Year Gone By

You know something really cool and convenient? Copper 9 has 14 months compared to Earth's 12, with a year that lasted 441 days. Something I'd actually forgotten wholesale in my first life (and was therefore gone to my otherwise perfect recall), but had come flooding back to me when I looked at a calendar and saw the month Seramoris, with 32 days on it. I wasn't complaining, though. That just meant an extra 18 months to prep for shit. So a couple more months slipped by, and I now found myself a full year after my arrival on Copper 9, leaving sleep mode on the morning of my "birthday." Fuck me, that would definitely take some getting used to. Still, I took a minute to put it on my calendar for the next 10 years. I'd put reminders for years past that if I survived the next decade. I… I really hoped that I could one day set those reminders a decade from now, and that the people I called friends today would all still be there. There was a lot of work to do between now and then, though, but for today, I was taking a goddamned break. A nice day on a weekend, lounging in bed for an hour more than I needed to, spending the morning playing Bloodborne on my Xbox 3600 on NG+ with my Guiding Moonlight in hand (note to self: when I have time post-canon, try to make a Moonlight Greatsword using the POWER OF SCIENCE because it's just really fucking cool), answer some happy birthday texts, and then I spent like 20 minutes lamenting the fact that I'll never get to read the rest of Drone Fortress.

Still can't believe that Arergulargamer originally intended to ship Engi with V, but then Doll basically kicked down the narrative door, butted into the story, became his friend, and he just rolled with it and things evolved to the point where Doll nabbed him instead. That V doesn't even know she got cuckqueaned by a badass Russian, lol. Talk about overly complex revenge schemes for murdering her parents! " You killed my mom and dad? I'll steal your husbando before you can even meet him, bitch !" Man, I've been here too long if I could perfectly imagine that in Doll's voice. Damn, I shipped DEngi so hard… and also DEnJessa, but that was another, non-canon timeline dependent on bringing Tessa back from the dead post-canon… though the multiverse theory means that Engi did end up with Doll, J, and Drone Tessa as his girlfriends somewhere… Still, I wouldn't get to see how that fic ended, so I hoped that Doll and Engi had a happy ending. And that J sorted out her traumatic recollection of her first life (not to be confused with her second life in the Elliot Manor, in her first one in Drone Fortress she was a literal corporate slave who got hit by Truck-Kun in a parking-lot assasination while her fiance got nuked on another planet… which was somehow less impressive than N's first life and death in that timeline, wherein he sacrificed himself to literally save a little girl from a dragon. No, that actually happened in Drone Fortress, I shit you not. The girl was fine, by the way.) after surviving her latest death at Doll's hands because Solver regeneration. And that NUzi still happened in that timeline like it did in canon and like Aregulargamer was planning, thereby giving Engi a massive processor-ache. And V stepped on some more landmines… You know, if the multiverse is real, a version of them just read and/or watched this in a react fic, didn't they? And they're having a collective meltdown over the lore bombs I just dropped, too… Hah! That's hilarious ! Fuck you guys , you don't get to enjoy my shit-show of a second life without me paying you back for the entertainment at my expense! Oh man, being 4th Wall Aware and trolling people on the other side is fun !

Anyways, I'm getting off topic with my questionably sane ramblings (again), so right as I was about to make myself a perfectly normal robo-lunch, I got a ping in my head from a DM sent to me.

Кукла: Hey Joe, Happy Birthday… or, technically birthday.

Isekai_Protagonist: Hey Doll. Thanks, I guess. Though you're right that I don't remember it, lol.

Кукла: So Joe.

Кукла: I know you said you didn't have anything planned for today.

Кукла: But I found out there's a restaurant that tries to do worker versions of Italian food, and I figured that would be a cool birthday present?

Was this a date? I didn't really get women, but I knew my tropes, and this felt like it could be a date. Which like… I don't want to be a pedo. I really don't want that. I mean, I was nice to Doll, and helped her with her trauma, but out of any drone I might have been expecting to butterfly effect into having a crush on me, it would have been Uzi. Which again… no. Just no. Fuck, the thought just makes me want to puke. Not because she's ugly, or anything! Apologies to any Uzi on the other side of the 4th Wall if I gave that impression. No, in this case, it's because again, she's eight . Also, I'd probably actually spend like an hour just screaming and crying if I sank NUzi by being a nice guy. I would never forgive myself if I cucked N out of his canon emo goth gremlin GF. What kinda monster would do that? And also, why did I have the feeling that there's a V out in the multiverse who's mad at me all of the sudden? I shook my head. Enough of being painfully aware of the multiverse, I had a message to reply to.

Isekai_Protagonist: Like, going out for lunch as a birthday present? Sure, I guess.

There we go! Totally phrased as just a birthday present. Moral dilemma solved! Or I was totally over-analyzing this, and it really was just a birthday present. Honestly, it probably was just a birthday present, and I was just being my usual paranoid self… though is it really paranoia when Robot Cthulhu Satan is actually out to kill you and everyone you know? It was only now that I realized that I'd reflexively overclocked, and I blinked at that, before turning it off, waiting for a reply.

Кукла: Thanks! I'll send directions. Meet in 20 minutes?

Кукла: [Has shared a file]

Isekai_Protagonist: See ya then.

