i put a pause on working on for a bit, and put this together! (used the second image as a reference)

Oh! Oh my god!

That's amazing! And looks pretty damn good.

You have made me incredibly happy, you have no idea.

[dronebiscuitbat]

Oil is Thicker then Blood- Polarity Chapter 4: V

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64077811/chapters/174073090

Tera walks into the barracks like she walks into her home. It this point, it was her second home, a refuge from having to think with her brain and instead thinking with her body- something she was much better at.

The older gaurds nod at her with respect, some smiling, a few waving as she walks to her designated locker, throws her bag in and haphazardly folds her flannel inside, leaving her only in the back tank top she wore underneath and the fur-lined combat boots she always wore.

The barracks was one of the oldest buildings in Sanctuary, though the roof had been replaced twice and walls countless times due to the amount of incidents that involved someone getting thrown through it. The entrance, taking up the first quarter, was lockers to safely keep a gaurds, or in Tera's case, a gaurd in trainings, personal belongings.

The floor was treated, sanded, yet worn wood, the walls a similar material, though lighter and newer, and marked with blade scrapes and posters and dents.

In the middle of the main room was a small arena used for spars, a stone pit carved into the floor with a few wooden bleachers for others to watch, the stone was stained with black marks from oil that had been spilled anywhere from just now to 10 years ago.

The back of the room was a gym, it was open for everyone as like a public exercise room, but usually it was just used by the gaurds to hone reaction time and endurance.

The doors on the left side of the building led to the bunks, where recruits who didn't have thier own personal housing slept, some used it to get away from annoying family, others were just comfortable there. The doors to the right led to the showers, an essential for any extensive gym activity, even in drones. Sweat wasn't a problem for worker drones but dirt and grime and oil getting lodged in joints absolutely were.

Tera sighed and rolled her shoulders, which creaked and groaned like a stuck gear before popping with a hydrolic hiss, and made her way over to a punching bag for a warm up.

She stood in front of it, taking a deep breath and wiping the mental strain of school away, before putting her fists up and getting into stance; her weight on the tips of her feet and ready to dodge.

Another deep breath.

Her fist connects with the punching bag, hard. Sending it flying backwards before it came towards her again, she leaps to the side and hits it again, somehow harder, the metal pole the bag is hanging from vibrates from the force.

A growl forces it's way through her lips as her efforts to wipe away her memories of earlier today creep into her mind again. The screaming, the light, the sweet, sweet smell of warm oil-

Crack!

She hit the bag too hard and it snapped off the pole, sending it into the wall and exploding, sending dried beans absolutely everywhere, and she yelped, startling herself for a moment before sighing and looking up at the ceiling.

“I think maybe you have outpaced our equipment, Chica.” Comes from behind her, which startles her more and she jumps before whirling around.

In front of her is a drone with black hair, tall for a worker drone, and vibrant purple eyelights, he wears a black windbreaker over a brown shirt, silver dog tags, and green cargo pants.

Her face softens. “Hey Nico, sorry about the… uhm…” She gestures weakly at the destroyed bag.

He just laughs. “We have more! Besides… if it breaks like that… it's a good time to replace it anyway.”

If anything, he just seems more concerned over her. “Did you break a finger joint? It looked like you aimed to take revenge on it.”

She rubs the back of her head. “Nah, nah, I'm alright, just got too into it.” She half-smiles, the most she can do at the moment. “I can help clean up though.”

“Yes. Before someone-” As he's speaking, a gaurd runs by too fast and slips on an errant bean, the result is comical, sending them up in the air and then tumbling back on their rump.

Nico and Tera both look at each other, Tera covers her face to try to stop the laugh that wants to tear out, Nico just snorts and then dissolves into laughter, moving over to help the poor drone up. “Are you okay my friend? Ahahah…”

After they are helped up, they brush themselves off and give Tera a look, which she crosses her arms at and growls. Their eyelights hollow and they scamper off.

“I am not sure growling is polite…”

“Neither is staring.”

Nico sighs. “I guess I cannot argue…”

The Barracks door opens, the mood shifts from relaxed to tense in an instant. Nico and Tera look up from their mess.

