Note: Made shortly after the release of Murder Drones Episode 4 "Cabin Fever". This takes place in the same alternate timeline as the Valentine's short (which is even directly referenced) and similarly, this was made to provide a scenario that won't happen in On-Brand Loyalty.
Dror stared blankly at J. "...You want me to do what?"
J sighed as she repeated herself. "Ok… I need you to head over to that stupid camp N begged me to let him go to. Apparently, that edgy child Uzi wants his help 'distracting' her classmates as she does… whatever it is she wants to do." She began to do some stretches as she prepared to fly off for her nightly hunt. "V's going too and I don't trust either of them to not get into trouble on their own, so you're going to supervise them while I'm off."
The Worker Drone groaned as he followed J out of the spire. "Man I HATE the woods… it's so filthy and uncomfortable."
J rolled her eyes. "Yeah well, you know how I am with kids, if I go there's a very good chance I'll snap and kill someone. If you snap, you'll just go into one of your amusing rages. Or who knows, maybe you'll surprise me..." At that she pretended to look shy and played with one of her pigtails. "My trusted second-in-command doesn't want to disappoint me, does he?"
Dror growled as a blush came over his visor, aware of his leader's intentionally played-up act. Of course thanks to his growing fondness of J, simple actions like this were more than effective on him.
Taking his silence as an agreement, J smirked and extended her wings. "Alright then. Just make sure to keep V in check, stop N from doing anything stupid and just in case, and take count of how many 'accidental' kills there are. Good luuuuuck!" With a gust of snow, J launched into the night sky.
And that is how Dror got roped into a field trip for teenagers. He glared at the ground below as V gripped the back of his shirt while she flew. N had managed to find some camp-based uniforms around the area and convinced V and Dror to dress the part.
Dror decided on a basic pale green dress shirt and pants, matched with a yellow tie that fluttered in the wind as he was carried through the air. Unlike his companions, he opted to keep both his Disassembly Drone armband and his JCJenson hat on.
Taking a break from his airborne staredown with the surface, Dror turned his head up towards V. "So I get why N wants to help Uzi and all, but uh… what's your stake in all this exactly? You know you can't just eat the kids right?"
She scoffed. "I'm here for a break. Ya' know, spend time in nature, hang out with friends, usual boring civilian stuff."
Dror scrutinized her. "Since when have you ever had friends?"
Her face morphed into a fanged smirk and looked down at him. "Oh I may have met a worker girl at that dance thing, I say we hit it off rather well. You and J were probably being too lovey-dovey to notice."
Even N flying beside them couldn't help but give a small chuckle, causing Dror to grit his teeth. "We were talking. Sorry that we don't prefer to converse with children."
V hummed. "Why not? You'd finally have someone to talk to on your level."
Dror's face grew so red with anger he would've had steam coming out his ears if he had any. "...STOP MAKING FUN OF MY FREAKIN HEIGHT! Don't forget, J put me in charge so as your current superior I-…!"
"Bite me!"
Uzi gritted her teeth as her classmates stared at her. "I asked to go alone. HE'S just mad at your test scores!"
She pointed at her teacher which drew the eyes of everyone else, the adult drone merely stared down at them blankly from atop the house he was resting on as he relaxed on a chair. "No year-end bonus. No learning."
Braiden muttered. "So we're just unsupervised?"
The class looked around and questioned their situation before a distant scream drew their attention to the sky. Within seconds, an object smacked to the ground before them and kicked up a cloud of powder.
Uzi's eyes widened as she noticed the fallen object was a fellow drone, more specifically Dror. He slowly stood up off the ground, groaning as he rotated his joints to make sure they were intact, he turned to the wide-eyed group of Worker Drones.
He held up a finger. "Give em a sec." Immediately N and V landed behind Dror, kicking up even more snow as Dror struggled to stay standing.
N immediately addressed the other workers, distracting them enough for Dror to turn to V. "I hate you. I genuinely wish that Doll freak offed you." He grumbled. All she did was give him a smug look before turning her attention back to their wards, in time for N to address them.
"Let's sound off!" N started counting his teammates first, "One, two, three..."