Well then, time to get going then, and have lunch with a friend, I guess… Man, I really was manipulating a bunch of traumatized children in an attempt to save the universe, and as much as I felt like a total, complete and utter asshole for doing so whenever I had time to myself to think, I really couldn't see a better way to make sure all these kids lived to see past the next decade. I mean, I was curbing negative personality traits before they could manifest, giving them better lives, and steering them away from gruesome deaths and/or trauma, which was a net positive and probably genuinely altruistic, but… I was still lying to them all, about who I am, my past, and I was manipulating a bunch of children and taking away their free agency to do all that. I felt particularly awful for my entire friendship with Doll starting with me milking a tragic backstory I didn't actually have , but then…

Дать отпор - Fight Back.

A body lying in a pool of her own oil in the cathedral in the depths of Cabin Fever, so close and yet so far to the salvation she desperately sought. Patch 2.1.8, in its Crucifix USB, in the same room as her at one point. Doll's core literally slurped out of her own torn-open chest cavity by the unholy abomination unto sapience wearing the corpse of Cyn and wearing the flayed hide of Tessa on top of that.

The Solver's head snapping around 180 degrees to look at N and Uzi, yellow X's flickering to life within Cyn's optics, cloaked by Tessa's empty eye-sockets.

"Oh yes! Get snuck-upon!"

I squinted my optics shut, letting out a breath as I fought the imagery from episode seven away. I wasn't gonna let that future happen. I wasn't going to let that happen. I was changing things. I was making things better . But despite that, I still felt so, horrifically, unimaginably guilty sometimes. As many days as there were moments where I sat back and was proud of seeing these kids grow into better, happier versions of themselves, there were just as often nights where I had to use my emotional repression programs in combination with exhaustion from hours spent working on my lair to actually be able to slip into sleep mode. But I didn't want Doll to die , regardless of whether or not she could be brought back from the depths of Uzi's OS. I didn't want to see Lizzy become a heartless bitch . I didn't want to see Rebecca torn in half, Darren half-eaten, half vomited back up by an Uzi wracked by horrific guilt but unable to control her own actions, Emily's head ripped off, Braidon's head exploded , Sam torn apart, Penny crushed to a paste, Kelsey cut down as part of a revenge scheme to kill V, Uzi horrifically traumatized by all the shit she got put through, Thad… Thad actually makes it through everything just fine, he's cool like that, but still, my point stands for everyone else. I cared about these people. I… gods , I don't think I could live with myself if I let them get hurt or killed. I let out a sad laugh… how Machiavellian of myself that I was manipulating them all like this. I had to trip my emotional repression programs to fight down a sudden bout of guilt-induced nausea. If… if… whenever everything was said and done, if I didn't pay for my sins with my own life (not that I planned to), they all hated me for how I lied to them all… well, they couldn't hate me more than I hated myself , but I could still manage to live with it all if they were alive and safe to direct said hate towards me.

Maybe the depression did carry over from my first life after all… I always felt shittier on my birthday, even if today wasn't technically it. I shook my head, and got my stuff together so I could head out. Let me make Doll happy while I could still look her in the optics for now. One day, memories like that would probably be all I had to console myself. It would be what I deserved…

_________

" So, " Doll asked me while we were waiting for the food, " How's the day been going so far? "

God, I fucking hated when people asked that, because you had to answer that in order to not be rude, but I just fucking despised talking about what I did by myself sometimes. Still, in the interest of being polite (and because I genuinely didn't want to be an asshole to Doll, she deserved better, and much like Lizzy, my oft-neglected sense of empathy was slowly being resuscitated the longer I spent here), I shrugged, and said, "Pretty nice so far. Played some Bloodborne Re-times-27-Mastered on my Xbox 3600. Uncapped framerate and 64k graphics Yharnam looks awesome , by the way."

" I still don't get why you're so fascinated by that game ," she said.

"I wanted to experience some Cosmic Horror," before experiencing actual Cosmic Horror, was left unsaid.

" And a Random Re-times-27-Mastered RPG was your go-to choice for that ?"

"Yeah," I said, with a raised eye-mote, and then decided that enough months had passed since the last time someone brought it up that I could probably poke at the subject again without being suspicious. "You ever finish cleaning up that mess in your hab, by the way?"

Doll froze immediately, optics going hollow. " Nope !" she said, almost on reflex. " I really should get to that at some point, though ," she let out a nervous laugh.

"I'm down to help clean it," I offered. "I won't judge no matter how nasty it might be."

Doll looked down, actually seeming to consider it for a moment, but then flinched, and shook her head. " Maybe another time ," she deflected.

"Suit yourself," I said. "Offer's open, though."

She looked back up at me for a few seconds, and then looked down and mumbled a quiet, " Thanks ."

We changed the subject and talked about some other random shit, mostly stuff Doll did while hanging out with Lizzy (I shipped them so hard), and then the food got there. Now… I would like to state that this place was very much an "American Place that thinks it's doing Italian food" and not an actual Italian place, and that I was really glad I had so much practice with using my poker face GIF, because I already wanted to internally scream. Doll getting robo-pizza didn't help my mood. And I really shouldn't have set myself up for a letdown by ordering a robo-version of carbonara. Not only was it not actual carbonara in that it was fucking wires with some kind of industrial solvent as a sauce and I didn't even bother to check what the "meat" approximate was, but it also wasn't authentically Italian, and even more of a letdown… it wasn't the carbonara my Nonna made. And before anyone asks, yeah, I'm aware that carbonara was more of a Tuscany thing, but they can sod off , my Nonna was from 45 km outside Parma and her carbonara kicked more ass then they could ever hope to match… I missed my Nonna and Nonno…

A sigh managed to slip past me as I ate, and Doll looked up from her own lunch, seemed to assess my mood, looked down at her pizza, and then looked back up at me. " I… I messed up, didn't I? " she suddenly asked me, looking guilty, which made me feel even worse.

