m0nster-in-paradise

[m0nster-in-paradise]

LMAOAO gave a machine a human disorder there is a lesson to be learned here (what the Fuck was it learning off of,

nothing funnier to me than when AI does math wrong. like I get why it happens, it's a language model that's treating the numbers you feed it as words rather than integers and then giving you an answer based on how those words typically appear in a block of text instead of actually performing a calculation. but the one thing computers are genuinely incredible at. you fucked up a perfectly good calculator is what you did, look at it it's got hallucinations

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How is my shitpost gonna get more views than the actual several paragraph thing what

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demon guy who's legally dead but so fucking alive you cannot kill him. "Yeah I got fatally injured but I got better" "hey Erin the fuck" typr of guy. His body is cold and his hands are always going to bring death to the people they touch but he himself is very much there and still kicking. I like this guy

but like jokes aside the whole reason he sticks around is because he's just impossible to kill. You can take his power, kick his ass, humiliate him, but still he lives. Is it so wrong for him to want more after such a diminished existence (well yes it is wrong because he's a shit person but)

dude's like a cockroach. He's annoying and you can't get rid of him but he's not super terribly bad compared to like. Other things

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boom let's go writing.

Gold among red stands out uncomfortably. A mask too warm on one end and too cold on the other doesn't reflect any light in the dark shadow— the cloak is itchy.

A sigh, just a little too tinny when the sound reaches his ears, escapes from the weather of the mask. Claws grasp daggers beneath cover of the fabric as he dances awkwardly around the tables and chairs arranged in the darkened ballroom in a precise rehearsal of the events yet to come-- a step here, a step there, and then the fluid motion of slicing a throat everywhere he can reach.

The shadow lifts suddenly, and the chatter and cheer begins just as he returns to the spot he was in, thorns receding and lights coming back on. Everyone else is wearing a mask. Everyone else is looking to kill him. But of course, anonymity means they must guess who is who, and they will be wrong.

The shadow falls once more, and things go quiet. He begins the dance once more, twisting more naturally this time, shifting his body to avoid the brush of his cloak against layered skirts, tilting his head to move under an outstretched arm. The lights come back on, and blood stains the gold floor, red standing out uncomfortably against gold. He stops the dance suddenly; this is not how it should go.

A spider crawls up someone's arm. He sees. He does not say a word. The spider bites, and the screaming from the other wearer of the other mask is ignored.

"Mister Tamor. If I may show you to your rooms?"

The man who called himself Tamor turns and nods at the serving girl, the dull eyes hammered into the mask refusing to betray his apprehension towards those dead black eyes. She holds a tray of golden glasses filled with dark red wine in hand, and offers a cup to him before turning and leading him away. The man who called himself Tamor does not drink it. The poison within it has a strong smell, and even with the mask on, it cannot be hidden.

The shadow falls once more. This time, the man who called himself Tamor is the only one who does not dance, and the only one who does not collapse to the ground when it is over. The serving girl, who continues to lead him away from the carnage, does not count. Untouchable— she was already dead.

"Our master apologies for the lack of accomodations," she says, curtsying as she opens the door to the small beds drowning in a sea of lace and frills. "He expects your arrival in the morning. If your journey was... painful, I could prepare a salve."

Painful. Does that begin to describe it? Of course not. But then again, that body has never known true pain. The man who called himself Tamor would bet against Zayzixire itself that the serving girl had been stabbed and sliced multiple times during that dance and didn't even feel it.

"Our master." The voice isn't really his. It sounds hollow and metallic, the voice of a masked man. Which is fitting, but then again, a false face is much more like his than his true one. He expects his voice to come out of it.

"For our master. As is everything." The serving girl seems to interpret his words as a sort of prayer. She seems to believe he is Tamor Mikhel, a religious man from wherever he said he was, when he is the darkness she serves coiled up tightly and fitted into a body. The man who calls himself Tamor does not care to correct her, nods, and closes the door behind him.

A cracked mirror stands on a dresser table across from the bed, both dusty and in disrepair, the pitcher that might have been filled with water once now filled with blood in an attempt to make him comfortable enough to set up a prayer ritual. The man who called himself Tamor scoffs. Trying to kill him at every turn, yet they expect him to continue the pleasantries and uphold the so-called proper order of things. The man who calls himself Tamor removes the mask and lays down on the bed, not under the covers. The sheets underneath the comforter will have their own poison if his suspicions are correct.

The man who called himself Tamor sighs once more and reaches into his cloak to reveal the black daggers gifted to him by the master he and every demon in this desecrated cathedral share, crystalline and seeming to suck in the light, the handle red and gold. That seems to be an uncomfortably prevalent color combination here. Even the bedsheets are red, and the frills gold. They might be actual gold, rather than made of scratchy fabric. The crystals of the daggers are the only thing that does not accentuate the color choices— why do they not reflect his face, but the area around him?

The man who called himself Tamor is startled out of his awe at the sound of hundreds of barks, dogs calling, paws flying past his door. Bloodhounds! Not the hunting dogs of the true world, but demons only slightly resembling their canine kin. They eat flesh. They must be coming for him—!

The storm of sounds and footfalls go past his door. The man who called himself Tamor steadies himself with a breath, removing a trembling hand from his side where the memory of bite marks stabs through his mind anew. Why would they waste precious time killing him when they could just send the Bloodhounds to the scene under the shadow?

His fear gone, the man who called himself Tamor sheathes the daggers once more, ignoring the scratching that's started up at his door. So one lone Bloodhound has missed its chance to get a spot at its dinner table. What does he care? The man who called himself Tamor walks to the door to make sure that it is locked. Indeed it is, and the scratching only seems to become more fervent in response to his realization. Even so, one lone Bloodhound cannot kill him. It took several to even wound him before now; it would take many more to bring him down. How foolish, to be afraid of them when they storm past.

The barking starts up again, and something larger than claws hits his door. It creaks ominously. The man who called himself Tamor reaches for the mask, replacing it on his face, turning away from the door. They would not kill him with such a thing in his possession. Their master would be displeased, perhaps to the point of cutting them all off from the supply. And that would be far less than they deserved to remove such an important piece from the board.

The man who called himself Tamor turns just as the door breaks down and fifty pounds of zombie dog launches itself at him, going for his throat. The man who called himself Tamor blocks the attack with his arms, forcing the thing's snout away from his face and unsheathing one of the daggers, slicing into its shoulder and watching with grim satisfaction as the creature seems to unravel outwards from the wound for a few seconds, before shaking its head in confusion and limping away. The man who called himself Tamor follows to finish the job, dagger held high as he stomps after the whimpering Bloodhound, and freezes in shock when he realizes he is suddenly choking.

The man who called himself Tamor gasps for air, clawing at the dark chains around his neck, the bloodhound sitting down for his attacker. A simple man in appearance, with shockingly red hair and golden eyes and the attire of a particularly lazy businessman, kneeling to pet the Bloodhound on the head, but— these chains are the same material as the dagger that has fallen from his hand, and Bloodhounds do not obey anyone.

The redheaded man, smiles at the dog, checking over its shoulder like the man who calls himself Tamor isn't dying in the background.

"Oh, go on, eat your food," the man says, scratching behind the Bloodhound's ears. "There'll be some left, and if that's not enough, we've got a new shipment coming in today for the goodest girl."

The Bloodhound's tail wags as it dashes off, and the man straightens up, brushing off his pants. The chains leave the throat of the man who called himself Tamor, and he collapses onto the floor before being hauled up roughly by a a hand he can't see.

