Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They were falling at a much faster rate than Q would have liked. The world around her seemed to whip by at a pace far too quick for her own liking. She took a look out one of the pod windows and grimaced. The inky black of space was quickly fading to be replaced by the cool blue tones of the planet they were very close to crash landing on. Copper 9.

Q looked away from the window and at the rest of the pod, weighing their very limited options. L was piloting their doomed ship, and she didn’t look too great. The lack of oil reserves on the ship were probably getting to her. It was getting to Q as well. 

Her hands itched to become claws and her teeth gritted against each other. Get a grip Q. You don’t need to go all oil crazy while in a pod surrounded by your ‘squadmates’. Go oil crazy later, when you're by some workers or something. She shook her head. She needed to focus on something else before she actually did accidently go oil crazy.

The sound of a grunt caught her attention and she looked up to locate where it had come from. Her other squadmate, A, sat belted in tight to her chair. Sadly for A, she was far lower on oil reserves than Q was. Q could see A’s teeth grinding together. She could also see the bright, sun gold X glaring at her from A’s visor. Oh. It looks like she was angrier than Q had originally thought. Understandable. She was the one who had to lock her up in that seat afterall. 

She looked away from the struggling and hissing drone again, focusing on what was happening outside the pod. They were re-entering the atmosphere. The outside of the pod had already caught fire and, if she looked hard enough, she could see the cold ground below fast approaching. From the looks of it, they very well might crash. Fantastic. 

It only took about five more minutes of sitting and waiting before the now quaking ship hit the ground. Q felt it all the way to her very core. The tight seatbelt she had on dug into her chest as the force of the impact hit those of them inside. Warnings flashed across her visor, showing that she had sustained damage to her head from the kickback. Nothing her nanites couldn’t repair. She heard a crash around the same time those warnings started buzzing in her head. One look over at L told her who it had been. She glanced at A, still hissing while trapped inside the seatbelt. Looks like she was the only one who could help.

With a sigh that held a hint of a snarl, Q unfastened her seatbelt and slowly hobbled her way over to L. The drones entire head was smashed into the console and a few shards of glass were embedded around her core area. In other words, this was not good. Q activated her medic programming and began to methodically extract L’s head from the main console. Once that was done, she spun the chair to face her and opened up her core plating. One look told her that L’s core was mostly unharmed, minus a few small shards of glass. 

Q let out a sigh of relief before getting to work pulling out those small shards. It didn’t take her long before she had managed to pull out the shards. She checked over the rest of the drone, finding not much else to worry about. Good, she’d be fine. She could already see the nanites beginning to repair the drones head. One thing Q was somewhat worried about was that now L was going to be on even lower oil. Meaning Q would have to be the first one out hunting. Fan-fricking-tastic. Her luck really couldn’t get much better, could it?

With an annoyed rumbling sound, Q moved over to the pod door. Looking out, she saw a sight that got her fangs bearing in an involuntary grin. Workers lined the outside, staring in at the unfortunate crash landers. How silly of them. Not understanding how close they were to death. At this point… they were already dead men walking. 

With a grin, Q got the door to open slowly. She felt her claws take form in her hands and her saliva dripped down her maw. The killing X formed on her visor as she stared up at these pitiful workers. She, and the rest of her squad, were very hungry… and these drones would be the food to feed them. 

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The last thing Xavier was expecting to see today was some form of spaceship crash landing into the ground in front of his gun shop. Lucky him, it hadn’t actually impacted the shop, so his property was safe. But still, now there was shattered glass everywhere and a few super epic paintings destroyed on the floor. To say he was a little annoyed would be an understatement.

And so, with anger quickening his step, Xavier stomped out of his shop and towards the fallen ship. He was going to give whoever dropped it here a piece of his dang mind. 

He stopped in front of the crater and narrowed his angry glare at the ship. One look around told him that there were quite a few workers looking at the wreckage with confusion in their gazes. None of them held as much anger as he did. He glared at what he thought to be a door to the inside of whatever spaceship thing this was. That glare slowly transformed as the door swung open and… something stepped out. Sharp teeth, claws, and an X where all he could collect of it’s appearance before it lanced into the sky and then came down on the worker right beside him. 

With a shriek, the worker was rended in two and the monster began to feast on its blood. He screamed, turning and running away at full throttle. This was bad. Really bad. He had nowhere to- an explosion rang through the air as a missile launched itself into a group of workers. He gave another shout of fear, switching directions towards his precious shop. Maybe that would save him?