"No!" I said, "It's not your fault, I just…" I struggled, because there was no real way to properly articulate what I wanted to say about everything that was going through my mind without saying stuff I wasn't ready to.

" I just… you've been nice to me… to all of us!" she added, looking down, " And… and it felt wrong not to treat you to something today, and you're doing really good at hiding it but I just know you're disappointed, Joe-- "

"Doll," I cut her off. "I appreciate the gesture. I really do," I stressed, and then I switched to Russian, " I'm touched that you wanted to drag my ass out to do something fun on my birthday, " I added. " My mood isn't your fault, " I threw on top of that. " Don't feel bad because of it ."

Doll looked back up at me, optics widened in surprise. She opened her mouth, and then stopped, looking to the side before looking back. " You… you're the only person who ever speaks to me in Russian, " she suddenly confessed. " Even if you do it really rarely. Not even Uzi or Lizzy do it, " she glanced down at her hands, and I saw a couple lines of embarrassment, or maybe shame, crop up on her visor. " You go out of your way so often to make sure I'm doing okay, and I wanted to pay that back somehow, and I just messed it up! "

" Doll ," I told her, " You're --" I cut myself off, once again recalling that today was "my" birthday, but that's a common enough mistake to make for kids, so I just flushed a bit myself in genuine embarrassment at being an idiot, " We're eight . It's okay to make a stupid mistake. You had the right intent, and that's what matters to me ."

Doll flushed more and looked away, some of her hair covering her face, which was fucking adorable. Another entry for my "wholesome Isekai Adventure" album, for sure. " Stop being so mature about things, it's embarrassing ," she mumbled.

I blinked, and suddenly leaned back. Oh god, was I being squick-y? Fuck no! Fuck no! "Sorry!" I blurted out in English, verbally backpedalling. Don't want to be a pedo! Do not want to be a pedo! Fuck that noise! Engi had the excuse of literally growing up as a Drone, I did not , dear god did I hope that Doll didn't interpret any of that as flirtatious. We're both eight, right? Robo-puberty wouldn't be a thing yet if that even does exist-- why the fuck have I not looked that up yet?!? She wouldn't be into boys-- or girls-- or both! I don't judge! --she wouldn't be into anyone else yet, right? And I'm like, 70% sure she's already going to be into Lizzy but doesn't realize it yet, anyways! There's no way she's into me right? I've done a lot of nice stuff for everyone, but none of that actually counts for anything, right? I'm an unlikable, sarcastic asshole! This is just a birthday present and I'm totally misreading this and confusing real life with anime tropes, right?!? There's no fucking way I actually magically got insane amounts of rizz just from being an Isekai Protagonist, rig--

My thoughts got cut off. " Are you okay, Joe ?" I blinked, froze, and realized in my blind panic that I forgot to use my poker face GIF and was visibly panicking. Half my visor immediately turned into light grey hashes from my embarrassment, and I groaned and thunked my head onto the table.

"I'm an idiot," I mumbled. Doll started giggling, and that made me feel marginally better. "Can we just finish up and go home?" I asked.

There were a few seconds of pause, but I didn't question them as I kept my face on the table, and then Doll said, " Yeah, e-- " she cleared her throat, " Yeah, we can ."

A few minutes later, we were both walking back to our habs. Doll offered to walk the extra distance from hers to mine, and I looked at her really confused before just deciding to let whatever was going on happen and rationalized that I'd probably be going to hell whenever I died anyways. I was so mentally out of it that I wasn't even paying attention as I put in the password to my hab, and it took me a full second to realize that I wasn't the one who flipped the lights on as I got a sudden shout from 6 other people all saying "Surprise!"

I overclocked on reflex. I blinked a few times. I looked around. I saw the "Happy Birthday, Joe!" banner hung from the ceiling. The robotic equivalent to a vanilla cake on the table. A couple bottles of antifreeze, which were our equivalents to energy drinks (gasoline was basically alcohol for drones) nearby. Some balloons strung up. Uzi, Lizzy, Thad, Rebecca, Darren, and Kelsey all standing up from behind a couch, table, or counter and having shouted "Surprise!" at me. I realized a nanosecond later that Doll had said it too from behind me, and forced myself back into real-time.

Oh. I thought. I was totally misreading the situation, and Doll was just trying to distract me with something nice while they set up a surprise birthday party for me. Godsdamnit , I'm a fucking idiot.

" Hey Joe, " Doll said from behind me as I stood still just a few steps inside the doorframe. " I'm sorry about the lackluster lunch, but I kinda needed to get you out of your hab so we could set this up for you, " she confirmed my realization.

"It was my idea," Kelsey said, "When you told me you weren't planning anything yourself, I decided we should do something for you!"

"Like, I did the planning, and got the decorations together," Lizzy pipped up.

"We set them up," Darren said, Thad giving a wave as well.