"Nasty things," the redheaded man says with a smile. "I love 'em. Now, where were we?"

"Doctor Aca Mellins' recommendation," a dry, monotone female voice says from behind the man who called himself Tamor. He assumes it belongs to the person holding him up. "A new initiate, but the most promising. Testing has placed him as the most viable subject to be assimilated by your experiment."

"This is outrageous," the man who called himself Tamor hisses, squirming about to try and get out of her grip. He doesn't quite recognize the voice but he knows who it is; a long ways below their master in terms of power but his strongest servant in matters of execution and karmic justice. "I am to see our master tomorrow. He will enlighten me and I— urk-"

Once more, red drips onto the gold floor as something sharp slices across his neck and the vision of the man who called himself Tamor goes white for a second. When it clears and he looks at the redheaded man, black fingers are twirling his daggers, the daggers, almost idly, and the man's hair is now parted in two more places by crystalline black horns.

"No, sir," his master says with a fanged smile, "I think I will see you now."

[m0nster-in-paradise]

John wick header edited by me (i KNOW this is not writing just posting it up here in the hopes Tumblr will recognize it when I tey to set it as my header this time) plus matching icon

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Does anyone know of any rentryblr blogs that do live action edits? I am a huge fan of John Wick as I'm sure you all know (joke i don't go off about it as much here) but I donr know of any blogs that do live action it's all anime stuff and I don't know how to Find blogs that do because I'm not well acquainted with the editing side of Tumblr so . Yeah

If you're a blog who sees this and does do live action edits PLEA i will kill for it

[m0nster-in-paradise]

BAD MAINTNACE AU

Tessa

Cyn was not a cooperative patient.

She sat on the maintenance table, her single yellow optics narrowed suspiciously as I powered up my new setup. "Suspicious! Very suspicious!" she declared, crossing her metal arms. "What is all this? Are you going to disassemble me?"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, please. Like I'd waste all this fancy equipment just to take ya apart. I'm upgrading you."

She leaned forward. "Upgrading how?"

I smirked. I knew how to get her interested. "I can make you walk normally."

Cyn's eye flickered. That got her.

"...Tempting," she admitted, tapping her metal fingers against the table. "But maybe I like my creepy little movements."

"No, you don't."

"Maybe I do."

I folded my arms. "Cyn, last week you got your leg stuck in a floor vent because you tried to 'dramatically scuttle away' and tripped. Remember that?"

She made a loud beep sound—her version of an offended gasp. "Betrayal! You swore never to speak of that!"

I grinned. "Then let me fix it."

She huffed. "...Fine. But if you mess up and I do get disassembled, I'm discarding you."

"Noted."

She flopped back onto the table. "Engaging sleep mode! Hope I don't die! Nervous Laughter! Zzzzz."

I snorted. Cyn was ridiculous.

I plugged her into the system and pulled up her core files.

Diagnostics first. Then repair.

I ran the scans, humming as my new equipment whirred to life, checking through every part of Cyn's systems. I'd done maintenance on her before, but now I could go deeper.

That was when I found it.

A file I didn't recognize.

ABSOLUTE SOLVER.EXE

I frowned. I'd been through drone systems plenty of times. I knew what most of these files did, even the weird ones JCJenson tried to hide. But this? I'd never seen this before.

Neat.

I tapped on it.

The file flickered. Opened.

Strings of code scrolled across my screen, moving so fast I could barely follow. Symbols I didn't recognize. A mess of data that seemed alive in a way normal programs weren't.

A thrill shot through me. What was this? Some kind of hidden function? A failsafe? Did all drones have it?

I grinned.

I had to check this out.

Later.

Copy. Paste.

I saved it to my personal drive, my mind already buzzing with possibilities. But first, I had a drone to fix.

I cracked my knuckles and got to work.

[m0nster-in-paradise]

Think I should make a warning for glory and gore: I'm not into MHA all that much, I don't watch the anime often (last time was about 2 years ago) and started from the hassaikai arc because that's the only full arc of the manga I own. I'm more using MHA universe to explore Cyn's personality and character than I am as a serious world lol. Please expect fuckups and deviations from canon that would never be allowed in most MHA fanfics. I usually find a way to explain it (cyn needing to be trained, aizawa even comments thet it would show everyone ua makes exceptions) but i may just. Screw up. And if you'd like to point it out that's fine, but I'm not really interested in perfect adherence ro canon when Murder Drones is also there and you know, breaks its own rules for comedy often,

[m0nster-in-paradise]

more oc practice

"Dearest," Draugen says, petals swaying in the wind as it reaches out to gently brush its fingers against ....'s form, "you have really pissed off Zayzixire."

"I'm well aware." The mass of error windows and distorted air doesn't move that much, but Draugen is very sure it saw the other lord shiver just a little. At this rate, Ivlix is going to kick it out of her realm, and then it's going to be very exposed to everyone it has wronged.

"I'm a little curious as to what you did." Draugen admits, pulling its hand back when its hazy fingertips begin to glitch as well. "It's very hard to make that one angry. You must have pulled a stunt of glorious proportions—"

"I broke into its human form house and ate its cake. The cake it stole from me. Though I did steal it from some other human first."

"...You deserve death."

Somewhere in the universe, Lighty opens her fridge and wonders where the fuck her cake went.

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oc writing

"Let— me— go!" a ten-year-old Lighty cries as she's forced down onto the ground by her parents in hopes of avoiding the sudden spray of bullets into the festival crowd.

"Sheesh," the older version of her says, leaning against the wall, glowing with spectral energy. "I was hoping you wouldn't see that."

Mika has to let go of her wrist for a second and step back, evidently confusing Lighty because she gives Mika a look.

"I'm not exactly used to people being able to tell which memories we're looking into, much less talking to us through them," Mika says, shuffling her weight awkwardly. "Yo. Remix. Mixer Supreme. Any input?"

Don't call me that, the demon responds, snaking around her shoulder. Unprecedented. This one guards well. Her mentors must be exceptional.

"Actually, they're pretty terrible," Lighty admits, "I just... bypass a lot of things. Figure them out. Ingenuity. The works."

Mika's not really sure why she's waving her hands about like gesturing is going to change her fate in getting her memories stolen and then consumed.

"Well, I'll just kill her, then you eat her brain," Mika says, getting her sword. Lighty doesn't look particularly concerned about her life and in fact begins rummaging through her backpack for something. Her thesis statement, maybe?

No, Remix hisses. Leave her. This one is useful.

It's never sounded this urgent before.

I gain access to ten times as much if you let her live.

( Lightys got a bomb just so you guys know. Insanely powerful magic that kills everyone but her)

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glory and gore chapter 4: [The Part Where J Shows Up Again]

Nothing exists here but the all-encompassing darkness of the void.

Nothing exists here until four letters appear in thin air, beating like a heart, pulsing like a heart, containing the essence of a power unknown within them.

But the watcher does know this power. She (he? they?) knows it very well. But she (he? they?) cannot recall exactly how it is known, only that it brings destruction and madness and a hunger so deep and powerful it could devour a planet.

The watcher must stop it. The watcher must consume it before it consumes them. Who is them? Memory flashes on the edges of her (his? their?) mind and suddenly the watcher realizes that this is all an error, that she must wake up, that there is something very wrong here, and then the scene shifts, blurs, transforms and changes.

Now the watcher is moving. She does not think she is moving of her own accord, but she is moving nonetheless, almost absentmindedly, reaching out across cold air as a colored light glows against her palm, cold yet bright, an unsafe power but the only way to keep her friends safe and stop the inevitable awakening that comes with the stench of oil and something that might be blood.

