Chapter Text
Uzi watched the congregation file into the chapel room. Most of them had their bodies covered by ratty looking cloaks, hoods pulled up to obscure their faces. She watched as they sat in the slowly rotting metal-reinforced wooden pews, a soft hum running through them as they quietly talked to each other. A handful made no noise, sitting in the far back nearest the doors, heads bowed as they patiently waited. She couldn"t help the flicker of excitement she felt seeing quick flashes of purple light shine on their shadowed laps.
Once the congregation was settled in, Caleb himself came into the room. His massive form heaved and lurched towards the pulpit, body draped in a dark cloak that was less tattered than his previous one. At some point the lunatic had grafted another leg to himself to replace the one he lost fighting them. It wasn"t a disassembler one, that was for sure. His gait was uneven and unsteady, and several times it looked like Caleb was just about to fall over. Uzi let out a tiny laugh at the sight.
"I got his ass good," she mumbled.
"I have to admit, though it was sloppy, your work is rather exemplary," J hummed. Uzi could hear the teasing in her voice. "Just make sure that next time, you don"t miss."
"I never miss," she said. "And if it looks like I did, I didn"t."
"You missed me during that fight with Cyn."
"That was on purpose."
J snorted and tried to hide her laugh. Uzi went back to watching the lumbering mutant below them. He finally made it to the little podium, using it to support most of his weight as he began his usual speech. Uzi tuned out his words, letting J pay attention for her. Instead, she looked out over the crowd, eyes watching those in the back. She sent out a signal, and she couldn"t suppress the shiver than ran through her as she saw bright purple light up their laps once again.
"Are you sure about doing this, Biscuit?" N whispered to her. "I know we have to stop Caleb, but... Are we really gonna kill all of them? Isn"t that a bit overkill?"
"It"s not overkill," Uzi protested. "It"s the right amount of kill. If we don"t get rid of them all now, they"re just gonna come back later and probably a hundred times worse!"
"... Even the kids?" His voice was so quiet and scared.
"No... No, not the the kids," she told him. "We can... I dunno, find homes or something for them."
"Think we can take them home with us?" N asked.
"We... Can see..." she had to squash the growing maternal instinct rising within her. This came first. Kids and all that mushy crap she would handle later.
"Bleeding hearts," J mumbled.
"Hey, at least someone cares!" N hissed at her. "They"re innocent, it"s not their faults they were programmed and raised here!"
"We should be exterminating all of them," J said. "If we don"t, we"ll have to deal with them again in a few years."
"Not if we can convince them to not be a cult anymore!" N argued. "We should do that after we get rid of Caleb and his hunters!"
"Easier said than done," Uzi hummed. "One on hand, we scare them bad enough they go back to being normal. On the other, we scare them so hard they come back for revenge later."
"Let"s hope for the first one?" N suggested.
"And prepare for the second," J concluded.
The three of them kept listening to Caleb talk. The longer they did, waiting for their chance to strike, the antsier Uzi got. The mutant weirdo seemingly had no idea what was about to happen. The purple glow shined once more, now pulsing gently with each synchronous heartbeat. Yet still, Caleb apparently didn"t notice. He just kept going on and on about how, even though they totally lost, they managed to flee with her, J, and N"s bodies.
"And it is a glorious moment for us, my brothers and sisters," Caleb rasped. "Tonight, tonight we shall feast upon the slain Heretic and her fallen angels! We shall end her threat of corruption at long last!"
Two of his hunters walked on stage. One by one, they raised three crosses, which the three of them had been nailed to. Their seemingly lifeless bodies dripped with oil. No one seemed to question why that was, or why their visors were blank instead of displaying bright red [FATAL ERROR]s. No one seemed to notice the way their bodies subtly glitched, either. Uzi wanted to laugh at how utterly oblivious the cultists were.
When the two hunters moved away to let the crosses stand on their own, one looked up towards the rafters of the room. His shiny cyan eyes met theirs and he gave them a slight nod before turning to look up at his leader. A shiver of excitement ran down her spine again as Uzi carefully and slowly led the three of them down behind the crosses. She grinned wide as Caleb kept talking.