"I hacked into your hab," Uzi blurted out, "Which, you have surprisingly good encryptions on," she added, which was because I'm a fucking Isekai Protagonist who doesn't want people breaking into his house! Thank robo-god I hid the safe with the oil under the dead parent's bed, and that even then, most of it was in my secret lair… Huh, I really was Joe rando, who was using ridiculous amounts of prep-time to make gadgets to compete with people who have superpowers. You could actually call me Italian-American Anarcho-Syndicalist Batman/Ironman and not be too far off the mark, couldn't you?

I just stood there. They… they set this up for me… I blinked a few more times, and my vision started to get blurry, and I mentally threw a vaffanculo to JCJ for making that a thing that happened when drones cried, and holy shit , I was actually crying. They went and did this shit for me on their own, and just… I wasn't expecting anything at all. It wasn't even my birthday. My family was so impossibly far away they may as well be dead, and I'd spent most of my free time not involving my friends doing literally thousands of hours of doomsday prep for the actual incoming doomsday, and these kids went and threw a surprise birthday party for me on a weekend.

"I…" I actually sniffled. "I wasn't expecting this," I whispered. Because like, I really, really wasn't. I cared about them, I wanted to keep them all alive, I wanted to keep them all safe , but… it kinda slammed home right then and there, that they cared about me , and that I'm their friend too. And that was… that was really fucking touching. But… also equally guilt-inducing, because my entire relationship to all of them was built on lies, even if said lies were directly aimed to make their lives vastly better… or for four of the drones in this very room, save their lives to begin with.

The end result was emotional paralysis as I stood a few steps into my hab, just quietly crying. Optics began to look on in concern, and Lizzy swaggered over to me, and put a hand on my shoulder, and my gaze snapped over to her. "You okay, Joe?" she asked, a level of concern her canon self would have never shown in her tone.

I tripped my emotional repression programs at a low intensity, and blinked a few times to refocus my optics and get these stupid fucking digital tears off my visor. "Just… thinking about personal stuff. I," I frowned, "I really wasn't expecting you all to do this for me. Didn't think I deserved it, to be honest," and for once, I really was being fully transparent.

"Dude," Thad said, "You're the reason we're all friends. And you got Lizzy and Rebecca to stop being cringe bullies," both of the girls flinched at the reminder, and I failed to stifle a snort of laughter.

"You," Uzi said, looking to the side, "You got my cousin to talk to me again, and got me friends to begin with. And you never ask for anything yourself. Of course we wanted to throw you a party, dingus!"

"You're cool," Rebecca added, dismissively, but failing to fully hide a smile.

"Dude, I got into parkour because of you," Darren added. I blinked a couple times, because I hadn't actually known that. At my surprise, he added, "I've actually been using the course you set up myself. Had even more faceplants than you did at first."

"I'm sad Andrew's gone, but I'm still happy I got to know you," Kelsey added. Which didn't really help my guilt, but I was literally hitting a mute button on my emotions right now, so I could be depressed about that later.

" You care , Joe, " Doll rounded off. " So do we. "

I closed my eye-lights, and took a breath. Fuck it, I damn well know shoving all my problems onto future me is a horrific coping mechanism, but I can't make myself care . I opened them. "Thanks," I said. "I… I really appreciate it." I met Lizzy's concerned gaze and gave her a smile, and her frown flipped to match it. "Well then," I added, a bit more confident, a small, genuine smile growing on my face. "You set it up. Would be a shame not to actually have the party, wouldn't it?"

"Hell yeah!" Uzi said.

We all congregated to start cutting the cake, and I walked a bit slower to take a moment in overclock to look at everyone laughing and chatting with one another as Doll pulled out a knife from my knife-rack in the kitchen with a degree of familiarity that left me slightly concerned, and took a quick screenshot for myself. Regardless of anything else, I was gonna make sure all of them lived to see beyond the next decade, even if they hated me for it. Gods fucking help the Solver when it showed up to Copper 9, because, to quote Gianni Matragrano from Maxor's Incorrect Summary of a Sentient Go-Pro killing over half the cast of the Bibleverse, "I am going to Ultrakill you, you insignificant FUCK!"

A moment later, Doll called me over to make the first cut on the cake, and I was happy to oblige.

___________

The following night (because I sure as hell wasn't doing work on the night of my "birthday"), it was back to work in my secret lair. Vault 1 was mostly done by now, and just needed proper equipment to be printed for the workshop, and then I could start filling the armory with guns, grenades, bombs, gadgets, and any war crimes or weapons I could conceive that didn't fit the prior four categories. All the exterior and doors were reinforced with Khan-grade materials, I had all the lighting properly set up, most of the electrical wiring done, the matter printers moved into proper positions (that was a pain in the ass to do solo, let me tell you) instead of left where I'd had the room to initially build them, I set up a backup failsafe on the reactor in case there was a failure and the first failsafe didn't work, I took the time to set up offices and meeting rooms on the sides, since I did intended for Vault 1 to be the "public" space of the lair at some point, and I'd gotten most of the space for Vault 2 drilled out from the earth, the displaced rock and stone fed into the matter printers to make new stuff as I needed it. Damn, these past 4 months had been busy. I stretched, more out of past human habit than an actual need for it, making a literal mental note to start thinking up an overly complicated secret door entrance to Vault 2. Would definitely have to be in one of the less-used side rooms I'd made room for, that was for sure. But that was enough construction and minecrafting for now. I was still dealing with leftover angst, and I felt like shooting things would be a good stress relief valve.