When he began pointing at the class they, unsurprisingly, stood quivering in fear. It made Dror feel quite nostalgic of his own fears from a year prior, as well as embarrassed 'cause to be frank, they looked rather pathetic. Of course, they finally started sounding off when V SHOT ONE OF THEM.
Dror's jaw dropped just like that poor kids body, he turned to V and angrily gestured to the offline drone. "V-Wha-Why?!" Aggravatingly, all she did was shrug as N went on with his counselor schtick. Dror looked up at the teacher to see his reaction, but it seemed as though he barely noticed.
Two of the students (think their names are "Thad" and "Lizzy") came right up and greeted the Murder Drones.
"Sounds good, N."
"Anything for my bestie."
Annnddd the cheerleader girl looted the body for a watch and threw it to V. Both of them came over and stood by N and V's side, the girls even fistbumping each other. Thad offered the same to Dror, but all the uniformed drone did was gesture confusingly at the dead kid. In response, Thad also just shrugged and turned his attention to his classmates, who still seemed too nervous to approach their "counselors".
Perhaps in an attempt to ease their worries, Uzi muttered nervously. "Yeah, they're like my friends too, so...it's cool."
Uzi got what she wanted when the class immediately looked distraught at the notion of someone being friends with her. They rushed over and swarmed the wannabe counselors, offering their friendship instead.
Dror's eyes twitched as some of the students turned their eyes to him. "I feel bad for the little guy. Looney loner probably made herself his role model."
Another student nodded, draping their arm around his shoulders. "Taking advantage of children, how low could she go?"
At this point, Dror's twitching had practically turned into his visor full-on glitching from how hard he tried not to lash out. He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands, inciting the subtle sound of grinding metal.
Don'tKillThem Don'tKillThem Don'tKillThem Don'tKillThem Don'tKillThem Don'tKillThem Don'tKillThem
"Alright everyone, to the bunks!"
Thankfully N's voice drew all of their attention, and the group quickly followed him and V away from the bus. Now alone, Dror let out a held-in breath as he calmed himself and unclenched his hands.
He turned his head and stared at the left-alone corpse of the student V shot. He hummed and pulled a notebook and pen out of his pocket, putting a single slashmark next to V's name underneath the words 'accidental kills'. Before he walked away, he looked up at the still absent-minded teacher. "Are you seriously fine leaving your students with drones who'll probably eat them?"
The teacher just shrugged.
Dror looked around with disinterest as he sat in a super-slow moving boat with 2 other drone kids. N had thought it'd be fun to go on the lake despite it being FROZEN SOLID, yet the other workers either didn't care or were too stupid to notice. Honestly, he assumed the latter.
Hanging in the back of the boat, Dror noted the group dynamics having already formed. V had joined that Lizzy girl in commanding their adoring admirers whilst N had found his own handful of students who were clearly fawning all over him (lending more credence to Dror's 'Disassembly Drones are intentionally attractive' theory. Justified!).
Dror's mental victory was halted as Thad tapped his shoulder from behind. "Hey, so uh… Dror right?"
Raising an annoyed brow, he reluctantly responded. "Yeah…? You're like… Uzi's only friend here right?" Thad nodded. "Hmph. Guess that makes you better than these other unnamed side characters."
The third drone at the front who was rowing (more like dragging) the boat over the frozen lake spoke up. "Well my name's-…"
Dror snapped his head toward the interrupting kid. "Oh go back to rowing, bow rower!" They quickly shut up and got back to their designated role.
Thad scratched his head. "You seem awfully tense. Is uh… everything good?"
With a roll of his eyes, Dror turned to his converser. "Why do you care? We don't know each other."
The jock nervously answered. "I mean we're both friends with Uzi, so I'd think that technically makes us friends too."
Dror huffed. "I don't think that's exactly how it works but whatever. I've just been forced out of my house to watch my two teammates watch all you kids in these stupid woods. Let's just say this isn't exactly how I'd have preferred to spend my night."
Suddenly Lizzy appeared behind them. "Lemme guess, you'd rather be with your 'boss'?"
