"Ready, everyone?" EVE whispered.
"Are you sure about this?" Rio whispered back.
"Of course, now listen up." EVE pointed, "Leah is going to be the decoy. Since she hasn't been bitten yet, she can attack him if needed. She'll lure him out, and then you will step in and keep him in line. Focus on him and nothing else. I'll then pick up his signature and follow him to wherever he's holding Aya captive."
"Are you sure?" Ruby asked, "I don't know if that's going to help..."
"Well, you see, I have a theory." EVE said, "He's trying to use mind-control on us, so if he doesn't know we're here, we should be able to attack!"
"Awesome!" Ruby cocked her weapon, "I'm ready..."
"You'd better be..." Rio replied, "I don't want Leah to die."
"Shut up! I'm not going to shoot our sister!"
"Guys, be quiet." EVE sunk lower in her hiding spot, "We just have to be patient."
NOS-4A-2 stretched his arms, checking on his captive. Aya was asleep, her arms and head tucked into her body. She almost looked like an egg. Nos almost laughed, despite himself before heading out the door to grab breakfast. He was particularly famished today. He would need a lot of power to keep himself running.
He grabbed a random sentry bot from the streets and retreated to a back-ally to feed. The robot let out a terrible scream before he drained it so much it fell limp. He threw it down, his eyes darting from side to side. Why was he caring so much!? He stuck his tongue out. Not enough.
He grabbed another random robot, sinking his fangs into that one too. He silenced this one's scream as well. What was he doing, anyway? He didn't want to just feed on random machines out of the street, he needed more than that! He decided he would visit the Axiom again.
How could they stop him, anyway?
He saw the orange-eyed one outside by herself. Seemed too perfect, but then again, how could anyone get the jump on him?
He seized her, "Hello, little one..."
"NOW!" she screamed.
Nos screamed in pain as something hit him into a building. He wasn't expecting the reaction to be that quick!
"I GOT YOU, SUCKER!" Ruby cocked her weapon, "HAHAHA! THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR MESSING WITH MY FAMILY!"
"Why you little..." Nos growled between his teeth, "I'LL KILL YOU!"
"No you won't!" Ruby put her thumbs to her head and wiggled her fingers in the air, "CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, LOSER!"
"SHUT UP!" Nos dove at her, clawing with his big hands, "I'LL DRAIN EVERY LAST DROP OF ENERGY YOU HAVE IN YOUR BODY!"
"You'll have to catch me first!" Ruby winked, flipping the bird, "Later!"
"GET BACK HERE!"
"Ruby!" EVE watched the chase with mild annoyance, "Jeez...this wasn't the plan..."
"HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!" Ruby laughed like a maniac, "Why don't you give our sister back!? Huh!?"
"AFTER I DESTROY YOU!" Nos kept chasing after her, "STOP! I COMMAND YOU TO STOP!"
Ruby felt a headache coming, slowing down, "Wh-what...?"
"RUBY!" EVE cried.
Nos finally grabbed her and bit her hard, draining her as fast as he could. He would have wanted to do it slowly, so she could feel it, but his anger got the better of him. He just wanted her dead.
"NO!" EVE smacked Nos, "GET AWAY FROM HER!"
Nos breathed heavily, digging his claws into EVE's chest, "Don't...interrupt me...when I'm feeding..."
"GO AWAY!"
Nos's face was clouded with hot white flame. Leah had shot him.
Nos felt the damage to his systems, deciding he would accept defeat this time. He fled as fast as he could.
"Wait...wait..." EVE shook her head, looking around, "Where is he!? What happened!?"
"I'm sorry, Eve..." Leah went to her, "I lost him over the horizon..."
"Dangit!" EVE picked up an unconscious Ruby, "We'll have to try something else, then..."
"Ugh!" Nos hurried inside and shut the door, hurrying to his discarded stash of batteries in the garbage.
"Nos?" Aya asked.
"I can't take it anymore..." Nos grabbed a battery and sucked it dry, then he ate another, and another, and another...
"What happened?"
Nos coughed, biting the next battery with his forked tongue all the way out, "Ah...ah..." he panted, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Are you okay?"
"SHUT UP!"
She shrunk back fearfully.
"BE GRATEFUL THAT I HAVEN'T TURNED YOU INTO A ROBOTIC RAISIN BY NOW!" Nos bit another battery. Six empty canisters.
"Nos..."
He covered his mouth, hiding his one expressive optic from Aya's view. How had he lost it like that? How were these robots so advanced that he couldn't overpower them!? It was bad enough he lost his first battle to someone as wimpy as XR, but he was being defeated! Constantly! By everyone! Again and again and again!
Fourteen empty canisters.
Aya's voice was just above a whisper, "Nos...?"
He tried to calm himself, saying the dreaded words, "I need to get more batteries..."
"Nos, are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" he shakily straightened out, out of breath, "I hate how defeat feels..."
"Hm?" Aya became worried, "Did you run into my sisters?"
"Yes. Hopefully, the black one is dead."
"What!? Not Ruby!"
"Will you shut up?" Nos held his head in his hand, "You're giving my motherboard a migraine..."
It was coming to his attention that Aya was the least terrible out of all the EVEs. blue-eye was dominant, red-eye was aggressive and obnoxious, orange-eye was submissive, and green-eye was just stupid. How had he somehow kidnapped the best out of all of them?
"You..." Aya could barely comprehend, "...you killed my sister...?"
"Are you going to cry? Because biting you seems really appealing right now."
Aya glared at him, "Go ahead and bite me. See if they don't care."
She had again surprised him, "How...?"
"What?"
"Nevermind that, just..." Nos glanced back at his computer, where his research was still on full-display, "You know what?" he went to every door and window in his ship and triple-checked that they were all locked, then he opened her cage, "Go."
She flinched back, "What?"
"I want you out of my sight while I work." he replied, "Go around the ship. Find something to read, look at my stuff, watch something upstairs, I don't care! Just get out of my sight!"
Aya hesitated for one more moment before hurrying out of the cell and up the stairs of the old spacecraft.
Nos sighed. He would have to figure out why they behaved so strangely.
Aya closed the door behind her, afraid that Nos would follow her and bite her anyway. Then she stopped in her tracks. Nos' bedroom was decorated like she had always expected a cliche vampire bedroom to be decorated. Red carpeting with a king-sized bed covered in silk and draped in a swishing canopy. Black and purple decorated the walls, with what looked like old claw-scratches all over them. Ancient magazines were sprawled out on the floor, and the closet in the corner was open, revealing a plethora of velvety capes, suits, jackets, gloves, and other sophisticated things.
Well...he did say he didn't care...
She did a little snooping. The magazines weren't anything special, just typical stuff from 800 year old grocery stores, but she did read them simply because she wanted to know more about Nos. Ancient history and geography fascinated her to no end, and it was cool how much Nos seemed to know about those things. He had Transylvania, Romania, and Great Britain circled on his world map, and he even owned a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula, which Aya had already read twelve times.
"Wow..." she mumbled out loud. He was the stereotype for a vampire, but he seemed much more than that. He was just like the rest of them, with hobbies, interests, and likes and dislikes. She could tell that he was a fan of reading, and she could tell he liked old things, and he liked to travel at some point as well. He also had fascinating diagrams of machinery and robots, some of which she recognized as belonging to Buy n Large.
Who knew they had so much in common?