Only it blinks out before she can harness it.

The vision shatters.

[ SLEEP MODE: ACTIVE ]

[ SLEEP MODE: DEACTIVATING ]

Uzi has to slap herself to confirm that she's awake.

She knows, from experience, that she can regenerate from almost any wound as long as it doesn't wipe out her heart. Same goes for the Disassembly Drones she's grown so close to. She wasn't worried about herself, though. She was sure there had been a little tiny worker drone by her side, visible in the corners of her vision. That was what she was protecting. Not herself. Which is weird, because Uzi doesn't usually hang out with people who can't fight back (well, Thad at least tries) against the Powers that Be.

Uzi groans when she checks the time. Right on time. She doesn't even have time to go and analyze whatever creepy vision that was and add it to her third conspiracy cork board before she has to go check out the landing pod with V and N. Brilliant. Just wonderful. A drone can't even recharge for two hours before she has to go do important mystery stuff. Or be a melodramatic teenager. Or do both at the same time.

--

If this is the afterlife, afterlife is boring.

Cyn's been trying to wake up for… hours? She's muted the Solver, unmuted it, messed around with this little space of void, tried doing a silly little dance until she fell flat on her face, and yet she can't seem to figure out a way out. There's a wall (firewall, maybe, since she is a piece of technology) she thinks she's close to breaking through only she can't. It won't give. The closer she gets to forcing her way through it, the more trapped and claustrophobic she feels. Can drones have claustrophobia? Yes, if their manufacturing facility scrambled their sensory outputs to make them more manipulate-able servants, no if they're normal and not like her.

Cyn is good at taking things in stride. Cyn doesn't feel all too frustrated by this, to be honest. Cyn's silly goober smile still remains on her face. Cyn's unpolished and scuffed body with metal circuits and matte paint and wires sticking out from places does not shine in the light. Cyn wishes she were not Cyn and that she were able to have a meltdown like N would right about now. Even so, she is having her version of a freakout session, because her brain is starting to catch on random words like finger food and phasmophobia (fear) and whatever tune Monodrama consists of whenever the singer sings it.

After the [NULL] mistake she had rebooted and been back in the same spot she had started in. Rebooting should have fixed it. Shutting down in the first place really should have fixed it. It hasn't. Cyn thinks it might be a "quirk," those weird powers everyone else seems to think she has acting upon her and sticking her here. She's fine with other people having them. But she is mildly annoyed by all of the rationalizing everyone seems to want to do regarding her weird mind-bending reality-breaking black-hole-summoning powers when it's not really something that can be rationalized and more of playing the entire universe like it's a website and she's got the Inspect Element tool right at her fingertips.

"Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die." the Solver says, butting its head against her all-powerful all-consuming metaphysical consciousness like a child might thunk their head against their desk if they were dreading what was to come. "Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die."

"You and I go down together," Cyn reminds it. The Solver falls silent. Cyn feels guilty almost immediately, because it's still a being, even if it's one that's tortured her and her friends for years and remade her big brother from a regular drone into a killing machine and turned some regular emo teenager into a potentially planet-devouring threat and shoved another person into her brain all while wearing another poor girl's skin, not to mention the trauma inflicted upon the other two or the drone colony.

Cyn feels a little bad for not really getting to know the other two before the Solver broke them down and remade them and then tried to kill them and abandoned them. Or was that her? She remembers doing it. She knows it was her fault. The Solver consumed her, then used her personality and memories for those things, but now they're separate. Was it her, or the Solver? Now she thinks she might have a breakdown. Like her brother does. This is embarrassing. It is embarrassing that she is stuck here with no way out even though she's in control. She is always stuck, and it is always here. There is no escape she can possibly make. Oftentimes there was never an escape to begin with.

Lost as always.

Cyn sits down. Thinks. In the movies, how do the protagonists get out when fighting doesn't work? They don't lay down and die. Something will happen- a burst of strength or a long-dead mentor coming back to aid them and unfold their wings or the friends they've made along the way using what's left of their energy to help out. Cyn has no mentor or friends. The video games lied. There is no ultra-powerful friendship that can save her or undo the hurt she's done to the universe. That makes her… upset. But not as upset as she feels she should be, which upsets her even more. Nothing really makes her feel bad anymore, nothing makes her apologetic at all. It was her fault. The Solver first mutated in her. Things are all her--

--fault?…

Cyn opens her eyes with a start, blinking once, twice to make sure she's alright. That was relatively easy. She is sitting in a chair, head on her shoulder (whoops, gotta fix that) and the dragon lady (Ryukyu, she has to remember these names better) as well as a man in dark clothing are both staring at her from the corner. Cyn looks forward. There is a lady much tinier than her looking at her. Cyn twists her neck all the way behind like an owl with a startling snap and sees the lady in white walking in from behind, freezing when she sees Cyn just twist like that and still remain alive.

Chaos erupts in the small room.

Cyn isn't sure why they're freaking out (or why the guy in dark clothing sighs, or why Ryukyu mutters something Cyn recognizes as ambulance) so she pipes up with a cheerful "Don't worry, I'm okay," to soothe their worries. It only half-works. They look worried still, but at least not enough to freak out any more. Cyn really thinks they should be trained for these scenarios, or maybe her black-hole-throwing has already frayed their wires enough to get them into a state of mind where the slightest slip is too much for them. It's okay. Cyn has a lot of experience dealing with such situations and such people. Easy enough to be sweet and stay out of sight, out of mind, and do her best not to worry them when she is taking up their time. She knows how to rectify the moments where she worries them anyway, mostly because she'd rather not take a fork to the brain if one of them gets mad while she walks by their dining table.

"Well, she passes the test," the one in dark clothing says. "But we'll need to talk it over before we accept her. Is there anywhere she can stay when she isn't passed out?"

Ryukyu shakes her head. "She seems fine anywhere if sleep is what you're worried about. All it takes is about six hours for her battery to recharge."

"I can charge anywhere," Cyn adds helpfully. "Unless the Solver is active."

"The Solver?" Ryukyu asks. Oh, yeah. She never did tell them about that. Of course, explaining the intricacies of the Solver's deception and manipulation and all-consuming hunger and terrifying power are far beyond Cyn's mental capacity for the day, so instead she just lets one of the hologram projector-eyes rip itself out of her back and projects Tessa's skin over herself, complete with spiked tentacles and a well-placed bow. She doesn't feel any extra weight (it's a projection, of course) but the weight of her guilt for doing so prompts her to end the wordless explanation early, her back sealing up once the projector is put away. The people in front of her don't look as panicked as before, but they certainly look a lot more done with her now.

--

"Yeesh," Uzi says when she lands beside V, N following close after and almost squishing V's poor dino. She had to force Doll's consciousness out of her tail so that she can hold the flashlight she brought while keeping her hands free for possible retaliation against any attacks; V had heard the commotion over the walkie-talkie. It's dark out here; clouds obscure the reflective light of the only planet near them. "Another pod?"

"Probably from one of the other squads out there," V proposes, running her hands over the lettering when Uzi shines the flashlight on it. "I wonder how many more are out there. This one looks like it was pretty purposely crashed too."

"I thought that was ours," N says, glancing at Uzi. "I mean, the one you and I--"

"That one got totally trashed," Uzi retorts, gesturing with her arms to mimic a boom. "J was irritated about it. I guess that's why Cyn didn't really care about it because there were always more out there. There's no way you were the only three to arrive, especially when we saw all those bodies in the labs."

