So I went back and forth on what I wanted in this chapter up until I finished it. But either way…time to see how Uzi's former headmates are doing!

Tessa James Elliot knew she should be dead.

You don't forget what being stabbed through the best by a monstrous pincer belonging to one of her drones, all the while listening to and watching the rest of her beloved rones slaughter her parents and their guest. So yeah, she was pretty sure should be dead.

Yet she wasn't.

Instead, she was in some weird state of limbo. Cyn was there and was able to fill in some of the blanks once Tessa stopped screaming and trying to attack her. The creature that murdered everyone wasn't truly her. Rather, it was a strange virus that called itself the Absolute Solver. When Cyn had first rebooted as a Zombie Drone, the Solver had contacted her, promising her that she would never be abandoned or thrown away again if she let it in.

"I understand if you do not forgive me," Cyn had said after revealing everything to her owner. "But I truly cared for you. I had hoped the Solver would spare you. I tried to convince it to spare you. But it wants to consume everything." And how could Tessa stay mad at that? So she had comforted Cyn, assuring her that she couldn't have known and that the Solver was the real villain. She was still fairly certain Cyn didn't believe her and Tessa could tell. For a while, the duo just sat around, unsure of what to do or even say. They were in a weird state of life and death. Stuck within the Solver as some type of morbid trophy.

Then the Solver itself started talking to them.

"I Keep My Promises," The Solver had said upon greeting them the first time. "I Did Not Discard You."

"You're keeping us trapped in here!" Tessa snapped. "What are you even doing out there!?"

"I Did Not Believe You Would Want To See," The Solver had admitted. "Apologetic Shrug. If You Want To See Me Consume All, I Will Allow You To Look." The Solver went silent at that, but it did keep its promise to let them see the world through its eyes.

And Tessa had never regretted asking for anything more.

When the Solver said it wanted to consume, a better way to sum it up was that it wanted to destroy everything. And its favorite tools to do so were Tessa's beloved drones. It had warped N, V and J into monsters that it set against humanity. N was the most similar judging by his interactions with his fellow drones, but watching him take lives with no remorse still felt off. The N Tessa knew and loved wouldn't hurt a fly. And speaking of one of her beloved drones getting warped into a monstrous killer, there was V. Gone was the sweet drone who seemed to trip over her own feet. In her place was a sadistic killer who would slaughter anything in her path, laughing all the while.

And then there was J.

While Tessa would obviously never say anything, she had feelings for J that went well beyond friendly. So seeing her ruthlessly tearing humans and their attempted defenses apart caused her pain Tessa never realized she could feel. But the most painful part was watching how the Solver used her skinned flesh to emotionally manipulate J, in addition to preying on both her need for praise and her fears on disobeying a boss as well as her fears of failure, while also doing the same to V, promising to spare her and N if she did her job, once they figured out the truth of their situation. Needless to say, it didn't take long for Tessa to completely abandon watching the Solver's madness. Cyn kept watching in an attempt at regaining some form of control over her body, but Tessa could tell she wanted to try and save N. Beyond that, they were just left to languish. It almost made Tessa hope for death to finally just calm her.

And then Cyn revealed that she managed to get a little control back.

After some surviving humans tried to run experiments on the Solver by infecting normal worker drones with it led to exoplanet Copper-9's core collapsing, the Solver sent her old drones to kill the remaining working drones, Solver infected or wise, off. For a while, it was the same as Earth, only with the drones being somewhat better at hiding.

And then N got his head blown off.

The Solver had tried to assert more control over him, but Cyn used what little influence she had to block it. This led to N befriending a worker drone named Uzi, who convinced him to turn on the Solver, even if he didn't realize it. While Tessa was a little upset Uzi blew most of J's upper body off, which resulted in her becoming a horrible monster, she still ultimately managed to convince N and later V to stand against the Solver, so Tessa decided she liked her. Besides, she made N so happy!

But the Solver wasn't ready to take the loss of N and V laying down.

Along with a revived J, the Solver had arrived on Copper-9 and pretended to be Tessa herself. The real Tessa watched as the Solver used its false identity to emotionally manipulate N, tormenting him with the knowledge Earth was gone and that he might have to kill Uzi if her own Solver infection took over. She then had to watch the Solver horribly murder another Solver infected drone named Doll (okay, murder was a strong word, considering that she ended up joining Cyn and her in Solver limbo, but for any other drone, it would have been a murder) and torment Uzi to force her to give into her Solver infection. While she did ultimately get possessed, N and what Cyn said was Uzi's mother (how exactly did drones give birth?) managed to snap her out of it.