V walks in with a claw on her hip, gazing out onto the army she'd trained and helped arm over 15 years.

“I don’t hear any training going on in here! Get to it! Unless you wanna die on the wall like the last group!” She barks, and after a flurry of messy salutes, the gaurds in the barracks begin to gather around the small arena to spar or the dummies to practice.

Tera and Nico glance at each other as V begins to walk towards them, Nico quickly grabbing a broom from the wall and sweeping up the beans. Throwing a broom in her hand and having her bend down to at least act like she's helping.

“Lets not let the Commander catch us having a chin wag…” Nico comments under his breath, and Tera nods, and begins sweep her mess into the pile.

“Doorman.” V says formally from behind her. “What are you doing?”

“Aun- Ahem, Just cleaning up my own mess boss! Busted a punching bag…” Tera gave a clumsy salute with a dorky grin.

V crosses her arms and looks over the mess. “After you're done, meet me in the courtyard, we're sparing.”

“Aye, Commander.” Tera says, the phrase being drilled into her just like any other gaurd.

Nico sighs in relief. “No wall duty today… I can finish. Then I come watch you kick her butt?” He grins, giving her a wink.

“I doubt it…” Tera grumbles, remembering the last time they spared… her butt was sore when it was all done.

“Not with that attitude!” Nico hypes her up. She appreciates it, really. But reality was going to come knocking in the form of a caution tape wrapped peg leg.

She makes her way through a back door, and out into a fenced in courtyard, the ground coverage only short- well maintained grass.

She looked up at the thick canopy protecting them, the filtered sunlight floating harmlessly down around her.

She then looked at V, picking her teeth with a claw. Until she caught Tera's gaze.

“Ready?”

Tera took a deep breath and rolled he shoulders, ignoring the sound of tearing flesh as she did, and focused on her hands.

Nanites swarmed over her hands, covering them in a thick grey slime before a sword erupts out of it, the nanites settling around her wrist and palm, where there's a glowing yellow eyeball in the center.

It blinks, Tera tries to ignore how fucking weird it feels. She's just glad she can't see out of it.

Her other hand does the same, she crouches.

V pulls put her swords much less creepily, just replacing her hands from the cavity around her wrists, Tera kinda wishes her's wasn't so gross…

“Ready.” She replies. And V sprints forward.

She's so fast to an outsider…she'd be a blur, Tera reacts quickly, her wings unfurling and launching herself in the air.

V swings at nothing, but quickly changes trajectory to meet Tera in the air, she dodges again, though only barley, she hears the wind off the blades directly next to her face.

Tera chases, meeting V blade to blade as she whips around, sparks flying between the metal. Tera grits her teeth, using most of her strength to try and push V off, but it does nothing… it's like the Dissasembly Drone weighs over a ton.

The blades groan. V looks disappointed. “Going to knock you on your ass again.”

Tera growls. “Fuck you…”

V just grins. “What's the matter? Tired of getting thrown to the ground?”

She begins to struggle. V putting all her weight on the swords to try and push her down. Tera feels the heat build in her core, like melting slag.

She snarls as she kicks V as hare as she can in the gut. Which to both their surprise, shoves her hard into the fence.

“There we go!” V grins, but Tera has already begun to rocket forward, V's eyelights go hollow as she's suddenly grabbed and thrown into the air like a ragdoll.

Tera pants, yellow solver symbol flickering onto her visor as she looks up again, and a too-wide smile takes over her face. Before she's screaming up to meet V, preparing to slam her to the ground with all her might.

Instead her tail is grabbed, all the rage dissappears in exchange for dread, and she's hurtling back towards the ground without time to stop herself.

The last thing out of her mouth before she hits the ground is a high pitched. “SHIT!”

Everything goes dark.

“Oh…” Says the voice sharing her head, high, robotic and cold. “How embarrassing…”

A disappointed tusk, like a parent scolding a child. “Try again.”

Tera sucks air into her lungs again, feeling the cool, damp grass tickling her back, the scent of the jungle, the wet ground, and the undertones of treated- aging wood.