He wasn’t too far away, so he was able to successfully reach his shop. With a small sigh of relief, he curled up behind the counter and hid. He heard a noise like the whispering of wind through the trees as something big landed in front of his shop. It was here. It had seen him run. His core hummed even louder as he covered his mouth and dimmed his lights. Fear was all he could feel right now. 

He heard faint clicking, tapping noises. Then all else stopped. No noise came to his audials. He dared to believe, just for a moment, that he was safe. He was a fool to do so. The sound of tapping came to his audials again and he tightened into a ball behind the counter. It stopped again, in front of where he lay. Maybe if he runs…..

“Tsk tsk tsk. Hiding can only get you so far, toaster.” The thing spoke in a low, pitying growl. It sounded almost like it didn’t want to do this. How-

Pain, white hot, laced through his shoulder as something stabbed through. He felt this strange, itchy, burning feeling begin to permeate from his shoulder. It got worse and worse. A second pain as whatever jabbed him removed itself from his body. He couldn’t suppress the cry of pain that left his voice box. He slowly looked up, trying to at least see what was about to kill him. 

Leaning over the counter, staring down at him, was a bright yellow X. The thing's face was painted in a small, almost annoyed frown.

That was the last thing he saw before his head was ripped from his shoulders by the unseen claws of the monster. 

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Rex had been having a good day for all intents and purposes. Him, his dad, and his mom had just finished going camping in the cold wilderness away from all the other workers. Now, they were walking back over to his uncle’s gun shop, which also doubled as their home.

Rex could see said shop in the distance. But… something looked off. His little processor couldn’t figure it out. It looked like something had landed near his uncle's shop. Rex wasn’t sure what, but the twin gasps of horror from his parents told him it wasn’t good. His mom wrapped her arms around him and began to pull him to the side as his dad stared in shock at whatever had happened. Rex couldn’t see. His dang middle-school frame was too small. 

He watched his dad stare for a few long moments before following his mom off to the side. They whispered to each other in harsh, worried tones. Apparently, something really bad was happening that Rex had no clue about. This annoyed him a bit, so he looked up at his mom and opened his mouth to speak. A feeling deep in his core told him to shut his mouth real quick. So he did. The light sound of arguing could be heard in the wind. It sounded like two ravenous wolves snarling at each other over a hunt. He shivered. That wasn’t a normal sound in these wastelands.

Rex looked up to see both his mom and his dad staring in horror at each other. Then he felt his fathers powerful grip on his arm wrench him forwards and begin to lead him away, his mom following close after. They were all quiet as death as they snuck through the crunching snow, far away from the noises that pierced through the night. They’d need to find a new shelter now, since they’re old home was now owned by whatever was making those noises. This was bad. 

Chapter Text

Q was starting to get very worried about her squadmate, L. L hadn’t eaten anything since they got here, about a day ago, and it was showing. The drone’s claws were near constantly out and her mouth gritted in a terrifying snarl. What worried Q the most though was L’s personality shift. She went from the lighthearted, happy go lucky drone they all knew and loved… to an irritable, constantly annoyed drone in the span of a single day. 

Q was currently on her way to check in on L, worry for her squadmate causing her to go out of her way to make sure the drone was okay. She hoped beyond hope that despite the lack of food, the drone would be okay. She’d tried repeatedly to get her to eat… but it never worked. No matter how much she tried to feed the drone, L had never taken any. Despite the drool and the clear hunger on her face. Q didn’t understand it. Out of all the drone’s in their squad, Q should be the one refusing to eat. She was a medic afterall! Yet she was able to bring herself to do it… Why wasn’t L? 

Q knew deep down why. L didn’t remember their past and thus didn’t have the same experiences her and A had… She didn’t know about the monster that thing had made her into. In the end, L simply still had the morality that Q lacked. Which, in this case, wasn’t exactly a good thing. 

As Q made her way to the pod, a new sound met her audials. Different from the quiet, pained warbles constantly flowing out of her hurt squadmate. Something more predatory. Something far more terrifying. From the sounds of it…. It was from A. The warbles slowly became more intelligible as she got closer. What she heard had her eyes hollowing and her wings beating so that she was going as quick as possible. 

L: Help….. Me…. pain…. Hurts… please. 