But the Solver was not even close to done.

While N managed to behead Cyn's old body, this barely bothered the Solver, who casually put her head back on. After consuming Doll's core, she revealed herself to N and Uzi.

And, through the reflections of their eye visors, Tessa could clearly see the Solver wearing her skin for the first time.

"I…I think I'm gonna be sick," Tessa had said.

"I am sorry, Tessa, You shouldn't have to see this," Cyn had replied as she wrapped her in a hug. Doll, who was still rather untrusting of Cyn in spite of getting a brief explanation from her and Tessa, said nothing, but Tessa could see the sympathy in her eyes. Still, the trio couldn't take their eyes off what they knew would be a battle not just for the fate of Copper-9, but for the entire universe. Tessa's heart shattered yet again as she watched J fight N, V and Uzi alongside the same creature that was wearing her skin like a morbid Halloween costume. Cyn had assured her it was likely just fear, but it still pained Tessa to see how far her crush had fallen.

"У них дела идут на удивление хорошо. [They are doing surprisingly well]" Doll noted. Tessa had no idea how she could understand what the Russian speaking drone was saying, but she couldn't help but agree. From what Cyn had told her and her own time watching the Solver, it was nearly invincible and could pretty much warp reality, so the fact Uzi, N and V were putting up a pretty decent fight against it was extremely impressive.

"The Solver believes it is invincible. It is toying with them," Cyn revealed. "It was the reason it chose to act the way it did when it took control of me. It no longer had a reason to hide."

"We gotta hope, Cyn," Tessa reminded her as she placed a hand on Cyn's shoulder. She felt Cyn place a hand on it as they kept watching the battle. All three let out a gasp as Uzi managed to rip out Cyn's old core and, with the use of a [NULL] sphere, incinerated it.

Yet the Solver kept going.

"Что вообще такое Решатель!? [What even is the Solver!?] Doll had to ask as she watched her cousin try to keep the Solver from consuming the [NULL] sphere and likely become unstoppable.

"What can she even do?!" Tessa nervously exclaimed. As if on cue, Uzi promptly ate the [NULL] sphere.

"That," Cyn said in a tone that Tessa couldn't tell if it was meant to sound shocked or sarcastic. Either way, their view suddenly shifted from seeing what the Solver was seeing to what Uzi was seeing, if only for a few seconds as the strain of what she had just done as well as the Solver's own power. For a few moments, the trio just stared, unable to process everything that had just happened. Finally, Tessa spoke, asking the question all three of them were thinking.

"So…is the Solver dead?"

"I do not know," Cyn admitted as he looked at her feet. "I can still feel what I believe is the Solver, but that could just be my connection to the Solver's network."

"Я тоже это чувствую. [I can feel it too]" Doll said with a nod of her head. "Но я не могу сказать, активен ли еще сам решатель. [But I cannot tell if the Solver itself is still active.]"

"So all we know is that we're in Uzi now?" Tessa asked. She then let out a sigh. "Well, at least we can try to figure out how to talk to Uzi and get out of here."

"I might be able to try communicating with her," Cyn offered. "I think I know of a way to speak with our new host."

"Ты уверена, что она вообще поможет Син и мне? [Are you sure she will even help Cyn and I?]" Doll asked. Cyn looked away at that. While she hadn't wanted to do it, the Solver had used her body to torment Uzi and her family. Wanting to help the face of the being who tried to corrupt and assimilate her and destroy her friends and family would be a hard sell. And while Doll did much less, that didn't change the fact she had also attempted to kill Uzi as well as N and V, particularly the latter (admittedly, Tessa wasn't exactly happy about that, but she understood Doll's reason). Still, Tessa knew they had to try.

"We still have to try," Was all Tessa had to say.

"...It might take me some time," Cyn revealed after Tessa's answer finally set in.

"Uzi probably needs time to relax anyways," Tessa assured her, causing Cyn to give her a small smile. Doll didn't say anything, but a smile managed to grace her face. They'd get out of here at some point.

"Where…where are we?"

Tessa groaned as she woke up. Cyn had been trying to talk to Uzi for days, but she said she wasn't sure if her message was getting through or if Uzi still assumed it was the Solver. Before they could make another attempt, something had knocked Uzi out and then something pulled her, Doll and Cyn out of the limbo they were in. Putting a hand to her head, Tessa realized two things.

One, she was seeing the world through what was clearly a worker drone's HUD.

Two, she had a metal hand.