Her visor is dark, and cracked, oil oozing from the deep wound, she can't see, but she can feel V applying nanites to her visor.

She makes a sigh as she focuses on seeing through the eyes on her tail- which was always disorienting, because there were six and they all blinked in pairs.

Her tail rises behind V's shoulder, giving her a third person veiw of her own body. Talk about weird.

“Yikes…” She breathed out watching her near shattered visor slowly heal.

Her healing was always slow. And always extremely shit. Her nanites would take thier sweet time stopping the bleeding and then fuck off, leaving her chassis scarred with past injuries.

“Shouldn't scar.” V assured, impatiently waiting for Tera's visor to glue itself back together. “You got closer this time.”

“Still got my ass kicked.”

V chuckled. “You're 17. You'll be getting your ass kicked for awhile yet.”

Tera just crossed her arms at that. “Bite me.”

After her visor comes back online, she's handed a sports bottle with oil, which she gladly takes and chugs, feeling her internal heat ticking down.

V sits next to her on a bench at the entrance to the courtyard. “Nice kick, just watch where your tail is at all times… or it could get grabbed.”

Tera sighs. “Yeah… got too into trying to get revenge for all the times you've bruised my metal butt.”

V half-grins. “That's coming… can't wait.”

She ruffles her hair and stretches, pouncing on top of the fence and giving a tired and half assed salute. “You're dismissed, no patrol for today. Your butts been kicked enough.”

Tera salutes back and stretches, trying to relive the tension in her back but failing when it just seems to tighten.

She looks outside the fence.

Nico waves at her with a big smile on his face. She can't help but smile back. He gives her a thumbs up. She chuckles.

He's done the liberty of gathering her things for her, her school bag and flannel overshirt, which she graciously takes as soon as she clambers over the the fence like a goblin.

“Thanks man…”

“No problemo. You did well.”

“Could do better…” Tera murmured back, slipping back on the flannel and adjusting the collar. Nico takes over her her, grabbing it and straighting the shirt collar around her neck.

“You are actively getting better, you are not stagnant. You should be very happy at your progress. I am. I am very proud.” He beams, dusting off the front of the shirt before stepping back. “Do not push yourself to be great… you will get there when you get there.”

Tera just looks at the ground before opening her wings. “I'll see you tomorrow Nico.”

And she's gone, flying towards home.

He sighs. “Goodnight Mija… please… slow down.”l

[dronebiscuitbat]

Correction: This implies they fuck often enough for N to be worried about that subconsciously.

I found an old comic i started on loooooong ago.

I was bored when i started on it.

[dronebiscuitbat]

Your wish is my command.

Bun-Bats are now a thing.

Otherworldly Bunnies by Annie Stegg Gerard

[dronebiscuitbat]

I apologize for going stagnant a bit.

I'm not going to lie. I hit a wall of burnout, so I've taken a small break from writing to try and feel like myself again. But I'm also in the process of moving, and that's already stressful without trying to write in a moving car.

The ask blog is still open, if you want content that's different (it has a different story entirely)

Otherwise. Please be patient, I'm climbing a mountain of life stuff and am extremely busy right now.

[dronebiscuitbat]

Awww! Thanky!

Fanfic writers I owe you my life thank you

[dronebiscuitbat]

Got Betta. Decided to draw myself.

Kinda dig how it turned out.

take my mermaid quiz boy

[dronebiscuitbat]

Yes.

Just Yes.

[dronebiscuitbat]

Ter-Bear.

She's uh... hungry.

[dronebiscuitbat]

Signal Boost.

I'll always try to help as much as I can.

We need help

Currently, we are living in an abusive household with our parents and our older brother. We need help raising money to be able to move out, be we can’t do it alone…

We can’t get a job, and we don’t have any other options… we’ve tried everything, everything

If you want to read more about our situation and potentially donate to help us move out, please check out our gofundme…

https://gofund.me/28b7f711

We need to get out of this house, before it kills us, quite literally… every day is a struggle, and we never feel safe here…

[dronebiscuitbat]

Reporting in!

is mdtumblr still alive and well

[dronebiscuitbat]

Cuteness.

I also barely remember writing it-

Reverence.