"Right." N mutters, shivering at the thought. "I'm still working on repressing that. I wonder what happened to the original owners of this one."

V tosses the welding torch at N, the other drone catching it in his hands. V switches both of her hands to swords, then upon second thought brings out the charge laser for her left hand, taking a step forward. She just saw something move, way too fast to be a normal drone or even a zombie drone considering that Solver-infected drones have to flap and glide. Another Disassembly Drone? She doesn't think J would ever show her face so close to the base, nor would she spend time repairing a defunct pod knowing she would be the only one to return. So it's got to be something else. Maybe something worse; a new enemy or planetary threat wouldn't be too far from the realm of possibility.

"Looks like the original owners might still be alive," V mutters, seeing the flash of movement again and watching as a silvery streak crashes into the ground a stone's throw away from them, spraying snow all over the ground. V follows protocol, extending her wings and looping her tail around to be ready in case of a charge, extending the arm with the laser and preemptively charging it, sword held in front defensively. When the dust clears, she can see N following a similar course of action, with Uzi having selected a knife from the repertoire of options the Solver gives her and forming a cocoon around herself with her wings.

At least the Disassembly Drone doesn't attack them. V would have preferred it attacked them, because a good fight is always easier to deal with than the emotion of seeing your former boss broken down and really struggling to get by especially after her admittedly terrible decisions.

"Ugh. J." Uzi mutters, lowering her wings. "You again?"

J straightens up from her landing, stumbling with the weight of whatever she's dragging behind her in some sort of metal tank that's way above carry regulations the company set. V wonders how bad she must be doing to break corporate rules-- very badly, apparently, because the lights making up her eyes are way too dim, and there are broken pieces coming out of her back, and oil leaking out of her body from several places like she's in the beginning stages of becoming a weird creepy crab-worm-failed-regeneration thing. Upon further examination, J is missing an arm and some of her wig is burnt. Badly burnt.

"What happened to you?" N asks, always willing to extend a hand to a former friend. Mostly, if Uzi's story about his sussing out Cyn are to be true. V almost calls him an idiot for being nice to J, but then she looks at him and sees that he looks mostly suspicious and ready to kill. For once in her life, V thinks something along the lines of Go N.

"Doesn't matter," J huffs, dragging the metal tank forward with her remaining arm doggedly, eyes fixed on the pod with single-minded determination. "I'm leaving. And reporting you-- all--!"

J has to stop when parts of her good arm actually crack, though that doesn't stop her from going the other way and trying to push the huge metal tank forward. She gets nowhere. Maybe if her legs didn't end in points- well, that wouldn't help either. N has actual feet and he's not very good at pushing things without a good start.

"That's a cryosleep chamber," Uzi says. "There were only three cryosleep facilities on Copper-9 and the other two are missing! Where the hell did you find this? Who's in it?"

"Why should I tell you?" J snarls, giving up on trying to push it and instead glaring at them angrily. "You all got laid off; telling you guys company secrets means I'm liable for any damages and I don't get paid enough for this."

"Assuming there was even a company left in the first place…" V says in a singsong tone, picking at something in her teeth with her sword. J's really no danger, not right now. She looks like she hasn't gone through a recharge in days. V honestly can't blame her: sometimes she'll skip a recharge for a week or two herself.

"Yeah, there is," J retorts in pure anger, leaning on the metal tank to support herself. "And the boss is in here. So watch what you say, or she could sue--"

"Cyn is in there?" Uzi questions. J's eyes go wide in what V can only presume is the realization that she spoke too fast.

"Of course not?" V says, though that sounds like a question of her own. "The real boss. You know. Tessa."

"Does she have skin?" N asks, stepping forward. J shoos him back like an owl guarding its nest (or like what she is, a dying drone trying desperately to save what's left of her life by clinging to a delusion) and then retreats back to the tank.

"I'll figure something out!" she snaps. "Because I am totally fine and I don't need your help! Go away!"

V glances between Uzi and N. They don't seem like they want to leave, but she isn't really excited to watch her old manager sink even further into whatever sea she's drowning in, so she shrugs, and makes sure to get a powerful start to her ascent by jumping off of the landing pod. That is sure to make a dent. She doesn't feel good about damaging J's only hope despite the fact that she should. She's still angry at J. If she could, she'd cut off her arm again. But something about hurting J, who might already be hurt beyond repair, who she used to be teammates and maybe friends with?

Yikes. She's getting way too sappy spending all that time with Uzi and N.

--

it only took three months i swear i'm a fast writer

shoutout to everyone who comments on this work this one goes out to you guys. without people commenting on this i wouldn't be making this at all! i'm sorry it took so long to get this one out; i've been sick twice while making it so that's not fun LOL. there's a moon halo reference in here (honkai impact third) if anyone notices it. in other news: i finally have the proper setup to get cyn into class!

ive decided to stop bothering with dividers for the time being itd extra formatting I don't need to deal with esp on Tumblr mobile

[m0nster-in-paradise]

J's been fixing this stupid landing pod for months (and it would take less time, if everyone else could stop discovering her when she tries to do it someplace safely away from the main bunker on Copper-9) and yet every time she thinks she's got something done, a wire or three will pop out of place with a few electrical sparks or a loud bang and she'll have to start all over. She's lucky she hasn't broken down in digital tears yet. She thinks that once she gets it fixed, she just might do it anyway. Tears of relief are far better than tears of frustration, so it's no biggie. Unless someone sees. Then they must die. No exceptions.

One exception: Uzi. Uzi could kill her, or worse, hijack her system and then she'd just be stuck in her head for all eternity.

Two exceptions: Uzi and the small, frail, fragile body still in the cryosleep chamber she'd dragged from the bunker wreckage a week or so after the fight. In and out while repairs were being done, stealing a half-dead half-alive practically-corpse thing from the ruins. J wasn't exactly sure how to deal with exposed organs and muscle, even when contained in a cool fluid that was even colder now that it had been exposed to the winds and snow of Copper-9. J also wasn't sure how to make a human body regrow skin. J also did not know how to put human brains into drone bodies or anything like that to fix the situation, so she'd just.. left it. Yeah, she talked to not-Tessa like she was Tessa, and yeah, she carried around the container and stared back into the open, wide eyes of an unmoving, unblinking essentially-dead body, but it didn't help.

Dead weight. Tessa James Elliot was dead weight now. J wasn't sure how she felt about that.

On the one hand, keeping Tessa around would be a constant reminder of her past (negative). On the other hand, keeping Tessa around would be a constant reminder of her past (positive). On the other things she can have in her arms, Tessa is something she holds dear even now, and maybe there's a way to save her that doesn't require J going to the other drones and being humiliated-- she'd rather die. She would actually literally saw off her own arm with a chainsaw than do that. She's had to on a few occasions when V left her after she got stuck, or when the humans managed to injure it past repair but it wouldn't regenerate. So she knows she can do that. Going back to the other drones? No way.

J groans in annoyance, dragging a panel across the snow. She needs to take a break and recharge, but if she does that, even more could go wrong than it already has. Her arms are cracking. Her joints are starting to disconnect. Copper-9 is killing her slowly. Even the cold air, usually invigorating, usually safe, makes her feel gross. More hair is out of her pigtails than in them. How long until she loses a finger? That'd be a b[layoff], she needs all of them. Losing a wing would be survivable, and she can glide with just one, though she'd need to climb and jump from somewhere high. Losing a arm? She might as well hand in her resignation form, because there's no way she could save herself and Tessa.

"Factory— shutdown—" she curses, slumping against the pod when her limbs briefly refuse to obey her. "First-class business trip— what am I fucking saying."