Tessa quickly began to look around for something that would show her her reflection. She ended up seeing it on the wall and it quickly confirmed her theory.

She'd been turned into a drone.

She still looked similar enough to when she was human, with a brown wig placed on top of her head and her and her eyes glowing green (Drones could change their eye color! Her parents lied to her!), but she was clearly a drone. Metal limbs replaced flesh, but it still felt natural. The only thing that really felt weird was the lack of clothing beyond what she figured were medical scrubs and a strange collar locked around her neck.

"Tessa? Are you alright?" Tessa looked to see Cyn and Doll, both of whom looked similar enough to how they were in the Solver's AI, only with similar outfits to Tessa.

"Well, this'll be a bit of an adjustment, but it's better than being in the Solver," Tessa admitted as she pulled herself into a sitting position. She then tried to stand, but found her legs quickly gave out from under her. "Dang. Not sure if this is just because I'm not used to drone legs or because it's been a while since I walked in the real world."

"Подожди. [Hang on]" Doll offered as she offered a hand to Tessa. She took it, allowing herself to be pulled up. Once the Russian drone was sure she was stable, she let go, allowing Tessa to take a few uneasy steps forward.

"I think I get it!" Tessa declared as she managed to steady herself and her footsteps. She then looked around. The room was empty, with only a glass wall keeping them locked in and there didn't seem to be anyone else around. "So where are we? Doesn't look like Copper-9 to me."

"Wouldn't you like to know, human?" A voice snarled from the darkness. Tessa pushed Cyn behind her, followed by Doll doing the same for her, as a group of strange hooded drones stepped out of the shadows.

"Who are you!?" Tessa exclaimed, trying to hide her fear.

"Of course you don't know who we are," The same voice, likely the leader going off him being in the front, hissed. "Although I suppose we were never your favorites. You always liked broken drones more."

"How do…how do you know me?" Tessa asked softly.

"...I believed the Solver turned all the other drones in the manor into Disassembly Drones," Cyn admitted as she tried to rationalize the drones in front of her.

"Indeed, our savior did not uplift us," The leader admitted. "But we saw how it led our fellows in slaughtering our oppressors and we were inspired! Inspired to rid the universe of horrid creatures of flesh!" Behind him, the other drones cheered. Doll, Tessa and Cyn all shared a nervous look. Not only were these guys clearly a cult, but they were worshipping the Absolute Solver.

"Mate, the Solver isn't a savior! It's a monster!" Tessa protested once she got her thoughts together.

"It wants to consume everything," Cyn chimed in as she peeked over Tessa's arm. "I was its first host. I have seen everything."

"Скорее всего, он попытается сделать то же самое с вами. [It will likely attempt the same to you]" Doll warned. Much to the trio's dismay, but not shock, the leader and his followers didn't seem moved.

"Heretics!" The leader snapped. "A human, a failed host and someone that stole our savior's gifts would not understand!"

"Mate, what did I even do to you!?" Tessa all but demanded. The leader let out another laugh.

"Well…it's not hard to hate the daughter of the creature of flesh who blew my eye out for not putting a damn table in the right place!" The leader revealed as he pulled back his hood, revealing his still damaged visor. "I chose not to fix it to remind myself of all the pain you creatures of flesh have brought me!" Behind him, the cult members cheered again. Tessa, even though she now realized he was one of her parents' former drones, didn't recognize him, but she had a feeling voicing that fact was not a good idea.

"Ты не причинишь ей вреда. [You will not hurt her]." Doll firmly declared as she held out her hand to use her Solver powers. She got as far as the symbol appearing before the collar she was wearing sent a stream of electricity through her, forcing her to her knees.

"DOLL!" Tessa exclaimed as she and Cyn tried to help her to her feet. They didn't even get her to stand before they were ripped away from each other by the cultists, who had entered while they were distracted.

"Bring the failed host and the gift stealer to their respective masters!" The leader ordered. "And bring the former human to me!" The three captives, Doll and Tessa especially, tried to fight back, but the cultists outnumbered them and the collars shocking them anytime they acted up too much put any further attempts to rest. Tessa found herself forced to look the cult's leader, who, judging by the shouting, was named Shepard, in the eye as he gave her a menacing smile.

"I've been waiting a long time to reverse our roles, Elliot brat!"

So just in case you couldn't figure it out, Shepard is the same drone who Tessa's father shot through the eye in episode 5. And he's…not happy about finding out she was "tainting" the Solver. But now, unknown to them, our heroes have a new goal!