(Fuck it I'm in a mood and have a headache, have some sickingly sweet thoughts from Tera.)

Tera woke up sometime in the middle of the night, listening to the night insects buzz and chirp from the open window, and she turned from looking at the ceiling to her side.

She's greeted by a sleeping Spectre, breathing deeply as she's drifting in her memories, despite it not truly being sleep, her body still reacted as if it was, the slow, calm breath raise of her chest, the peaceful and unbothered expression on her face.

Tera smiles fondly, the soft, filtered moonlight coming in through the window seemed to make the solid black form sparkle like a sky full of distant stars, she can't help but reach out and touch the side of her face, even if that risks waking her up.

Spectre's body reacts, but she doesn't wake up, and Tera caresses a thumb over the soft void-black cheek as the spectre hums in her sleep, features seemingly softening further with contact with the pads of her hands.

She mumbles something, Tera chuckles, pulling her close and into her arms.

She feels Kiara shift in her sleep behind her, and she turns her head to look into her visor, displaying [Sleep Mode : Dreaming]

She purrs, her tail wrapping around the worker protectively and pulling her close enough to kiss her forehead, Kiara shifts in her sleep, visor flickering to closed eyelights before settling back onto Sleep Mode.

Tera always loved the way Kiara looked, and she doubted that would ever change, the way the light bounced off her silver, her chassis a pure and unblemished white, her eyelights soft and pure like- funnily enough, snow.

Her blonde hair curved perfectly around her face like a golden halo, if heaven did exist, surely she was sent from there.

With a deep content purr, she drifted off back to sleep, dreams full of the night sky... and a ground covered in fresh snowfall.

[dronebiscuitbat]

Sometimes I wonder if my writing will be uncovered and analyzed like I had to do in school, and a teacher will just... read way too far into the wrong thing.

Them: "You see the slow transformation if Uzi to be more like N is to put a spotlight on how the longer you spend with your partner, the more like them you become-"

Me: "Haha cool spines."

Though maybe you should take the lesson about greed and overconsumption-

ABSOLUTELY NO HATE to those teacher artists but I always find it funny how when I improve and if one day I ever get successful enough to bring my series to life, there's probably going to be someone like "as you guys can see this artist makes sure to use these specific shapes in their art, notice the curves and sharp areas-" when in reality I'm literally just winging it bc whatever I'm doing just feels right

[dronebiscuitbat]

Never. I don't care if it takes a month to drag myself out of my slump, everything I make will always be 100% me.

Because it's my story! Try to get an AI to add tiny details that no one notices to stuff! Try! It can't!

Fuck AI. All my homies use thier tism brains.

a writing competition i was going to participate in again this year has announced that they now allow AI generated content to be submitted

their reasoning being that "we couldn't ban it even if we wanted to, every writer already uses it anyway"

"Every writer"?

come on

[dronebiscuitbat]

Throws at you-

Trying out new brushes and styles.

If you see this in the story proper at some point no you didn't lol.

[dronebiscuitbat]

Oil is Thicker Then Blood: Polarity- Chapter 3: A Long Day

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64077811/chapters/167453419

A sheet of paper full of equations is placed in front of her, after a lecture about the order of operations and how to access the computing portion of their processors to make this trivial, they were super advanced computers after all.

And yet…

Tera stared down at the paper with a pencil in her hand, reading the first question over and over and over again, it was easy, or should have been. Simple long devision as a warm up before the harder questions. All she had to do was… compute.

Her brain-her processors attempted to calculate the numbers, only to freeze halfway through like an ancient machine running on the worlds shittiest hard drive. The numbers seemed to change the longer she looked at them, 5’s becoming 3’s and 6’s becoming 9’s. A nervous sweat started to appear on her visor, instead now trying to solve the problem organically, writing down the equation on paper and working to solve it that way. That didn’t work either, the numbers floated off the page to become unintelligible runes.

She may as well have been trying to decipher hieroglyphs.

She groaned and threw her head back.

An hour later, the paper was slammed back down on her desk with a big fat red 45% etched in huge letters on the corner. She wasn't sure if getting a 0 would be better, or worse, then at least she could claim she was just stupid. But getting something right using the incorrect formula just confused her further.