Speaking of shooting things, extensive testing over these past months had revealed that the thermite mix in the shells was causing carbon fouling inside the barrel. This would be a problem with incendiary shells in general, but thermite specifically also caused iron to adhere to that carbon. Not immediately a bad thing, and it could still be fixed with routine maintenance (hell, if I was feeling particularly lazy, I could just feed the gun back into a printer and reprint the entire thing literally in factory condition), but if there's a scenario where I can't properly clean the inside of the barrel for long periods, I ran the risk of the gun turning into a bomb that can go off on any given pull of the trigger. I'd gone back to the drawing board (and by drawing board, I meant asking Uzi for ideas, because that was slightly easier than doing it myself) to come up with a new plan for the incendiary component of my war crime shells. I'd gotten a look when I talked about the issues with the thermite mix in the shells in such a manner that implied I was testing them myself somewhere (which, you know, I was), and she was definitely overclocked herself as she thought about it, but she'd told me she'd get back to me by the end of the day, and she certainly did. She'd drawn up a design for new shells, to replace the thermite with white phosphorus for even more war crimes, circumventing the barrel issue, but I'd have to be a lot more careful with my manufacture and storage of ammunition, because this shit was highly flammable even in the subzero temperatures of Copper 9, and could ignite on air exposure even with the much lower amount of oxygen compared to earth. Still, this stuff was maybe even better than the thermite when it came to my desire for Dragon's Breath shells on steroids, that would unleash a cloud of oxidized hellfire that would also superheat the tungsten carbide flechettes in the shells, and also slightly stick to and continue to burn on close targets.

Speaking of tungsten carbide, I'd done a lot more research, and came to the realization that while titanium was a great metal for its weight and density, there were actually a lot of types of regular ass steel that were stronger than it. And tungsten carbide was really hard, but also brittle . Good for shrapnel or flechettes, or being heat resistant in general, but not ideal material for armor or a melee weapon you expected to use a lot. Given that I wanted my entrenching tool to be at least moderately lightweight, and that there were limits to my worker drone strength that I wouldn't be able to improve until I could mod my teenage frame, this presented me with a conundrum that I'd had to compromise on. For now, I'd replaced the shovel spike itself with tungsten carbide, but left the rest of the thing as is. I didn't really expect to have to use the thing before I could make a new one from new materials, but better safe than sorry. When I was 10, and could really start cooking on strengthened hardware, though? Definitely gonna make an entirely new entrenching tool made from carbon-nanotube reinforced high entropic alloys though (maybe that chromium, cobalt, nickel alloy I'd read about during my searches, CrCoNi?), and it was gonna fuck up whatever it hit.

Heading down to the complete firing range I'd finished, I was playing Bite Me by AJ Dispirito (feat. Zephyrianna), on my internal speakers and bobbing my head as I pulled out my latest iteration of my shotgun, a couple of the white phosphorus/tungsten carbide flechette hybrid shells in one of my many pockets.

As it stands, you are no longer my friend!

Eat my heart, take my soul, let it burn you!

I WON'T LET GO!

I started recording, set up with the test drone target (built out of much stronger metals than factory standard, I was aware these shells could fuck up workers, but wanted a better idea of how they'd stack up to Murder Drones), spoke aloud my standard listing of what I was testing and how I was doing it, and loaded four shells before racking the slide. Goddamn, that chk-chk was always so satisfying to hear.

What's on my mind?

Well I'm the farthest gone you'll find!

You should take a look inside

YOU SHOULD TEAR APART MY MIND!

I was much better adjusted for recoil by this point, the first trigger pull mulching the target's head despite the better materials it was built from, white phosphorus hizzing and sizzling. I double checked to verify my chemical fire extinguisher was still on hand, just in case. I pumped the shotty, aimed lower, and fired a second time. The drone torso was perforated, oxidized hellfire burning its internals, and it would have definitely been knocked down if I hadn't had it braced on a stand.

TAKE MY MIND!!!

Two more pumps, and two more trigger pulls, and I did knock my test target down, torso reduced to melting scrap, and I carefully put the gun down as I grabbed the fire extinguisher and waiting as the white phosphorus burnt out. Bite Me dipped right before the second chorus, and, as customary ever since my Isekai, I pulled up episode 8 from my memories and started playing from 14:36-14:56 right in sync with that part of the song, since that particular bit was Cynematic (ha!) as fuck… and also because showing just that tiny little blurb is a great way to troll any part of the multiverse where there's a react-fic to my second life going on. Great shot of N, V, and Uzi charging down the Solver together, N kicking V's dodged missile right back at the Solver, the Solver literally flying about with eldritch tentacles out and blocking bullets absentmindedly. Cool shit, let me tell you.

I won't fall down, you need me!

We don't follow crowds, we mold them new!

I'm not done! Believe me!

We won't settle down, we'll make them move!

Make them mine!

MAKE THEM MIIIIIIIIII-IIIIIIIII-IIIIIIIINE!

