Chapter Text
Tessa James Elliot hasn't exactly lived an easy life to say the least. If she were to describe her life in one word, it would probably be somewhere along the lines of 'Bollocks.' From being treated as more of an asset rather than a person by her parents to fighting off nightmarish eldritch things, it’s like she drew the shortest stick imaginable when she was born. But maybe after so long, today was the day her life might take a turn for the better for once.
Tessa double checked that all the systems in her tiny spaceship were still in tip top shape during the long flight at lightspeed. She tapped a few buttons on the console in front of her and flipped some switches above her. Thinking back, would she get reprimanded for ‘borrowing’ one of the spaceships by the engineers and leaders back at the colony without asking? Definitely, but it will all be worth it if what she thinks is happening is true.
Approximately five or so hours ago, ‘Tessa’ had logged into the ‘Cabin Fever’ Database on Copper-9. Even though the small colony of surviving humans Tessa was staying at had dropped off the radar in-case she ever got a whiff of them; they had kept a very tiny computer to keep an eye on any kind of human activity out there. But it’s not like much activity was ever recorded anyway. Tessa knew there were other small colonies, but communication between them was very scarce. Tessa also knew there was only one other thing that could possibly identify as her. Taking a moment, Tessa flexed her prosthetic right arm underneath her space suit as she held the steering wheel to the ship.
“Gonna get that arm back with interest you little so and so,” She venomously muttered underneath her helmet. That same helmet still had the smiley and rainbow stickers on it whose colors have faded with time. Speaking of time... Tessa let out a long sigh. To think it had been about twenty years since that night at The Gala. That was the last night her life was even a pinch normal if it even was at all to begin with. She watched her parents die in-front of her, countless other people die too; she got her arm hacked off by the demon child before barely escaping with her life, and that was the last time she saw her favorite drones in the world. She assumed Cyn had kept the three of them on a tighter leash than the other drones in the Manor. Her and the other surviving humans have been fighting off nameless nobodies, and the messes Cyn make for years... but never N,V, or J. Cyn must be ‘fond’ enough of them to never want them to leave her side if Tessa had to guess. If Cyn really is on Copper-9 then Tessa is crossing her fingers N, V, and J are there too. She just... hopes for the best they recognize her because... she really isn’t sure she’ll have the heart to fight them. But that’s a bridge she’ll cross when she gets there after she finds them first.
Tessa then glances over to her right where there is a tightly sealed black box on the dashboard. In there lies the key to... whatever is left of humanities salvation.
...
After a bit more time in lightspeed, or to Tessa what feels like agonizing ages, she arrives at her destination... Copper-9's orbit. Disabling lightspeed, Tessa looks out the cockpit window and at the immediate vicinity and can’t even be bothered to be shocked at what she sees. Before Tessa lies Copper-9 in what looks like on the brink of ruin. Parts of the planet are scattered around the atmosphere; it looks like a black hole is forming in the center of the planet, and there are a bunch of bright yellow tentacles forming around the center of the chaos. This is the same thing Cyn has done to Earth along with countless other planets.
“This party tricks getting pretty old, Sheila,” Tessa mocks from above all the chaos. She continues to drive slowly, fearing she’d be spotted if she drove too fast or to close. Tessa parks her spaceship on a piece of nearby debris. She unbuckles herself and goes over to the black box she had strapped down during the entire ride. She unseals it and takes out its contents, a golden crucifix. “Hope those chucklenuts at R&D knew what they were doing,” Tessa comments as she twirls the crucifix in her hands. Tessa was about to go grab everything else she would need from the back of the ship before a voice echoed throughout her ship.
“Tessa, TESSA! Are you getting this? It’s Jake from Maintenance, just what the hell do you think you’re doing out in that sector?” Tessa walks over to the microphone that's attached to the dashboard. She swore she turned it off before she left.
Tessa presses the red button beneath the microphone, “Getting my drones back,” Tessa says coldly.
“For-” Jake cuts himself off with rage, “Tessa this isn’t some game. You better get back here before you’re never-” Tessa walks over and presses another button on the dash, cancelling the call.
“Sorry mate, connection was a bit fuzzy, think the call got dropped.” Tessa then goes back and gets everything she’ll need for the mission ahead.
...
Stepping out of the ship and onto the small chunk of debris she landed on, Tessa walks out in her signature white and grey space suit she’s been rocking for a while. She had her usual boots, gloves, and her JCJenson hat with a black bow pinned on it. Around her waist is a holster for her gun, (she would have loved that old sword of her's), along with various other sealed pouches, one of which has the crucifix. Tessa adjusts her cap, and she tries to come up with... some way of getting closer to what’s left of the planet on foot. She notices that some of the chunks and bits of asteroids around her loosely resemble a path forward if she’s willing to jump. She jumped up and down for a second to get a feel for the gravity, which was definitely wonky, but light enough to where it could carry her across the gaps in debris.
“Alright... guess I’m doing this.” Tessa begins to pace back and forth. “C’mon Tessa, not exactly the time to psych yourself out now. You finally have a leg up on Cyn before she starts eating a planet. You can finally put an end to all this and get back the only semblance of family you probably have left.” Tessa begins to shake her wrists with anticipation, “What would they do? What would they do? Well, N would probably say something about how he always loves to do anything, V would probably be frightened at the sight but would still go through with it, could always rely on her, and J would probably say something about how I’m wasting company time talking to myself.” Tessa giggled to herself, “It’s like they’re here already.” With that, Tessa begins her journey through the makeshift path she identified and leaves her ship behind.
Tessa takes one bold jump after another and maneuvers about the debris. She swats smaller pieces away with her real and false hand and only focuses on the next jump. Rather than focus on the lightshow of horror that is happening right now.