She grumbled, and stuffed it in her bag with a growl.

Rad took a single look her and chortled. “I think teach just likes to bleed all over your papers dude. I know you can't be that bad.”

It was intended to cheer her up, but it really didn't, she was a robot! A computer! Her building blocks were in fucking binary! What computer couldn't do the thing they were named after- compute?!

So she just sighed. “Just shut up man…”

Rad pouted for a moment, before his eyes lit up, if it was any more obvious he'd gotten an idea, a big green light bulb would have popped up over his head. “Bet I can beat you in a race to biology.”

Tera's tail perked up as she gathered her things, a smirk replaced a frown. “Not a chance man, I'm way faster!”

“Prove it Lucky Bat!” And with that, he raced down the hall as fast as his hydrolic powered legs could carry him.

He knew he wasn't going to win.

And when he felt the wind of Tera sprinting ahead rush past him, all he could do was laugh as the purple blur rushed inside the next class, startling several other students who gave the solver drone a nasty look as she blasted past them.

“Hah! Fuck ye-SHIT!”

Kiara was at her desk, supposedly waiting for her, her eyelights go hollow as Tera barrels towards her and the worker braces for impact with her best freind.

Tera pumps the breaks hard and fast, she can feel herself skidding across the polished stone floor, she holds her hands out to try and salvage the situation and-

She stops a hairs breath from her, panting as her arms brush against Kiara's arms, the plan being to grab her and then stop them both to avoid hurting her.

Now though it's just a slightly awkward half-hug.

Tera gulps and her visor flushes a neon flavored purple.

“Y-you okay?” She asked through her throat near closing in embarrassment, she probably needed to back up, or at least let go before asking… but she wouldn't be a Doorman if she wasn't painfully awkward.

Kiara blinked, still processing the fact she wasn't melted slag stuck to the floor before she looks up with a smile. “I'm fine! Little bit of a close one there yeah?”

Tera grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head as she stepped back. “Sorry, Rad challenged me to a race and…”

“…you can't say no to a challenge?” The worker giggled. “I figured. Looks like you won though.” Her eyes flicker to the doorway.

Rad came in panting, smiling, but panting. “Oh man… have you gotten even faster? It's like you teleported!” His vents kick up to max trying to cool him off, and he rests his hands on his knees. “Dang.”

Tera smirked. “You're just a slowpoke.”

Kiara brought her attention back with a featherlight touch to her arm, Tera tried to ignore the shock that passed up through her sensors.

“I need your help.” She spoke quietly. “Mrs. Finley gave us homework about Nightstalkers and I completely forgot about it!” Kiara pouted, looking a little ashamed of herself.

“You? Forgetting homework? How scandalous.” Tera quipped back, laughing when Kiara pouted even more.

“I… had a rough night.” The worker replied softly, rubbing her shoulder and looking away, Tera felt like she just swallowed acid.

“Yeah. I can help. Mrs.Finley gives us 15 minutes to look over it before asking for it anyway. Pull up your chair.” Tera replied, smiling down. “No copying though, that would be unethical.” She parrots her best freinds words and the worker smacks her lightly. “You!”

“Thank you…”

Tera turns back to look at Rad. “You forget yours too?”

He blinked stupidly. “Forget what?”

Tera sighed. “Pull up a chair String Bean.”

They both pull up thier chairs on either side of Tera's desk, which was luckily large enough to uncomfortably fit them all.

Rad dug out a crumpled paper from his bag, laughing warily when Kiara eyed him like he'd committed murder, Tera pulled out her completed work, along with a little leather bound journal.

“Rad you can just copy. You're not going to read it anyway.” Tera says deadpan, and the young man grins and begins copying the answers down in barely legible chicken scratch.

Then she turns to Kiara. “Alright, first question…”

How large to Nightstalkers get?

She opens her journal to a page of notes, accompanied by a rough sketch of a nightstalker.

“So they average around 20 feet in height fully grown, not counting the horns or you'd add another 2, I don't think Mrs. Finley counts them, or just would prefer the easier to remember number for us.” Tera points to where she'd jotted down their heights.