"You two ready?" She whispered.
"Of course," J said.
"Always," N whispered back.
Uzi purred. She sent out the activation code to the drones in the back. As one they stood, their bowed heads snapping up. Caleb stopped talking as they did, a strangled gasp leaving him as he presumably saw the purple hunting crosses adorning their faces. Two of them slammed the doors to the chapel room. Long oily tendrils spread from their hands into the metal of the doors, barring anyone from leaving.
Worried voices rose up from the congregation as many of them stood. Some looked around to see what had happened while others directed questions to their stunned leader. The cyan eyed hunter nudged him, causing the mutant to let out a roar of anger.
"What is the meaning of this!?" He asked the silent drones. "How dare any of you defy the sanctity of Her Grace"s church!"
They said nothing. Uzi hadn"t managed to cobble together enough vocal units in time when she made them. Besides, she thought it made them creepier when they couldn"t speak like normal drones. Caleb snarled and stepped away from the podium. He didn"t make it far, as the cyan eyed hunter knocked him off-balance. The mutant crashed to the floor, disbelief in his yellow-orange eyes as he spat at his hunter.
"Shrike! How dare you lay your hands on me!?" He hissed.
Shrike just looked at him. "You lied, Prophet. You lied to all of us. Cyn isn"t the Solver, she never was."
"Don"t you utter such blasphemy to me, fool!" Caleb growled.
"You killed my daughter," Shrike coldly told him. "You dragged us out there and you got my little Zero killed for a false god!"
Uzi pressed herself against the cross that held her "corpse". Slowly she began to push on it, the metal creaking as it struggled to hold her weight. J and N did the same to theirs, the sound echoing over the increasingly agitated crowd.
"But I found her, I found the real Absolute Solver," the cyan eyed hunter said. A purple cross took away his shiny eyes. "In Her Name, I will cleanse us of your lies, Prophet."
Another code was sent out as the three of them toppled the crosses to the stage and slithered out. Fleshy wings and tails burst from the backs of her drones. Uzi couldn"t hold back her manic laughter as Shrike also fell to her call, his newly formed pale blue wings dripping with blood and oil. Uzi lifted the three of them from their fallen crosses, holoprojectors sprouting from their amalgamated form.
It was easy to sow chaos. The door was barred and her drones lunged, mouths wide and fangs glistening. The first cultists fell with shrieks of utter terror as they were torn apart and eaten alive. They cried out for their Prophet to save them, for their god to descend and protect them, for the endless Void to grant them mercy. Caleb yelled out their screams, trying to organize his hunters into attacking her drones and helping others break down the door as he himself struggled to his feet. Shrike knocking him over again, taking a bite out of his arm before joining in on the chaos within the crowd.
Uzi watched it all unfold, long chilopodian body crawling down from the high ceiling. She moved through the massacre, humming to herself as J occasionally snatched a quick meal with a pincer. N grabbed at any little drones or pillbabies he could see, hissing at Uzi"s pseudo-disassembly drones if he caught one trying to make a meal out of one of the innocents. To their credit, the children didn"t seem scared of their horrific form. Either they didn"t understand what was happening, or they were so desensitized to dead and dying drones that this massacre just didn"t register in their minds. Either way, she let N hold onto them.
Not everyone had shown up. Uzi guessed the victims here were roughly half of the total population. Maybe a quarter. You can"t target just one area of rot and expect to keep it at bay forever. So, with a flick of her tail, she smashed the doors wide open, killing the hunters that had been trying to do the same. Cultists and hunting drones poured out of the room like water, shrieks and howls echoing down the corridors. Uzi slithered their conjoined bodies out of the room, a long, sticky trail of oil following them.
"So, what now?" J asked, a clump of wires dangling from her mouth.
A series of pings caught their attentions. Uzi grinned and began crawling up the walls and onto the ceiling, forcibly widening the vents as they slipped inside. Screams rose up as cultists either tried fleeing into or from their homes as her drones chased after them. Cyn and the others were close, very close, and she wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to get inside. That, and the hunger she had been long suppressing was finally starting to get the better of her.
"Now? We eat."