"Come on, sweetie!" the familiar voice on the other side of the door spoke. "It's nice out! Don't you wanna go play in the sun?" he asked.

From under your lightest blanket, you huffed and burrowed yourself further beneath its pastel surface. "NO!" you snapped back, voice muffled due to your hiding space. "PLAYING IN THE RAIN'S MORE FUN!" you told.

"Wha─The RAIN??? Sweetheart, you could catch cold from that!"

"And I won't get heat stroke from the sun?"

You heard the one you were arguing with sputter and smirked to yourself triumphantly.

"T-that's different!" your current enemy tried to counter, although the tone of his voice told you that even he found his own words hard to take seriously. "Come on, [Y/n], please? You want to go collect sea shells with your papa, don't you?"

"IT'D BE FUNNER IN THE RAIN!!"

"AW, [Y/N], SWEETIE, COME ON─"

"OLIVER, HAVE YOU STILL NOT MANAGED TO GET HER OUT YET?!"

"I'M TRYING, OKAY?!"

"I'M NOT COMING OUT!" you yelled, now sitting up on your bed with your blanket wrapped around you like a burrito. "YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!!"

"Oh, but [Y/n] ..."

The world went still and your breath hitched when you felt claws as dark as the abyss leave a trail just a breath away from your neck.

"You never know when you'll see them again, right?"

The dark hand covered your mouth and dragged you into nothingness before you could scream, and then─

─you woke up to silence.

With trembling hands, you grasped hold of the jacket draped over your shoulders like a blanket to ground yourself. "A dream ..." You took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself.

"Just a dream. Nothing more."

From outside your small shelter, the cold winds of Copper-9 whistled, and you sighed.

"Time to start the day then, I guess."

━━━━━━━━ ⸙ ━━━━━━━━

Unfortunately, it was not day when you stepped outside, but rather night instead.

How lucky for you.

"Damn," you muttered, lifting your gaze to the dark sky. "I really need to start setting up an alarm for myself." You paused. "If I can do that, that is."

You contemplated going back inside your temporary shelter and just waiting the night out instead of risking getting yourself spotted by the murderous drones that just so happened to stalk this planet, but then remembered that the whole reason you were constantly on the move and seeking out different shelters in the first place was because one of said murderous drones had a habit of practically destroying everyone and everything in her path─the doors and walls you were usually hidden behind included.

So with that, you decided that you may as well take your chances. And if any of them did find you?

You'll at least get to see your dads again. Hopefully.

Taking a deep breath, you began to trek your way through the snowy wasteland quietly; glancing around with wary [e/c] eyes in search of any winged drones on your tail.

Nothing.

It was just you and the wind.

(Being a drone sucked at times, but even you had to admit that the heater built into your systems was quite a relief against the harsh cold of Copper-9.)

Even despite that, though, you still couldn't help but sway your tail from side-to-side anxiously: waiting for one of the drones who hunted amongst the night to swoop down suddenly and put an end to your lonely existence.

(And while you weren't completely against that, deep down, you still couldn't exactly find the idea of being brutally murdered a rather 'good' way to go.)

Before you could get lost in your own thoughts, however, you were suddenly pulled back into reality when you saw a silhouette moving amongst the snow from afar. And for a moment, you tensed, until you realized something:

That ... can't be a Murder Drone. You squinted, trying to get a better look at the silhouette. Too small.

One part of you, the more cautionary part, told you to turn around and leave while you still could. Even if that silhouette wasn't a Murder Drone, that didn't mean that whoever─whatever it was wasn't just, or perhaps even more, capable of harming you as one of them were.

The other part of you, though ...

Hesitantly, you began to draw closer to the silhouette, and the more you moved in, the more you could make out, and soon you concluded:

That is definitely not a Murder Drone.

Not only was this mysterious drone much too short compared to the killers stalking the night, they also just looked different from them in general, too. While the Murder Drones all had white hair and a yellow theme, this drone's hair and eyes were purple. In fact, being more closer to them now, it looked like their body was different from the Murder Drones' too? For starters, they were actually wearing shoes, and─

Hold up.

Was that a fucking gun??

Immediately, you stopped in your tracks, now pondering whether approaching this stranger was actually as good an idea as you once thought it was.

It's okay, they haven't spotted me yet, you reassured yourself. Maybe if I just ...

You took a step back, wanting to slowly sneak away, and then instantly regretted the action when your hoof-shaped foot landed on something that broke under your weight with a snap!

Both you and the silhouettes froze, shoulders rising automatically. With a cringe, you lowered your gaze down to see what you stepped on to give away your position, and─just like before─regretted it soon after.

That's an arm.

With a gasp, you frantically raised your foot and found yourself stumbling back in horror; suddenly forgetting about the other figure you were just now trying to avoid, who was now turning to you with their gun out and pointed directly at you.

"Who's there?!" they snapped, making you freeze once again and return your attention to them.