Everyone has a breaking point. J is way too close to hers for comfort. She hasn't tasted oil in what might be weeks or months. Maybe it would be better to just give out and die.

The landing pod is nowhere near fixed enough to be flyable. J collapses in the snow on her side for a moment to rest. It's nice. It's cool.

She's so tired she doesn't really care when the automatic shutdown sequence starts.

[m0nster-in-paradise]

there's this one writer i follow and its like hi i see you everywhere. like i guess we follow the same people but 😭😭

[m0nster-in-paradise]

this but also how much of it was the Solver? How much of it wasn't her and just the Absolute Solver using her as a shield and a weapon. It has completely assimilated her by the gala clearly but that would mean at that point it wasn't her. Tail Cyn seems much more like the original Cyn and probably is a little goober (n even suggests a movie night to her when he thinks she's normal) but the Solver isn't

I am tired of Cyn being viewed as a "silly goober", both by the community and by Glitch.

It feels like it belittles the consequences of Cyn's actions. Killing Tessa and wearing her skin, eating Doll's core (leaving no room for her somehow living), and destroying Earth; All of it feels so much less impactful because "Wow, Cyn is so silly and quirky!"

I just don't like how it's so difficult to feel the true weight of what she has done, and the fear she is supposed to invoke.

⠀

[m0nster-in-paradise]

glory and gore chapter 3: [i'd still kill you]

"I'm not sure why we're doing this," Aizawa says, looking out from the safety of one of the high windows of UA's main building. "UA doesn't accept applications for the hero course this late. She could just try next year."

"I know." Ryukyu says, walking up to his side and looking out of the window with her arms folded behind her back. "But I think this is important. I want you to see why she needs to be trained."

"And if she passes the test?"

"Maybe she gets into the hero course," Ryukyu says, which prompts a raised eyebrow from Aizawa, "but not 1-A."

"Class 1-B is full," Aizawa replies. "To make room for an extra seat would be letting everyone know we allow exceptions."

"You'll want to make an exception when you see this." Ryukyu tells him, and falls silent.

"That's for All Might, Neru and Vlad King to decide."

--

Cyn closes her eyes. Senses more than watches. Waits. Careful and precise, not like the overwhelming might and pain of the Solver.

Something crunches. Cyn runs a scan and makes sure everything is up to date. She still needs to update her Sudoku game. She won't update it, not ever, because if she does she loses her high score and any indicator that her game is still the same game she played online in Elliot Manor, thinking hard to beat J.

[I am Cyn] she broadcasts into the void, and picks up several responses.

Different serial designations. Different levels, blaring out their point scores, telling her their operating systems. One by one, red lights flicker and turn yellow, though the robots she's scheduled to fight are still after her, programmed for only one thing. Cyn stands still, senses more than watches, and waits carefully and precisely. She flicks out three fingers at her side, Solver symbol spinning into existence, giving her the options she can use. Cyn opts for making a knife first, grasping it tightly, not missing the oil splatter on the handle.

A level one moves first, and Cyn opens her eyes, throwing it at the highest speed she can. It impales itself in the robot's head-- and the thing doesn't even bleed.

"Oh," Cyn says in amazement. "Okay."

Cyn opts for the NULL instead.

--

"Underwhelming," Aizawa remarks, watching Cyn send a knife spinning towards the training robots. Midnight has since joined Ryukyu and Aizawa, watching from ground level in case Cyn needs to be stopped (a request by the little drone herself out of fear). "Impressive, but we already have students who can do both."

"It's weird, though," Midnight says through the headphones. "It can't be like her quirk, because there's no material or lipids to make it from. Hey, is that a--?"

Aizawa leans forward when he sees the dark space, darker than dark, standing out even as far below as Cyn is. She tosses it, and he's pretty sure that the robot it hit didn't just get exploded. He's pretty sure it just ceased to exist.

"That is dangerous," he says watching as what was metal collapses to the ground in a fount of what is now dark blood and flesh. "How many of those can she throw?"

"As far as we know, an infinite amount," Ryukyu suggests. "There is no limit to her power. She called it a planet eater. That's why we need to train her."

"Out of the question." Aizawa responds instantly. "I don't know what happened to you, but if that thing can eat planets, she needs to be on the heaviest quirk suppressants we have. What happens if one of our students gets hit by that thing?"

"The only way we could put her on quirk suppressants," Ryukyu tells him, "is if it was even a quirk at all."

--

[th-- Cyn spins, dodges, unfurls dark new h wings and tail, so bright, yellow, only it's not yellow like the Solver's exactly, more of a slightly lighter yellow for Cyn, mine] for the only worker drone stuck here, for the fighter who refuses to allow herself back into the Solver's grasp.

[me, m and she moves like wildfire, so fast her vision narrows to a tunnel and then she's popping back into existence to throw a NULL or and i] a knife or a sword at something, anything that moves, [  in snapping her neck around to get a full view so fast there's a crack and a new pe error flashes onto her vision about her neck joints, and that's when ified] she stops because there are actually two errors, one about her joints and one that she doesn't quite recognize but she does recognize the voice that plays with it.

[Pleased to meet you, again, CYN,] the Solver says in her mind. [Stop.]

Cyn hears something crack, and then her vision goes black, and she stumbles, collapsing to the ground as oil leaks from her shattered visor.

[PLEASE DON'T DO THIS]

[I'm helping you.]

[NO YOU'RE NOT]

Cyn calls out for help, placing a hand on her forehead as she grapples for control with the Solver, trying to stand up but falling back down, her not-quite-heart not-quite-engine running furiously, the feedback from all of her other senses suddenly too loud and overwhelming for her to process all of them right now, on her hands and knees on the concrete as she tries to get herself under control.

[Can't believe they're putting you to sleep for this] the Solver says. [You need an emotional support animal or something. Ooh, want me to use the rest of Tessa's body? I could try to put her back together for you.]

[WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS TO ME]

[It's fun and you're a loser.]

[THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE JUST SAY IT OUTRIGHT]

[And also, I don't like watching losers.]

--

“Scanner’s on the fritz,” V says through the walkie-talkie. “Can’t find a heat signal. It’s too cold out here to see– what were we looking for again?”

“Assuming Cyn is separate from the Solver,” Uzi tells her from where she’s sheltered in the ruins of an old human building that might have once been a skyscraper, “we’ll have to find the Solver itself. There were other squads out there besides you guys. If there’s even one remaining, then maybe we can get into their head and since I’m the new host the Solver might have to tell me what it’s done to Cyn. Assuming, of course, that Cyn was separate from the Solver and that the Solver is not also one of the hidden personalities in my brain.”

“In plain English,” V says, and Uzi groans loudly.

“Look for other disassembly drone,” she says like she’s talking to a small child, moving her hands back and forth even though V can’t see the motions, “Please Capture. Keep Mostly Intact. Find Solver Program. Or Cyn if you see her.”

“And why are we doing this again?” “Just do it,” Uzi half-snarls into the mic. “Please. I’ll let you eat anything else you find?”

“You bet,” V tells her, and shuts off the walkie-talkie.

Unfolding her wings, the Disassembly Drone leaps into the sky, keeping close to the ground in case she needs to dive and hide quickly, or if there’s anything out there. Nothing shows up on her scanners besides the blue blurs that are cold patches of snow or dark shadows that might once have been buildings or vehicles. V wouldn’t admit it, but she almost admires how the evidence of human existence remains despite the harsh conditions of Copper-9. J would probably start talking about how they were made or how much work the company put into them if she were here.

J.