“I've never seen one that big…” Kiara writes it down, but looks up at Tera to explain.

“Their deeper in the jungle… plus that's what we have hunting parties for, V doesn't really let one that big stick around if it does wander towards us.”

When are Nightstalkers at their most deadly?

“I know that one! They get really hormonal and angry when they become teenagers… soo.” The worker taps a pen on her cheek. “What age is that?”

“2 and a half usually.” Tera answers.

The fat on the top of a Nightstalkers back is both armor and heat regulation, it is called what?

“Blubber.”

Kiara laughs. “That's not a real word.”

“I promise it is, and it's right.” Tera replies. “You haven't tried to drive a blade through that, it may as well be steel.”

They continue, Kiara asking questions, trying to actually learn the material while Tera answers with either a note from her hunting journal or a quick anecdote. All with the background noise of Rad furiously scribbling.

They finish just in time for Mrs. Finley to walk in, 15 minutes after the bell rang.

“Alright everyone. Hand me your homework and we'll get started, the next species we'll be focusing on is the Deersheep…”

Kiara and Rad scooted thier chairs back to where they should've been- to the desks either side of her.

Text flickered up on Kiara's visor. [THANK YOU!]

Rad chuckled. “Cheers Dude.”

Tera leaned back and smiled, handing up her paper to the teacher now doing laps around the classroom to collect the work, she pauses at Rads. “Mr. Hayes.”

“Yes'm?”

“Why have you written down Miss Doorman’s name in place of your own?

Tera facepalmed. Kiara rolled her eyes. Rad smiled like a dead man. “Ahah…”

Mrs.Finley's bright blue eyelights trailed over to Tera. “Did you know about this?”

Tera wracked her brain quickly. “We did a study group together, he must have done it as a joke when we were talking about how he often forgets to write his name.”

The blue eyelights narrowed, she brushed a hand though her tightly spun and frazzled brown hair, and she sighed.

“If I didn't have multiple nameless papers from you. Mr. Hayes, I wouldn't believe her. Don't do it again.”

After she walks away towards her desk, Rad untested. “Woo… saved my life there…” He said quietly.

“I can't belive you wrote my name! You dumbass!” Tera gave an incredulous and amused smile. “You could've gotten me in trouble too!” She whisper-yelled.

The rest of the day was long, tedious, and sufficiently boring enough to put her on autopilot, sure she was present for her freinds but… anywhere else. Mind off somewhere in the jungle and outwardly expressing that classic Doorman brand resting bitch face.

At lunch, they were let out into the cafeteria and served deep fried copper nuggets, bolts, and a side of batteries. Which Tera inhaled like a starving animal before her two freinds even had a chance to touch thiers.

“Dude.”

“Slow down your gonna choke!”

Her two respective freinds called out, but she didn't listen, licking her lips in satisfaction. “Ahhh~”

To finish it off, she reached into her pocket to pull out a dented and well worn silver canteen, gulping down sweet and tangy oil like it was drops of heaven.

She pulled off it when it was half empty, wiping her mouth of the excess.

In all honesty… she was still hungry.

Though she was always hungry nowadays.

“Vampire.” Rad coughed.

“It comes from the ground. I'm not a fucking vampire!” Tera immediately protested. “You eat the soup at the food court! It's the same thing!”

Kiara giggled, Rad teased poor Tera about that every chance he got. She had to be sick of it by now…

She hummed to herself as she finished out a sketch of a lion, as realistic as one could without never seeing one outside of pictures and ancient documentaries, she began to shade it so the fur looked black, letting Tera and Rads bickering become white noise.

More classes, more work; right after lunch she still had Rad and Kiara in an advanced English class, where the focus was more on the history of linguistics and the written word then reading comprehension- when your whole student body can take screenshots with thier eyes; you stop worrying about retaining information organically.

But afterwards, she was alone in an architectural engineering class that was more numbers and measurements then actually building things and she was back to slamming her head against the wall in frustration, doubled because now… the math was applied.

