Realizations "What did you do to her?!" Thad said, his eyes glancing back at the door behind him. Every metal bone in his body was telling him to run, to get away, to scream-- All he could do was wait for an answer, for Niko to tell him all the gruesome details that he was apparently hiding. "D- did you kill her? Did you EAT her?!" He provoked, the vents on his chest under his clothes feeling like they were closing up. Even his throat struggled to catch air right now. "ANSWER ME!!" He screamed. Niko just stared, his jaw slacked in the crashing realization of what was going on. He was so worried this would happen, so worried he'd be found out before he could somehow fix this... Thad had found out. Thad was asking questions, questions he didn't even know how to answer. Did he eat her? He couldn't remember, it was the obvious choice but every time he tried to imagine it he just couldn't. He couldn't imagine it, he couldn't remember it, he couldn't do that to her, could he? "N- no--" he said, but he sealed his lips seeing thad's curdling disbelief. "You're lying. You know how I know? Because you always give me that same face when you're lying, so tell me what happened!!" He demanded, stepping forward as Niko stepped a stair back. "I- I don't know! I can't... I can't remember what happened, I can't--" Niko tried to begin to explain himself but how could he explain shit he couldn't even remember? When he looked up all he could see was Thad's anger, the hot pink coloration of Niko's eye starting to flicker into something new. The sclera of his eye on his screen turned pink, his pupil a bright yellow X surrounded by spirals of the same color. His vision was turning pink and red, his eye unable to focus on one thing with the spinning room and panicked breathing filling his hearing. Thad's green eyes didn't look so green anymore, that cursed yellow shine filling his sight instead. Thad's expression wavered into confusion when he saw Niko almost spasming where he stood. "N- niko? Wait, I didn't meant to--" Thad reached out, grabbing niko's wrist to keep him from falling. A shock went through the disassembly drone where he felt the grab, a curdling scream coming from him. On his screen something new appeared, something Thad almost recognized but... didn't. It looked like the absolute solver but pink, a triangle in the center instead of the cube. He felt his own wave of terror wash over him, Thad yanking away and stumbling back just as the doors to the rooftop swung open. He smacked into V who caught Thad, her eyes as wide as disks as well seeing the scene before her. Niko was on the floor, fallen back to the base of that stair set and tearing at the silver-pink hair on his head. His legs were kicking like a panicking deer that couldn't stand, his wings having opened and desperately trying to flap only to get him nowhere. "What the hell did you do?!" Vivian said to Thad, rushing forward to help Niko suffering on the floor. She had watched him do this a handful of times already, the pink symbol on his screen only confusing her more and more every time it appeared. All she could think of was cyn, but... cyn was gone, and her solver definitely wasn't pink. Grabbing Niko was a grave mistake though. As soon as her hand touched him she received three metal claws swinging at her head, niko screaming at her to get away. She looked back at Thad, ready to grab him only to see the construction drone already leaping over the railing of the stairs to the lower set and starting to run. V just cussed at herself, starting to move to chase after him. She didn't get far, the familiar burn of nanite webs slamming her against the wall and pinning her down. She looked back at Niko, about to ask him what he was doing only for words to be lost on her tongue as she looked up. Niko had stood up and over her, both of his arm sets helping him support himself against the wall and keep Vivian trapped. The spider legs he had in his stomach burst out to stab into the wall besides her chest, his screen still covered by the strange pink solver and a wide grin to accompany it. His tail pointed at her, right at the yellow glow of her eyes. "Niko WAIT! WAIT!!" V screamed, fighting to free her arms. One of them tore from the web, her claws starting to rip at the webs to break free while her head swung down to dodge the needle trying to inject pink webbing into her face. She fell to the ground only to get the needle stabbing into her shoulder, a cry coming from her. All Niko could see when he looked at her face was the yellow, the yellow color that he had grown to hate more than anything. The yellow eyes that haunted him when he went to bed at night and when he woke up in the morning-- why wouldn't cyn just go away and leave him ALONE? The needle aimed for her head again, Niko's foot stomped down onto vivian's back to keep her down while all his arms kept her limbs pinned. Vivian growled, her own pair of extra arms popping out to put him down only for a loud crash from far below them to stop everything. Niko's hands let go of Vivian and his head now snappes up to focused on the source of the disruption. His body began to creak, the sound of plastic cracking and splitting; mixing with tearing fabric and dripping oil. Vivian's jaw hung open seeing what Niko was turning into. He was covered in abstract pink patterns, long spindly legs stabbing into the concrete she laid on as more and more of them just kept ripping out from his sides. Niko was gurgling oil from his peeling apart mouth, audibly struggling to get his systems to even function in the giant orb-weaver spider shape he had taken. Vivian lied forgotten on the floor with him skittering down the staircase far too fast for something that size. His hair had turned a dark pink and grown long over his disfigured face, hiding the glow of the pink solver still sitting on his screen and letting him vanish into the darkness the befalling night cast in the building. Thad was at the bottom of the staircase on the ground floor fumbling with his phone and struggling to type a message to his sister Lizzy. His thumbs were trembling so much he could barely make a decent text that made sense. He froze as he heard shuffling from behind him, something moving down the stairs and around the shelf he had slammed into and knocked over trying to run. He swallowed as he lowered his phone brightness, pressing send... Only to realize he had no signal inside this building. He gave a frustrated grunt, slamming his hand over his mouth as the moving suddenly stopped. All he could hear was the whirring of his own motor, the vents on his chest breathing in and out... he tried to stay quieter, he could hear the tak tak tak of something walking in the darkness behind the corner he hid behind. He slowly moved his snow boot, taking a step forward to try and sneak away from what he could only assume was Niko trying to find him. If he got found now he was no doubt going to just be another body to the spire they already built. Another meal for their mistake of a species, really. He clutched his phone, holding in a quiet sob. He stopped for a moment, his head hurting with too many feelings he didn't want to deal with. He was so angry, he was angry this happened again. He had already watched Chad get killed by J, Uzi ate Brad for Jenson's sake when she started acting like those disassembly drones and he didn't even find out about that until he was already long dead. Somehow, Cyn, those disassembly drones, somehow they kept destroying everything he found comfort in. He couldn't let it happen more, he couldn't let them get away with it just because he was stupid and wanted to be friends. He wiped at his screen. His dad was right to spend his days hunting these things, he needed to escape and put an end to it all. He needed to reach khan and nori for help. Thad stepped forward again, he couldn't hear anything else behind him. He began to walk quietly, using his dim phone as a light. He paused hearing the tak tak tak tak again, looking at his phone to see if he had any signal. He gritted his teeth seeing no such luck, and somehow it got worse as the light of his phone died alongside the battery. His green eyes were the only light source he had now without making noise digging into his backpack for a flashlight. He took another cautious step... only for his boot to land on a shard of glass. The crack filled the void of silence, Thad cringing staring down at the piece he stepped on. Up ahead there was something he could see moving. His head rose only to see eight different pink eyes staring back at him from the darkness.