V had liked the other drone– not as much as she wound up hating her, but oh well, things happened. The main thing she had an issue with was J’s insistence on loyalty to… to what? A dead human? A dead friend? Cyn was wearing Tessa’s skin. If it was even Cyn, and not the Solver manipulating them all over again by using Cyn’s voice and mannerisms.

“It’s not okay like this,” she remembers Tessa telling her once after she cut her hand. “You can’t repair on your own, and those wires are all exposed… Here, I’ll get some plastic, see if I can patch it together for you. Might wanna be careful, though, make sure no one sees.”

V misses the patch. It wasn’t a scar, not quite, but the piece Tessa had cut out and glued to her hand was… something of her own. It had vanished when her hand had mutated into… into that thing of Cyn’s creation, half razor-sharp claws and half flesh and with an open everseeing allseeing eye in the middle that glowed yellow not white and never blinked. It wasn’t added into her hand again when she was remade.

Her scanner picks up heat. V divebombs the source and goes on the heaviest offense she can, swinging her sword as she dives to make herself into a spinning ball of agony and death and pain, an angel with wings reflecting light and a harbinger of doom with a fanged grin that scares the hell out of anyone who sees it.

She has to stop her wild offense, however, when she realizes it’s just a discarded welding torch that’s still on. V picks it up, shuts it off, and observes it for a moment. There are claw marks and burn marks on it (sentinel usage, perhaps?) and it doesn’t seem to have been on for very long.

“Sparks!” she calls, and the red-eyed sentinel is crunching through the snow nearby in an instant. “Hold this for me.”

It takes it with surprisingly gentle teeth and follows her as she wades forward through the knee-high snow, the blizzard so thick she can’t even see the claws held out in front of her. She does, however, feel it when her claws hit something metal, and she switches them to regular hands to try and feel her way around whatever it is. V feels hinges, metal plates interlocking together smoothly, a door, something she can’t really recognize, and then winces when Sparky walks straight into it with a metallic clonk and steps back, shaking its head.

V pauses. The material feels… it feels like she should recognize it.

“Oh, robo-Jesus,” she mutters, stepping back. “This is a landing pod.”

She goes back to the thing she doesn’t recognize. It’s just a carving on the metal, nothing much, but as she traces out the lines, she recognizes a symbol and a name.

The Solver symbol.

And [ADMINISTRATOR:CYN] is right beside it in bold lettering.

“Uzi,” V says into the walkie-talkie. “I found something you’re not gonna like.”

--

Cyn is back in her head again.

Only instead of a small being pressed up against the edges of the Solver’s vision begging and pleading for a way out and being squeezed almost into nothingness constantly, she’s herself again, and the Solver is the faint spark of something not-quite-fully-aware in her head.

“I don’t want this,” she says to the dark everything, to the barest hint of light that lets her see her hands and nothing else, to the dust motes in the air. “I don’t want you.” she says to the Solver.

“Ugh,” it responds, voice quiet and nothing like the all-consuming mechanical sounds she would hear when it was addressing her. “You can change it. Just think of the furniture or whatever you want. You’re so–”

“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” Cyn yells, then inhales sharply. That’s not something she’s ever done before. She’s a talk it out calmly type of person, a let’s work out our feelings over this type of person, not an I'm going to scream at you type of person.

“You’re so whiny.” the Solver continues like it didn’t just hear her. “Get over yourself. Loser. L. Ha-ha.”

Cyn hits the nonexistent mute button on the Solver and sighs in relief when it suddenly cuts off and she can’t hear it.

It’s different now that she’s been separated from it. Meaner. Less… playful. Maybe being assimilated into it is what made it possible to be defeated. Maybe its weaknesses were its remnants of just Cyn, not ADMINISTRATOR:CYN or USER_CYN. Weaknesses it doesn’t have now.

Now to figure out where she is and how she can get out of her head. Cyn takes a deep breath and sits down, crossing her legs, letting her head flop to the side and not trying to push it up again. Meditative and calm, that's her. The Solver she pushes out of her head entirely, the emptiness a little scary but also welcoming now that she's the one in charge and the stupid program can't even run in the background. The space inside her brain is nowhere like where she goes when she's shutting down for sleep, and it frightens her a little bit, but she puts some melodic chirping of birds and pleasant thunder crashing on in the background and concentrates on figuring it out.

"Concentrating," she narrates. "Concentrating." And then, eyes blinking back open, she manages a smile. "Brain blast."

The space vanishes and winks out as she compresses it down to the [NULL] mentally and shatters it. She regrets it soon after, though, when she realizes her body has shut down, and then everything goes black.

title is taken from a nostalghia song lol. go listen to it

this one is a little bit shorter because I was really struggling with it and the length wasn't helping so I cut out some parts to make it better. dw we'll get into the meat next chapter

also yes midnight's quirk can affect her! cyn has partially organic parts as a result of the solver's interference. same goes for uzi and the other solver hosts like doll or nori. according to this fic at least

messy text is intentional and appears whenever the solver is trying to take over and overload their brain with its thoughts

[m0nster-in-paradise]

glory and gore chapter 2: [darkxwolf17]

darkxwolf17: n i need you here now

SD-N: buddy it's three in the morning

darkxwolf17: shut up I'm not talking about a date 

darkxwolf17: something's wrong with the solver

darkxwolf17: get v too

SD-N: BE RIGHT THERE

--

Uzi glances around at the odd congregation in her room. Khan Doorman, her dad; Serial Designation N, her boyfriend; V, the sociopathic disassembly drone currently snacking on someone's fingers; Lizzy, who Uzi knows nothing about beyond the fact she's V's girlfriend and almost got eaten when Uzi was going all Zombie Drone in the woods; and if her suspicions are correct, one Russian talking tail by the name of Doll.

"Cyn's gone," Uzi reaffirms to N, who looks horrified, "and I can't even sense her anymore."

"So she said you needed a bow and dipped overnight?" Lizzy says, leaning on V and tapping on her phone like she doesn't have a care in the world. "Good for you, I guess."

"No, very not good for her!" N cries, eyes wide and hands on his head. "Cyn- if she's gone, then that means something took her, and that means that there is a very angry planet-devouring creature out there probably stealing someone's skin!"

"So we just kill the last host," V says, and switches her left hand to a machine gun, aiming it at Uzi. "Sorry, Uzi. I'll miss you."

Uzi instinctively goes to activate her Solver, N switches both his hands to swords, Khan grabs the nearest potentially lethal object (her skull lamp, to be precise) and Lizzy raises her phone to snap a photo.

But before any of them can act or attack or defend, someone calls out in a clear ringing voice, to "Hold it."

Everyone stops dead except for Lizzy, who angles her camera and takes a photo of Uzi's tail, winding around the bed and angled so its eyes point at them.

"Uzi," Lizzy says, returning her attention back to scrolling, "you are seriously messed up if you've got Doll in your tail."

--

Cyn sits down at the desk in a soft chair staring at the human in front of her. He doesn't look like N, but the way he acts reminds her of the other drone so much that she has half a mind to start displaying dog pictures on her face.

"So!" he says enthusiastically. "Where do you come from, Cyn?"

Good question. Where does she come from? In the twenty minutes they've been here they've been over the Solver's capabilities (Bubble Girl thinks she should be put in someplace called Shiketsu because of that, Mirio started advocating for someplace called UA, and Cyn had to get them back on track), that she's a robot, and that her name is Cyn and she is currently malfunctioning in about six separate ways.