A: How? How? How?

L: …….. Kill.

A: Laughter Found. Prey.

L: Scared….

A: Safe! Food. Calm. Calm. Calm. Panic!

L: PAIN! HURTS! STOP! PAIN!

A: Fun! Fun! Fun!

L: PLEASE! STOP!

Q flew on wings of wind, finally spotting the pod way out in front of her. Two dark figures stood out in the pale gloom of the night. One was over the other as a dark substance began to spread around it. Oil. Q’s eyes boldened. 

Oh no. Oh no no no no. Not now. Not again. 

Q took only a few more moments to collide with the ground at such a speed that said ground cratered beneath her. As soon as she had her footing, she rushed towards the two. She stopped a few feet away. Just one look told her that she could do nothing to help L. 

A had….. She had….. Oh robo… 

Q just stood, watching. Not moving. There was nothing she could do. No way she could help. Nothing… All she could do was stare. 

L was barely alive at this point. A had done a number on her. Her oil was absolutely everywhere. In the snow, on the pod, all over A…. It was a terrifying sight. A sight that made Q’s oil boil and her fuel tank roil. 

Why wasn’t she moving? Why wasn’t she trying to fight A off? Why was she frozen, again? WHY!? MOVE DANGGIT! Q pulled herself back to reality and rushed forward to pull A off L, right when A’s talons wrapped around L’s now exposed core. The force of Q hitting her only helped her to tear the fleshy thing out of L’s body. The shriek that left L’s voice box was enough to get Q to lock up and fall to ground.

No. Nononononononononononononono…. She’s going to die. She’s basically already dead. I can’t do anything to help. Fool. Stupid………… Maybe I can still at least try to fix this.

With that, Q pulled herself together and immediately rushed towards A. She was too late, yet again. A’s claws stabbed into the core and squeezed, oil spilling out. Q still managed to ram A and rip the core out of her hands. Oil spilled from the three long wounds punctured into the flesh. 

Q immediately got to work on trying to bandage it. She knew, deep inside, she wouldn’t be able to help… but she was definitely going to try. She pulled out her nanite repair gel and set to work trying to repair the wounds. It wasn’t working. She let out a panicked snarl before looking for the bandages. She found them and pulled them out to begin to wrap them around L.

One look at L told her that the drone core wasn’t doing too well. Oil that very much needed to stay in her body was leaking all over Q’s hand. This, for obvious reasons, worried Q even more. She began to work on the core, wrapping it in bandages and trying to keep it alive. She’d give it an oil transfer, but she didn’t have the tools she’d need for that. She had the oil, but she didn’t have the IV she needed. 

Q was starting to panic, which she knew wasn’t a good idea in this situation. L was very much dying and there was nothing she could do. The bandages were barely working, already soaked in oil at this point. She could still try something new though…. Q tried her absolute hardest to keep her friend alive, even going so far as to try shoveling oil onto the core. It didn’t work. Nothing did. Her friend was dying. There was nothing she could do. She was useless. Again.

Q watched as L’s eyelight slowly dimmed. She held the core to her chest, pain reverberating through her own core. She felt her friends core wrap her in its own little tentacle claws before…. falling away. She clutched it tighter. She didn’t want to look down. She didn’t want to see her friend… dead. After a little bit, she looked down. She had to.

L’s single eyelight had faded into blackness. Her body lay limp in Q’s hands. She was gone. There was no way Q could bring her back….. She was gone. Q stared down at the core. She didn’t move, she didn’t speak. She didn’t even cry. She was in too much shock. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. She couldn’t believe that her squadmate would do such a thing. A… hadn’t been that way before. This wasn’t something she normally did….

Q felt the tears slowly begin to bubble up around her eyelights before falling in an almost constant stream down her visor. This hurt far more than she would have expected it too… far more… 

She’s gone. She’s gone. I’ve failed. I’ve failed my job, yet again. What kind of medic am I if I can’t save my friend? I failed everyone yet again. If I’d just gotten here sooner… if I’d just stayed by her rather than leaving her alone…. None of this would have happened. All would be okay. We’d still be the happy group of friends we were back in those times. A would still be… A. And L… L wouldn’t be……….

Q spent the rest of that night by the body of her friend. She took the corpse into the pod when the sun rose and stuck by her, keeping her close. She… needed to stay close. Needed the reality of what just happened to set in. Needed… to cope.