Man, trolling the 4th Wall really does help me cope with my existential dread. Probably shouldn't OD it though. Don't wanna give too much of a headache to react authors. The rest of that Absolute (pun intended) banger kept going in my head, but I'd already pulled the tab from Absolute End down and was no longer particularly paying attention to the lyrics. The white phosphorus was simmering down, and I put down the fire extinguisher as I went to inspect the gun for any signs of damage. And this latest prototype was looking damn good so far. I was thinking this might actually be the version I start mass-producing. Probably not, I'd want to make a few last polishes to ergonomics and stuff, but I was really close to a finished product here. And then I could start slapping stencils and stuff on it. I was totally gonna LARP Anarcho-Syndicalism in here, and putting that good-old crossed hammer and torch with a gear around them with a red and black backdrop was gonna look sick on the stock of the gun.

Which also reminded me, I can't forget that big ass Anarcho-Syndicalist banner I wanted to hang on the wall over there! Hmmmmmm… idea! What if I could train up a militia and get them to sing like a Worker Drone variant of the Automaton Marching Cadence from Helldivers 2? Probably too violent for the average worker, but the mental image of a thousand worker drones in armor decorated with Anarcho-Syndicalist imagery bearing guns and marching in lockstep chanting, "Heart - Steel! We - Kill! Iron - Will! On-to-War!" was fucking awesome .

Moving on, I cleaned stuff up, and then went over to my least favorite part of the week, wherein I spend three hours straight flashbanging myself to try and find that damn sentinel boot-loop frequency. I'd do it more often than weekly, but I think I'd lose my goddamned mind more than I already have if I did. As per usual, I set myself up, lined up the flasher, and started torturing my poor, poor optics.

I'll save the 4th Wall from my personal suffering and say that I still hadn't lucked out by the time I called it a night.

__________

That Monday in school started normally enough, a bunch of 8 year olds shuffling into the room to sit at their desks before Lizzy's dad actually bothered to check that everyone was in the room. Right after attendance, however, the teacher, instead of launching into another lesson that I would cheat on with memories from my first life, started an announcement.

"Alright, students," he said, and sighed. "Today, we have a special guest speaker, who will be doing a presentation for every school in Outpost 3 for the next four hours."

All the students in the room looked around at one another, wondering who was going to be talking, not only to every student in the Bunker, but for the next four hours , and how they managed to set that up. The teacher pulled a projector down from above the board, turned it on, and then we were immediately greeted by the smiling visage of Khan Doorman.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh, this is gonna suck, I thought. Goddamnit, I feel so bad for you, Uzi.

"Hey, everyone! I'm Khan Doorman, and I'm glad to be speaking to all of you today! Now, you might be wondering why I'm here, and that's simple really. My daughter really values her education!" I glanced over to Uzi, and though I could only see the back of her head, she was rigid , and I could easily imagine her optics were hollow, her face flushed with embarrassment, and her jaw was hanging open with mortification. "So much so, in fact, that she'd rather go to school than learn about doors! I was confused for a bit, but then I realized school is important. But still! I was just wondering for months on how to connect doors and education to one another, so I could combine both of Uzi's interests," holy shit , he still thought she actually liked doors. I heard a thunk, and glanced back to Uzi in time to see her raise her head and slam it into her desk a second time. Khan continued talking, his speech accentuated by the rhythmic thunking of his daughter's face onto school property. "Then I had a brilliant idea! I could teach her about doors in school! But then I had an even better idea! Why just teach her about doors, when I could do my fatherly duties and make her proud by educating everyone about doors! And that , young students, is what we're here for, today. Now! To start, 'What precisely is a door?', some of you might wonder. Well, rest assured, I'll answer all that and more in the next four hours! Doors , according to Webster's Dictionary, are--"

I muted my audials, and put my face in my hands. Holy shit. Holy. Fucking. Shit. Khan was actually doing this. Is this my fault? I wondered. Did I butterfly effect this into happening by getting Uzi friends? I just wanted to help her, not torture her more with her neglectful moron of a dad publically humiliating her! By Cyn's shiny metal ass, I was feeling embarrassment by proxy, this was so bad.

I went to open a DM to Uzi, who had completely buried her face in her arms and had her head down on her desk by now, but got a message that "User Darkxwolf16 has blocked communications." Shit man… shit. I groaned, looking up, and briefly turned my audials back on--

"--nd so the first time humans thought of using doors was actually before they even invented writing , with the oldest archeological evidence of doors being used in Ancient Europe being 3063 B.C.E. --"

I shut them back off and groaned. Gods-fucking-damnit, Khan! And you too Nori, you cazzo di merda! You're the one who couldn't be bothered to tell the man you loved that you were still alive and that he didn't actually mercy kill you with a wrench he still kept in his pocket before you fucked off to Cabin Fever to try and find the last physical copy of Patch 2.1.8. And you didn't even have the decency to actually find the damn thing in time! Your traumatized husband being a fucking moron of a father is your damn fault! If it wasn't for my dumb ass, your daughter would be dealing with that and having no friends and being bullied and her cousin abandoning her and she'd be dealing with the Solver on her fucking own in the future as well!

I buried my own face in my arms, trying to tone down my anger without using my emotional repression programs… my optics went hollow. Why did I have those when I woke up? Holy shit , why did I only realize this now? Why the fuck did six-year-old Andrew have emotional repression programs that were so deeply ingrained into his OS that they survived what was effectively a lobotomy and an identity-death ? Holy mother of [NULL], that was a disturbing realization. Do I like, ask Kelsey? But that's not fair to her , because if Andrew told her at all it would have been in confidence. And if she doesn't know, how much guilt am I gonna cause her by informing her that her dead best friend had emotional repression programs that were so deeply embedded into his programming that I woke up with them ?