Dror flinched in surprise, "The fu-..!" He hadn't noticed the cheerleader girl approaching, her and V's boat having capsized after trying to sabotage N's. She quite easily walked beside the slow-moving boat. "Why aren't you with V?"
The girl shrugged. "Something about 'going to look for that purple thing', whatever that means. But enough about her, how about we talk about you?"
The shorter drone grumbled. "No thanks."
Behind him, Thad rubbed his chin. "Didn't Uzi mention you were pretty close to that other Murder Drone?"
Dror facepalmed. "I will talk to you about ANYTHING other than me and J."
Lizzy gained a sinister look, which let Dror know he messed up big time.
"Ooo there we go!" She looked over at Thad. "Think we can help lover boy out Thad?"
He looked surprised but gave a thumbs up. "Anything to help a bro!"
Lizzy hummed in satisfaction and quickly jumped into the boat, making the already strained-looking rower whimper. "One thing I know that aaaalways helps a struggling relationship is changing it up every now and then, like say… a new outfit!? Nothing gets a girl's attention more than a super handsome look." She reached a hand over to Dror's hat. "To start with, hats like that are so last century-…"
Dror's hand shot up and grabbed her wrist, orange eyes glaring into her nervous pink ones. "The hat. Stays. On."
Don'tKillThemDon'tKillThemDon'tKillThemDon'tKillThemDon'tKillThemDon'tKillThemDon'tKillThem
They held there for a moment before Lizzy scoffed and wrestled her arm back, "Ok fine geez. We can work around that. Trust me, aaaaall the girls at school have come to me for dating advice so you can totes trust me to-…"
Dror didn't hear the rest as he settled for manually shutting off his audio receptors and relishing in the blissful silence.
Hours later Dror found himself sitting on a log with the kids near a campfire. For whatever reason, V and N left the task of watching the kids to him while he had been using his self-imposed 15-minute break. Apparently one of the kids shot themselves with an arrow, of course.
Dror didn't recognize any of the group except for Lizzy, who had thankfully gotten her 'dating advice' out of her system on the lake. Right now, they were roasting batteries on the fire and telling (not) scary stories whilst Dror only half-listened. The only thing drawing his attention was something in the hands of a tired-looking drone with magenta eyes.
"Uh… are you..." Dror whispered as not to interrupt whatever stupid story was being told. "...getting high off of a magnet?"
The drugged-up drone in question shrugged. "Yeah guess so."
Dror raised a confused eyebrow. "We're not… video tapes, how does that affect you at all?"
He just stared off into space. "I dunno man. There's just some things you gotta..."
As the guy paused, Dror grew annoyed. "'Somethings you gotta' what-…"
"-ignore." Apparently, the kid's mental processors were just delayed from being on a high. It was a minor annoyance, but Dror's patience wore thin completely at that moment.
He got up, stomped over and ripped that magnet out of the kid's hands. "Okay whatever! Don't do drugs, kids!" Dror began stomping off towards the woods. "Now you all watch yourselves while I go figure out how to smoke this or whatever. Don't kill yourselves!"
Now in the woods, after about 5 minutes of unsuccessfully trying to use a magnet as a drug, Dror threw the magnet away and walked back to find the fire dissipated, two dead bodies and no one else.
Dror could only sigh in annoyance. "Oh COME ON. Can these stupid teens not do anything without something crazy happening..." Looking around, his eyes widened as he saw what appeared to be Uzi jumping between tree branches while giggling like a psychopath.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL FU-!"
J relaxed on a chair inside the landing pod, content with the tranquil quiet. Said tranquility was broken unfortunately as the top entrance to the landing pod was kicked open and Dror's head peaked down. "I want a vacation."
J, swiveling the chair around, scrutinized him. "You technically don't even work."
Dror growled. "Don't care. I want a month to myself after the shit I've just seen. See ya'."
He dropped his notebook down into the pod and closed the hatch. J gave a confused blink as she got up and walked over to grab the discarded notebook. She opened the first page and read how many kills were done by who.
"..."
"..."
"SHE DID WHAT?!"