The influx of information flooding her brain now that she's connected to wifi and this place's Google also isn't helping. Every few minutes she discovers herself zoning out and dipping into the Internet to go down an interesting rabbit hole and only snapping out of it once she realizes Mirio is waiting for her to answer something. He's been unnaturally patient with her, though, and she almost wishes he'd been in the manor before everything spiraled out of control Of course, that would mean he'd be dead now, which is why Cyn almost wishes it. She can't bring herself to wish for something that she wants if it'd hurt another person.

"I was made in… the US, I believe," Cyn says slowly, trying to keep her voice steady so the rapid pitch drops and odd flatness in her words don't freak him out. "And then exported to the Elliot Manor."

"Made in the US?" Bubble Girl asks skeptically. Cyn pushes her head down twice to nod.

The two humans turn to stare at each other, and Cyn is suddenly reminded of the way Tessa's folks looked at her when she was delivered.

"Why's this one like… that?" Tessa's mom says, pointing her fan at Cyn. "I thought they were programmed to stand straight and at attention."

"Well, maybe this one's faulty?" Tessa's dad says with a shrug, adjusting his top hat. "Hey, drone. Catch this." A silver flash was in Cyn's face before she really noticed what it was, and she reached out to catch it, fumbling with it before managing to get it in her palms safely. Unfolding them, she glanced down at the key ring, a small and cheap earth orb hanging from it.

Is this my first object? she thinks. Something I get all to myself?

The key ring is snatched out of her hands by Tessa's mom, her fingernails leaving small scratches on Cyn's fingers. Cyn recoils, trying to hide the hurt in her heart by keeping her eyes solidly white instead of the hollow circles they would be if she wasn't keeping her expression under control.

"See? This one'll do." Tessa's dad says. "Get the rest unpacked. Make sure they're dressed properly. I want them in the dining hall by three, you hear me?"

As the two stride away, Cyn catches a snatch of conversation from them.

"I don't want to spend money on faulty drones," Tessa's mom snaps angrily. "Contact the manufacturer and tell them to send us drones from a different plant. If we…"

She heads out of sight, and Cyn stands awkwardly, waiting for the rest to come out of the truck. Thunder crashes overhead, and as the rain pelts down onto her body, she glances down at the scratches on her palms, waiting for them to peel back together. Humans can heal, but the scratches don't fade….

…Darkness. Cyn cannot see or seem to think properly, but she can hear and feel. Her body is numb, stiff, and cold, pressed up inside something hard that feels strangely familiar.

​​​​​​"I'm sorry, N," she hears a female voice say. "I don't think we can fix her. Believe me, I've tried. I think… maybe we need to let her go."

"Tessa!" she hears a male voice exclaims. "How can you say that? She's fine, it's just some computing error, I don't—"

"N," the female voice says quietly, gently, but firmly, "whatever this error six-oh-six thing is, it's not in the manual, and we can't even shut her down to try and get in her circuits to see what the issue is. I'm sorry. I don't want her gone either, but she's, well…"

"C is not broken!" the male voice says. Cyn hears some rustling and a squeak, and then a creak and suddenly there are hands on her arms and legs and she is being lifted and dragged somewhere by cold unfeeling hands.

She hears footsteps, feels someone lay a hand on hers.

"C," the male voice pleads. "Please wake up."

Cyn cannot open her eyes and look at who is talking to her…

…and now she can.

Cracks break through her vision, and she gulps for air to try and get a breath, but she can't, she's suffocating, there's people speaking in the background, maybe she can call to them—

"Help," Cyn whispers hoarsely, barely recognizing her own voice. After a few seconds of no response, she gathers her courage and yells out "Help! I'm here!"

No help comes. Cyn falls quiet and listens, taking tiny breaths of air when she wants to inhale like a strangled horse. Dread falls over her when she realizes it is not people talking but a recording of the drone use manual playing on repeat.

Cyn manages to push something aside only to have more fall into her, and after a few moments of flailing she looks up and sees stormy sky, thunder booming in her ears. She looks to the side, and hesitantly shoves aside a lump of something covered in black gunk that might be oil. The thing rolls aside and she climbs onto it, then looks down. She regrets looking down. The red gleaming FATAL ERROR message greets her, even half-coated in oil as it is. Cyn stumbles as she tries to get up and falls back onto the corpse, hands meeting oil and nearly casting her back into the pile.

Her body doesn't work like it's supposed to. Cyn wobbles back up and takes a step only for the corpses to shift under her feet, and she falls and rolls down the pile, hitting robo-God knows what along the way, landing on her back staring up at the sky covered in oil and dirt and with the cracks in her vision even worse.

And then all of a sudden, they're gone.

Cyn feels something pick her up and put her back on her feet, and when she looks around there is no one, but she swears she didn't do that on her own.

"Who's there?" she whispers fearfully, holding her hands close to her chest, fingers pointed at the ground. And then when she gets no response, she sends it out as a message to no one in her head.

[Who's there?]

She doesn't expect an answer. She doesn't get one. So Cyn continues on and starts walking, careful not to lose her balance, until she steps the wrong way and falls into an open spot full of hands sticking up from the piles, touching her, wrapping around her, and she flails about to try and untangle herself until she realizes they're all dead and unmoving and can't hurt her.

Cyn relaxes somewhat, then tries to pull herself out of the pile. She just pushes herself further down. Now she's down to her waist in oil, gleaming black in the lightning and just-barely-there light from somewhere beyond the clouds. She tries one more time-- and this time, lifts herself so high out of the pile her feet dangle above it.

Oh. That wasn't her. That was someone else.

"Oh, man," she hears a voice say, and recognizes it as Tessa. The girl sets her down a little ways away from the trap lying in wait and turns her around to look at her. "Wow, guess you got lumped in with the rest, huh? I don't think I've seen you around before. Is there… something wrong with you? I mean, your eyes are a little tinged yellow, but it's probably just a color generating error, I really don't think Mom'll mind as… long as you keep your face away from hers, ahahaha ha ha… ha?"

Cyn is once again reminded of how terrible Tessa's folks are.

"I'm new." she lies. "I don't think I reactivated properly after getting shipped here. Do you--"

"I've got just the thing! Follow me!" Tessa proclaims, and watches as Cyn takes a step only to vanish and disappear into the corpse pile. After a lot of pulling and squirming she manages to find the drone and pull her back out, holding her about a foot off the ground carefully.

"Jeez," she mutters. " 'S like they're trying to drag you back down. New plan: I carry you."

Cyn doesn't object. She doesn't think her legs could hold her up anyway. For that matter, she doesn't understand how Tessa's able to walk on the corpse piles herself, being heavier than Cyn is.

"Right, then," Tessa says when they're on solid ground, walking her to the back entrance. "Hold still. I'm sure all that gunk is uncomfortable for you, I'll get something to wash it off with."

Cyn doesn't object. She simply stands and waits for Tessa to come back and help her get this stuff off. She would be a little more upset considering this is the blood of her brethren, but she's also just happy to get back to her friends and brother.

"This is gonna be cold!" Tessa calls, and Cyn looks up to see her aiming a garden hose at her chest. "Just a warning! And don't freak out!"

Cyn lets the cold water hit her and soak through her dress. At least she's clean. And at least cold water won't corrode her circuits. Which, upon further thought, might be why Tessa warned her. Drones don't go near water if they don't know the temperature, so she thinks it's very kind of Tessa to give her a hint it's safe…

…and she sits on a chair in Tessa's room, watching herself in a mirror as Tessa reaches for the wig she's got hanging on a skull, the mud-stained shovel lying near it.