I overclocked to suppress another, louder groan I really wanted to utter aloud. Godsdamnnit , I fucking hate Mondays.

_________

Lunch was… a subdued affair, after four hours of Doorman door lectures. Uzi was in… well, a rough state would be an understatement after that kind of humiliation. Poor girl had gone nonverbal about 15 minutes into things and hadn't spoken a word since, and Doll looked intensely uncomfortable for a moment when she had been the first to guide her non-responsive cousin out of the room when the lunch-bell rang. Probably remembering how she was doing herself in the days right after V's break-in. Uzi was just sitting there, optics hollow, occasionally silently crying for a few moments before stopping just as suddenly.

The lunchroom was actually pretty quiet, for the most part. Even the average worker could only handle so much about doors before they mentally tapped out, and it was gonna take more than a lunch break for a lot of these kids to come back to 100% processing capability. The only reason our group was doing better was that I had messaged them on the chat early on, reminding them that they could deafen their audials and spare themselves the dreariness of a verbal deluge of doors. Another case of me being a human ghost in the shell leading to thinking of things that robots could do that didn't occur to people who grew up as drones, I suppose.

" Uzi ," Doll pleaded, gently shaking the other drone's shoulder, " Come on, Uzi, it's done, eat something, please… please ," she grimaced and looked away as Uzi just started to silently cry again. Lizzy just watched on, frowning herself, because this wasn't something she could fix even with all her Machiavellian Queen Bee social powers. Even Thad wasn't cool enough to snap Uzi out of her funk after Khan dealt four hours of emotional damage to his kid. And even with my meta-knowledge, how the fuck was I supposed to try and fix this? I don't think "I'm sorry your dad is a door obsessed traumatized piece of shit," was gonna cover it. Even overclocking, I was drawing a blank on how to try and address this-- actually, I just had one idea. Not really enough, but it was something . I shot a quick message in the group chat.

Isekai_Protagonist: Hey Doll, try giving her a hug.

The Russian Solver-to-be gave me a glance, and then paused, face-palmed, and then gently wrapped her arms around Uzi. There were a couple seconds where Uzi stiffened slightly, but didn't react otherwise. Then she suddenly wrapped her own arms around Doll and started to silently sniffle, tears going down her visor. Her cousin in all but code just gently patted her back a few times. I went to open my mouth to offer some kind of sympathy, but surprisingly, I wasn't the next person to speak.

"Hey," it took me about a third of a second to pin the voice as Trevor's, and I looked over to see that he had approached the table, Emily also walking up, but patiently waiting behind him. He blinked a few times, rings under his eyes, still clearly traumatized from what I could pick up from assorted whispers in the cafeteria was being termed "The Door-en-ing." He took an unnecessary breath and shook his head while we all looked at him, clearing up his thoughts. "I… I'm sorry for you, uh…" He paused for a moment, looking mortified , and then suddenly snapped back to attention, snapping his fingers. "Uzi! I'm sorry for what you're going through, Uzi," he said, "That was horrific."

Uzi slowly looked at him. "You…" she mumbled. "Name? Remember?" I had to overclock to not laugh at her unintentionally repeating the line N said to V in the Pilot. Also, I had to give Trevor a serious kudos here. Guy actually remembered Uzi's name without being in our friend group, which was apparently beyond 99% of all drone children.

Trevor rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I uh, actually feel kinda bad about that. That's like, messed up, you know?" he explained. "But… you got my sympathies for The Door-en-ing," I had to overclock again to not burst out laughing at him actually calling it that in front of us. "I got a text from my mom a few minutes back, and even she thought that going on for more than two hours of doors was overkill."

Emily suddenly stepped up, looking away and generally doing the best robo-Fluttershy impression she could without having enough hair to actually hide her face behind. "I'm sorry for you, too, Uzi. That was… that was actually the first time I literally prayed for relief from something in school, I can't imagine how bad that was for you."

"You…" Uzi said, refocusing a bit. "You actually care ? You don't… you don't hate me for that?"

Trevor shrugged. "Not your fault your old man's that into doors."

Emily looked to the side for a moment, then looked back to Uzi. "I… this might be in bad taste, but I'm actually concerned. He's not… doing anything immoral with doors, is he?"

Dead silence. Then I started howling with laughter. Uzi stared blankly for a few more seconds, mortified , but then she started to laugh too, because the question was that fucking absurd, yet actually plausible for Khan. Like, I would be disappointed, but genuinely unsurprised if Khan slept with a door body-pillow. Uzi was laughing so hard she started sobbing in equal measure, her emotional release valve twisted all the way open and so much emotional pressure being released that she had no hope of closing it until she was burnt out. Doll joined Uzi in her mirth, then Lizzy, and then the rest of the table kinda just piled on all at once. I suddenly remembered that one comic where Nori was complaining to Khan that he couldn't get it up, and then Khan said he had an idea, and the next panel had Nori leaning suggestively against a door, and the panel after that was just Khan's optics, but the eyelights were literally replaced with the words [Harder than Door 1 RN], and I actually fell off the table because I was laughing so hard from my redoubled mirth, which only made everyone else laugh even harder .