She did well in the practical projects like build a bridge out of sticks, or make a model pully that works under a specific weight threshold. She could trial and error that, and she was really good at eyeballing measurements even if she was shit at exact numbers- but the second she had to figure out exactly what degrees a triangle needed to be to support X amount of weight she wanted to eat the damn paper.

“Ugh…”

She crossed her arms, and tuned out of the lecture, instead spacing out while looking vaguely forward to give the illusion that she was still paying attention.

Maybe you have so much trouble because you refuse to actually pay attention.

A monotone and robotic mockery of her own voice whispered, she'd have winced at the suddenness of it if it wasn't wholly expected at this point. She ignored it.

Or maybe you're just an idiot.

That's okay though… smarts would be wasted on a killing machine.

She growled, tightening her fist but giving the entity that lived in her head no response.

At least until she blinked, and suddenly she was standing at the front of the classroom, drones screaming in fear as they tried to get out of the door in a panic. She blinked in confusion for a moment before her eyelights went hollow.

Hanging limp in her now, fleshy, bladed claws was Mr. Riker, Oil bathing her arm and pooling all over the floor, the smell was intoxicating, ever present, and assaulted her olfactory receptors like a persistent tagalong.

She jumped, the movement making the lifeless corpse slide off her bladed fingers and into a heap on the floor, she began to hyperventilate. The word “no” repeating from her lips like a mantra as she backs herself into a corner trembling like a leaf.

“No no- I didn't, I don’t know- I'm sorry!”

“Miss Doorman!”

Slam!

She's startled awake by Mr. Riker slamming a book on her desk, making her yelp in fear, a yellow solver symbol dissappearing from her eyelight. She pants, taking in the students staring at her, some snickering, before her eyelights flickered back up to the drone she just skewered.

“I know buttresses are boring, but please refrain from falling asleep in my class.”

A chorus of giggles passed through the classroom lile a wave.

The teacher rolled their eyes and left her be, which was good, because once all the eyes were off her again she let out a shaky breath and looked down at her hands, normal, even with the animal-like pads on her hands given by the solver.

She squeezed them into fists and sighed, burying her head in her hands and wanting to scream.

Instead she went back to staring at the front, stress lines under her eyes as her mind returns to silence.

She comes out of the classroom hunched over and emotionally drained, tail limp and half dragging across the floor like a zombie. She takes her canteen and drinks the rest of the oil to try and relax her… anything.

“Ter!” Kiara calls from the front door of the school, the day for the upperclassmen being over to go to their field training. Her eyelights looked up, tail perking up a little.

“I'm heading to the clinic for my last two hours, but…I was wondering if you saw my messages?”

Oh crap!

“I did! I can take you and Rad out past the walls this weekend if you want! It's just been a… weird day. Sorry.”

Kiara's eyes lit up. “Really! Awesome! Thank you, Thank you!” She pushed forward to wrap the solver drone in a tight hug. She found herself smiling, despite it all.

“Yeah yeah… keep quiet about it, you know I'm not supposed to…”

Kiara nodded, releasing her and fluttering out the door with a wave. Tera sighed as she leaned against the doorway to outside. Watching her leave.

…and off to the barracks for her field training.

[dronebiscuitbat]

Tidbits

Drone Models.

The Drones were mass produced, so variation in model is only in a case by case basis, most drones fall under a generic "worker" model.

However...

There are a few drones in OITTB that are specific models.

Nori and by extension Uzi are "Research Assistants" They're typically a little smaller, lighter, and have higher speed processing power (typically). Kiara falls under this too.

Khan was a construction drone. Thad and Nico fall under this as well, they are usually a little taller, thicker, and have a little more strength capacity.

Chloe and Marissa (despite never using it) are both "Sentry" Models.

Tera is a Sentry Model as well. Thier traits are a thicker core casing, (chest armor plating) improved eyesight and coordination and higher speed.

When two different models have a kid. There's a 50% chance their code will prefer a model matching either parent, or a 50% chance they will prefer a standard "worker" body.

When printing a body, the printer will look at what the persons code will run most effectively in and make that model from a preset blueprint. (Or a custom one, for very special cases.)

This came to me in a dream by the way-