Good news: the snow seemed to finally settle down at last (how convenient), and you could now perfectly see just who was pointing the gun at you.

Bad news: there was a gun being pointed at you.

"W-wait! Don't shoot!" You raised your hands up in surrender. "I'm not here to hurt you, I promise!" you exclaimed.

With the helpful fact that you had a better view of the new drone's face now, you could see their─her eyes narrow at you suspiciously, before squinting slightly in what looked like confusion.

"Huh ..." Ever so slowly, she began to lower her gun. "What are you?" she asked, purple eyes giving your taller form a once-over. "I thought Disassembly Drones had wings?" she questioned, the hold she had on her weapon tightening with suspicion.

"Um, I'm not a Murder─Disassembly Drone," you answered, before hesitantly adding, "I'm a Millennium Drone."

That made the shorter drone pause. "Millennium Drone?" she repeated, still glaring at you with suspicion. "Never heard of 'em," she said.

You cleared your throat. "Well, you see─"

You stopped, head turning over your shoulder slightly when something suddenly grasped your attention: a sound.

Sharp wings cutting through the wind.

"Oh, shit," you cursed under your breath. "Time to hide."

"What?" The shorter drone gave you another confused look. "What are you─"

"No time!" you whisper-shouted, already running over to her and grabbing her hand to drag her along behind you. "Hide!"

Ignoring the purple-clad drone's protests, you noticed a broken window that led into a small shop─abandoned and destroyed like everything else here─and quickly jumped through, making sure to take the shorter drone along with you.

"Hey, this is a kidnapping!" she accused, enraged. "Let me g─"

"Shh!" Clasping a hand over her mouth to silence her, you forced her to sit down beneath the broken window with you, just as soon as the sound of someone landing in the snow echoed into the empty building from outside.

From beside you, the purple-haired drone finally went quiet.

Pushing yourself against the wall as much as possible to make yourself seem smaller, you held your breath as you listened to the sound of small feet crunch through the snow outside.

"Come out, come out~" You wanted to curse into the sky. Of course it just had to be the most blood (or in this case, oil) thirsty of them all. "I know I saw you here," she giggled darkly.

"We have to get out of here. Fast," you whispered to the drone next to you. "She'll find us eventually if we stay here for too long."

"And what exactly's your plan for that, then?" the shorter drone snarked, although you could tell she was just as scared of what was hunting you both out there as you were through the small tremble in her hands. "We can't just sneak around outside," she said.

"I know," you nodded. "Which is why we're gonna army crawl all the way over to that door over there," you said, nodding over to the door that sat behind the shop's front desk. "If we're lucky, there'll be a window in there we can use to climb out to the back and book it from there," you explained.

Your accidentally acquired companion eyed you with a new-found interest. "You've done this a lot," she concluded after a short moment.

You nodded. "I have." You looked over to the door that would hopefully be your saving grace from the psychopathic drone outside. "Now let's stop talking and get out of here before it's too late."

━━━━━━━━ ⸙ ━━━━━━━━

To your utter relief, the room behind the door did have a window, and it led to the other side of the shop, just like you hoped it would.

"Okay, now what?" your small companion had asked after she (reluctantly) allowed you to help her climb out after you.

"We run and hide again until she gets bored and leaves," was your simple answer before the two of you did just that.

Now, you found yourself in one of the few houses that were still somehow in decent shape. The moment the two of you had slipped in, you made sure to use the curtains helpfully left behind for you by whoever used to live here and close all of them so that no Murder Drone passing by would see you if they decided to peek through.

"Okay, okay ..." You released a relieved sigh. "We should be safe. For now."

"That's nice," your companion responded only after a brief pause. "But mind telling me who you are now, since we don't have any psychopaths sniffing us out for the time being anymore?"

Despite her clearly accusatory tone, you found yourself snorting as you turned to face the shorter drone behind you. "Well, I suppose you're not as shaken up as me if you can still run an interrogation after what just happened," you replied, not even bothering trying to hide your amusement.

The purple-haired drone only responded to your attempt at a joke with a glare.

You hummed. "My name is [Y/n]. I've been up here for a long time." Absentmindedly, you readjusted the ends of your coat. "That's all I'm willing to tell."

Your companion huffed and crossed her arms. "Really? Even if the one interrogating you right now has a gun?" she pushed.

"Yes," you responded easily, meeting her eyes with a deadpan gaze. "Even if the one interrogating me right now has a gun."

There was a tense silence after that, the two of you waiting to see what the other would do.

But then, your companion sighed and looked away, her arms stilled crossed.

"Uzi," she said. "My name is Uzi." When she looked back at you, her eyes were narrowed mockingly. "And that's all I'm willing to tell."

You smiled, her not-so-subtle jab at you amusing you even more.

"That's a nice name, Uzi."

From outside, the cold winds of Copper-9 whistled.

Strangely enough, though, the sound didn't seem to bother you as much as it did before now.