It took us a good 10 minutes to simmer down, the rest of the cafeteria looking at us like we all collectively grew second heads, but none of us cared. Uzi was way more animated after she finally burnt her emotions out, actually chatting about random shit with the rest of us, and Emily and Trevor sat down and joined the conversation. Part of me was worried about whatever stupidity Khan would come up with next, but for now I was content that we had Uzi feeling better. The future was the future, and when it came to stuff that wasn't The End Times , I could deal with it then. For now, I was glad my friends were all feeling okay, and content to enjoy that.

____________

Emily and Trevor had started hanging out with us on occasion. Not like… in the inner circle, but The Door-en-ing had actually made them friends with us, ironically enough. It was a normal enough month, all things considered, so I wasn't really surprised when fate threw me another wrench in things.

Another day, another lesson in class that I could ignore and instead spend planning and coding the various things that would be necessary for the accomplishing deicide, like that virus that I'd been cooking up for over a year now. A lot of research going into that, let me tell you. And some of the stuff I found… useful, but disturbing enough that I wiped my memories of what exactly they were after I added them into the file I was storing everything concerning it on. In related news, I'd finished the shit-yourself virus, and had been fabricating various prototypes for virus spikes. Was still settling on what I thought would work best on the Solver's murder pets, but I was rapidly closing on a final iteration of what I was currently referring to as "dysentery darts." Man, was I glad that anyone who could punish me for my unhinged, cruel, and unusual war crimes was either dead or part of the faction I was intending to use them on. Mark my words V, I was gonna give you a bad fucking day for all the trauma you inflicted on my friends before I inevitably tried to get you together with N and Uzi at the same time!

Except my current plans to work on that stuff got derailed when Doll and Lizzy came into the room. They'd established a pattern that I was sure I only noticed because of meta knowledge, only being the last two to come in on days after Doll had some of Lizzy's oil, because she'd always be wearing her fingerless gloves on those days. But today… today, Lizzy was walking a bit slower than her usual gait, a pair of digital rings under her eyes, actually spaced out a bit. Worried, I checked on my thermal vision, and Lizzy was running noticeably hotter than the last time I'd checked her on a day after she fed Doll her own oil. She got to her seat, and paused for a moment, Doll stopping and starting to help her sit down, only for Lizzy to lightly push her away and whisper, "I'm fine , Dolly."

Doll looked away, mumbling a " Sorry, Liz ," and as she looked away, I caught a guilty expression on her optics before she schooled her face and walked over to her own desk. She hid it well, but knowing what to look for and being aware of the context due to meta knowledge, I could tell she was actually worried for Lizzy's sake.

Myself? I double checked (despite not needing to because perfect recall) that I still had the emergency oil-vial and thermos squared away in two different buttoned-up pockets in my coat. My initial guess had been spot on, after all. Doll's oil needs were slowly but steadily increasing, though I expected that they'd plateau when she fully unlocked her abilities. But the problem was that those same needs were now beginning to outpace what Lizzy could safely provide on her own. I needed to keep an eye-mote out. If this got any worse, I was gonna have to intervene regardless of whether or not I had a reasonable excuse to do so. Everyone could look at me with as much suspicion as they wanted, as long as I could keep Doll from having to hurt or gods-forbid, kill someone just to not overheat and die, I'd take the hit to my trustworthiness without hesitation.

Damn, I really couldn't catch a break with this crap, could I? Still, though, I opened up a chat DM to Lizzy.

Isekai_Protagonist: Liz, you okay?

She took a full two seconds to reply, which for Lizzy, after getting her phone connected to her OS, was forever.

Babeatron-Queenthousand: Yeah! I'm fine, Joe.

Babeatron-Queenthousand: Like, thanks for asking.

Isekai_Protagonist: You sure? You look tired. Forgot to eat breakfast or something?

It took Lizzy another full second to put in a reply, which was definitely concerning.

Babeatron-Queenthousand: Totally! That's what happened. I was up late, and I forgot to eat, too. Sorry to worry you.

Isekai_Protagonist: Liz

Isekai_Protagonist: I'm not gonna push

Isekai_Protagonist: Even though I REALLY want to push. Because I'm concerned.

Isekai_Protagonist: But… if there's some kind of problem, you can come to me.

Isekai_Protagonist: I'll try my best to help.

Isekai_Protagonist: Okay?

Lizzy glanced past Doll to look at me, offering a tired smile.

Babeatron-Queenthousand: I'll keep that in mind Joe. Thanks.

Isekai_Protagonist: Alright then. Take care, Liz.

I waited until she was paying at least partial attention to the teacher to let out a quiet sigh. Doll's mounting oil needs, Khan making Uzi's home life miserable, Lizzy self-sacrificing but not reaching out, literally several days worth of time flushed down the shitter trying to get the boot-loop flash frequency, time spent building my lair, downloading weapons design ideas and knowledge to my OS and subsequently designing, fabricating, and testing my weapons, hanging out with my friends, and all other forms of apocalypse prep. Damn if I didn't have my work cut out for me. Still… I was accomplishing good stuff here, in the long run. Regardless of how tiring, stress-inducing, or guilt-causing things could be, I was making measurable progress towards my goals, and had made noticeable, positive impacts on the timeline. This was worth it. This would be worth it. This all had to be worth it. I wasn't taking failure as an option. I set an additional reminder to keep an extra tab on Lizzy and Doll over the coming months. You know, just one more thing for the workload.

Just another day in the life of an Isekai Protagonist, I suppose , I thought, but amidst a lecture I don't think anyone was paying attention to, a tired grin graced my face all the same.