“Just keep it slow and steady, Tessa,” She tells herself. “What was it that blue fish used to sing in that one movie? ‘Just keep swimming, just keep swimming’? Guess in this case it would be ‘Just keep jumping, just keep jumping', huh?” She muses to herself... at least until she almost loses her footing while making one large jump. “Woah!” Tessa begins to flail around as she tries to regain her balance. She eventually does regain her composure, “Ok, note to self, no more daydreaming about old kids' movies when you're jumping across deadly chasms in space. Got it, great, definitely a life lesson I’ll use some other day for sure.”
After that little hiccup, Tessa continues her journey through the floating rocks. She jumps and jumps as the planet appears closer and closer. She eventually arrives at a fairly large rock where she can take a breather after jumping for so long. Looking around near where the planet’s core would have been, she doesn’t see any signs of N, V, J, or Cyn for even that matter. “Here’s to hope I’m not late to the party.” After a bit more looking, she then spots a few... Worker Drones? Floating in orbit. There was one with a mustache, one with a green visor, and one with a pink visor. Along with, if what she remembers reading in those old manuals to be right, an anti-drone sentinel... with a funny hat? “Crickey, it’s been forever since I’ve seen regular ol’ Worker Drones. Nowadays all the Worker Drones are taller and are armed to the teeth.” Unholstering her gun and putting it in her real hand, just in case, she jumps and proceeds to drift over to the four of them. For some reason the anti-drone sentinel has some kind of CO2 tank in its mouth... weird.
“Gooday fine Worker Drones and plus one, how goes your day?” Tessa greeted with a wave once she was closer to the four of them. Each one of them cocked their head over to her.
“Gah! A human!” The one in the mustache exclaimed.
“Yep, me, a human, a human named Tessa. Nice to meet you lot, bet it's been a while since you’ve seen one of me, ay? What with the whole core collapse and everything. Promise I’m one of the good ones though, no ludicrous experimenting or enslaving over here.” Tessa had finished floating and landed against the school bus that was for some reason next to them.
The one with the mustache crossed his arms, “Likely story.”
“Sick, a human, I’ve only ever read schoolbooks about your kind. That and whatever Zi tells me.” The green one spoke up as he made finger guns at Tessa, which she returned with her free hand. “Sorry about Mr. Doorman, it’s been a long day.” The green one gestured at the mustache one, who still had his arms crossed. “Names Thad by the way, play any sports?”
“I dabbled in fencing but otherwise sports weren’t really my thing,” Tessa answered.
“Ever consider B-ball?”
Tessa then shook the hand she held her gun with in a ‘meh’ manner.
Then the sentinel, who looked like it was drifting toward the pink Worker Drone, suddenly changed targets and floated towards Tessa. “Well, hello there dingo, that’s a nice hat you got on right there. What’s a fine specimen like you doing all the way up here?” Tessa’s question fell on deaf ears as the sentinel still used the tank in its mouth to get closer to her. Tessa pointed at it with her prosthetic hand, “Now, what exactly are you planning on doing with that-” She was interrupted as the sentinel tossed the tank aside and clamped its jaw shut on Tessa's hand. “Crickey, bad dingo! Bad!” Tessa began to smack the side of its head with her gun. The sentinel, who looked like it was confused, let go of Tessa’s hand. “Hah! Prosthetic! Bet you've never seen one of these before. They're pretty nifty, aren't they?” Tessa postured as she briefly removed her glove to show the sentinel her fake hand. Her prosthetic hand was mostly black, with gray balls signifying where her fingers bent. It stood out against the yellow back drop of the school bus for the brief time Tessa showed it. “And you can’t just go around biting people. That isn’t a very nice way to introduce yourself now, is it you little bugger?” Tessa got some kind of snarl from it as a reply as.
“I think it’s defective,” The pink one snarked, who then seemingly drew the ire of the sentinel again.
Tessa then remembered she was on a bit of a tight schedule; Cyn could finish eating the planet at any moment and move on elsewhere. “Say, not that it hasn’t been fun, but I’m on a bit of a time crunch. Have any of you seen a little demon in a maid outfit that has the powers of a god named Cyn? Or the nicest guy in the world named N, a girl with glasses and a bob cut named V, or a girl with pigtails named J, have you? I’m hoping at least... one of them is around here right now. Otherwise, I’m going to get in a heap of trouble over nothing,” Tessa laughed while looking around for any signs of them again.
“Glasses?” The pink one spoke up again with a hint of interest, “You’re gonna have to give me that hot gossip on V later, but her and pigtails went somewhere that way. Call me Lizzy, I’m like, the most popular drone there is so it shouldn’t be hard to remember.” Lizzy pointed closer towards the middle of the planet, and Tessa could faintly make out what looked like two blurs moving around rapidly. She figures that must be what Lizzy is talking about. Tessa couldn't make out what they were doing, but at least she probably has eyes on them now.
"You know V?" Tessa asked with curiosity.
"Oh yeah, we're total besties," Lizzy answered.
“Ain't that a pleasant surprise, little old V still making friends... who woulda thought." Tessa can't help but wonder how much her drones have gone through for a second before continuing. "But I best be going, got a robo-child to finally kill, cheers love, see you all later... and you better be on your best behavior,” Tessa sternly pointed to the sentinel again, which she received another snarl out of it. Tessa then pushed off the bus and gave a big salute to the four of them as she headed towards the two rapid flashes of light moving around.
“If that really is V and J, I’m going to have to think of the best greeting of all time after not seeing them in forever...” After thinking, Tessa then did a raspberry under her helmet, “I got nothing. Ah, maybe I’ll think of something when I see them. Yeah, yeah, totally, I’m totally going to think of something awesome then.” Tessa assured herself as continued drifting through orbit.