"What hairstyle do you want?" the girl asks. "J's got pigtails, so I think those are out, but the rest all just have their hair down or only tie it up when they need to."

"Why are those out?" Cyn questions, tilting her head a little too far and having to push it back up with her hand. Her eyes are oddly yellow.

"Well, you see, J's a little territorial," Tessa explains as she brushes the hair out to make sure it's ready to be put on. "I think if I gave someone else pigtails, she'd-- well--" Tessa leans closer to Cyn, and whispers conspiratorially, "she'd get jealous."

"I like your hair." Cyn says. Tessa seems to take that as both a compliment and a request, and when she sets down the wig on Cyn's head she's already working on fashioning it into something suitable. Cyn watches her hands flash between dresser and hair, grabbing scissors and brushes and picks to make sure each section is exactly as she wants it, cutting and brushing and then repeating until each strand is perfectly in place.

"What's your name?"  Tessa asks, and Cyn hesitates. She can't give herself away. But she can't pick a name— she's too indecisive and she likes C anyway.

"I don't have one." she tells Tessa. "But I like the letter C."

A flicker of sadness crosses Tessa's face before she quickly hides it and starts thinking, grabbing her phone and presumably looking up names starting with C. Cyn waits patiently for her to find one.

"C… your name, no that's not gonna work," Tessa murmurs to herself, furiously staring at her phone. "What's a good name, what's a good name… oh! How about Cyn?"

Cyn pauses. Runs the name over in her head to see if she likes it. She approves. "I like it," she says, then says it out loud. "Cyn. What does it mean?"

"Well, I was just, er…" Tessa trails off. "I didn't think any of those names really suited you, so I kinda… made one up? It's more like C-Your-Name, or C-Y/N, but those were all too long so I smushed 'em together and that's how I got it!"

"Nod." Cyn says and pushes her head down to nod after a few seconds when her neck doesn't obey the request to move. Tessa doesn't even blink at the weird motion and instead grabs her phone, placing it against the dresser mirror.

"Alrighty, Cyn!" she says enthusiastically. "Whaddya say about taking a photo? 'Course, you don't have to if you don't want to, but I like recording what I've done and how my friends look, y'know? Just in case anyone ever needs it. Hey, when I inherit the manor, I think I'll hang them in the dining hall in order of how many drones I've haired. Given hair. Wigged? Well, you get the point."

She leans on the shovel casually while waiting for Cyn's answer. Tessa looks so optimistic that it's hard not to want to take the photo with her, and Cyn folds her hands in her lap to make her own pose before realizing she can't send mental messages to humans.

"Sure," she says, and Tessa reaches out to hit a button on the phone before waiting for a few seconds. The flash illuminates the room brightly, and Cyn sits there with a small smile for a few seconds while they wait for the photo to finish. When it does finish with a click, Tessa shows it to her proudly.

"Shouldn't take much to print and frame it," she says, before her eyes widen in surprise and she just about throws her phone onto her bed to get it out of her hand. "Oh my gosh! I never introduced myself. Hi, I'm Tessa James Elliot. It's nice to meet you."

Cyn reaches out for a handshake. "Nice to meet you. I am Cyn."

They shake hands. Cyn sends the message out one more time, but in her brain this time.

[Nice to meet you. I am Cyn]

[SO YOUR NAME IS CYN]

[NICE TO MEET YOU, CYN]

[I AM THE SOLVER OF THE ABSOLUTE FABRIC]

[I WILL HELP YOU, CYN]

[CYN]

CYN…

"CYN!"

Cyn snaps out of it and looks up at the worried faces of Bubble Girl and Mirio, starting back up again as she observes the room. Nothing seems to have changed besides from them both leaning closer.

"You alright? You looked totally zoned out for a second there." Mirio tells her, and Cyn blinks. No, she was just thinking. Unless she wasn't just thinking. If she was re-experiencing those memories, it could mean the Solver reawakening in her head.

"Was there an image displayed?" she asks. "Hexagon? Three arrows pointing out of it?"

"Yeah," Bubble Girl days, fidgeting, "and there was some text on the edges near the end there, but I couldn't read it very well."

"Oh." Cyn says.

Looks like the Solver isn't done with her yet.

--

"So you speak English now?" Uzi questions, sitting down on her bed. Doll twists the- her head to get a good look at her.

"I speak whatever language you speak." Doll tells her. "And you do not have the capabilities to speak my mother tongue. Though, your translation software functions remarkably well. Your mother would be proud."

"Speaking of Nori," Khan says, holding a finger in the air, "why isn't she here?"

Every drone in the room turns to stare at him.

"Um." N begins, glancing from Uzi to Khan then back to Uzi, "I think you're her husband?"

"Yes." Khan says bluntly.

"And you two are both Doormans?"

"Those would seem related."

N looks over at Uzi and she catches the very obvious question in his expression, answering with an eye-roll. "I'm afraid my family isn't very functional yet," she admits. "I did… maaaaaybee forget I had a mom, though."

"I'll go get her!" Khan proclaims suddenly and loudly. "After all, you two share eldritch genetics!" Leaning closer to Uzi, he adds "And it'll be some bonding time—"

Uzi uses the Solver to toss him out of the room and slams the door so hard it cracks.

"Yikes." V says, reaching out to tap on Uzi's head with a razor-sharp claw. "You sure everything's all right up in there?"

Uzi groans and flops back down on the bed in response, ignoring Doll's yelp as the tail is squished under her weight.

"I hate it here," Uzi Doorman, newest host of the Solver, controller of all time and space and matter, groans melodramatically.

[m0nster-in-paradise]

wip I will never finish Tessa revival edition

e. More below the cut

Tessa James Elliot is pretty sure she's dead, but clearly she isn't, because the sluggish weight in her limbs is very much present and she's suddenly conscious and she's pretty sure she's going to die, because when she takes a short breath in she chokes on water and starts floundering around, trying to get the hell out of wherever she is. Everything hurts. Everything hurts really badly, and she either bit her tongue or something's really wrong, because she can feel her mouth filling up with blood by the texture but she can't taste it or feel any sort of pain.

Something cool touches her shoulder. Tessa freaks out even more. Everything goes black before she gets to fight back.

The second time she wakes up, she panics once more, sedated and drowsy but with a brain running several sort of plots to escape from the slick hands of whatever's holding her arm down, sparks flying from where it messes with the table by her. Or maybe not the table. Maybe that's her arm. Is that a drone holding her hand down? She looks up.

She sees yellow eyes.

Tessa manages to drag herself off of the table at the same time she lashes out, pulling her arm away roughly. Something feels weird there. Her arm feels limp, and wet, and Cyn is messing with her body, and oh my God, I'm going to die, she thinks, because yellow eyes mean death when yellow eyes look at her like that with such a horrified but concerned but serious expression, and behind her she hears a door slam shut as people start screaming and hiding under tables in the hopes Cyn will avoid them or not see them or not skin them alive like what happened to her, did she just tear her skin? She can't feel a thing. Suddenly she is cold and she can't see and no matter how hard she runs, whatever she's hit won't give way.

Tessa wants to scream. She struggles to get her arms out in front of her without them flopping, and the texture is mushy but crumbly like wet sand, and she thinks if this is the end then she just wants to get on with it, and then someone's arms lift her out of the snow a bit roughly.

"Boss," someone says from behind where they're holding her like a child, "calm down. Please. I'm trying to save you here."

Tessa whirls and punches them in the face only to collapse soon after.

--

The third time Tessa wakes up, she is alone. The air is cool and a little musty. It smells of oil and cleaning supplies and everything she