#mdweek2024

Here's the song that largely sparked this drawing, "So Much (for) Stardust" by Fall Out Boy.

“Um… N?” Uzi's voice was warbly and wary, peering down over the top of a building into the jungle of jagged concrete below, the only light being the ethereal glow of the gas giant and it's orbiting moon to illuminate the broken city.

“Yes?” Her companion replied, cheer written into the base-code of his voice no matter his mood. His silvery hair taking on an almost angelic appearance in the light, a halo of golden lights above his head that served as his eyes. His visor displayed two golden ovals, and his mouth was upturned in a beaming smile.

“I don't know about this.” Uzi looked back at him with her purple eyelights displaying her apprehension, her purple locks becoming slightly disheveled in the breeze, a beanie keeping most of it safe, though her mouth downturn into a frown.

You see, she'd asked N tentatively to give her flying lessons after a sudden and violent transformation that had her murdering and eating a good portion of her classmates during a school trip. And since then, she'd been itching to learn how to use her new wings.

She just… kinda expected them to start on the ground.

“This is the best way to learn how to fly! If you're already high up, then we've already gotten halfway there, right?” N kept his chipper attitude, circling behind her and leaning down to be eye level. Uzi wasn't so confident… the ground looked a long way away.

“I don't even know how to take off! What if I fall?” She replied, throwing her hands forwards and gesturing to the 40 story drop that was laid out in front of her. The disassembly drone in front of her chuckling in return, his much larger frame contrasting with her much smaller one.

“Then I'll catch you.” He assured, releasing his own, bladed wings from his back, making him look all the more angelic as light filtered through them.

Uzi herself took a deep breath, looking back down at the drop before her, and her companion put a heavy, metallic hand on her shoulder.

“You've got this, and I'll be here every step of the way to get you through it. Okay?” He smiled down at her, golden eyes soft and kind as he cocked his head like some curious puppy.

Uzi felt heat come to invade her face, violet LEDs lit up on her visor to mimic a human blush, and she averted her eyes to the concrete roof to avoid looking at him any longer.

“Okay. Fine.” She huffed, only making her much more cheerful companion smile brighter, showing off his fangs.

“First step, bring out your wings.” He backed away gently flapping his own wings in her direction while gesturing to her, she looked down at herself before squeezing her eyes shut and focusing hard on trying to summon her own wings.

She pushed and pushed, but nothing was happening except her face turning more purple as she tried harder and harder, the joints on her mechanical body groaned as she strained them, and small beads of sweat formed on the inside of her visor.

“Woah, Woah! Hey, don't blow a gasket!” N crouched down in front of her, both hands on each of her shoulders as he flashed her a wary smile, “What’s up buddy?”

“Uh… I don’t know how to bring them out, I wasn’t really trying to last time.” Uzi explained, bring her hands together to wring them as N put his thumb and finger underneath his chin, sticking his tongue out as he thought. Uzi couldn’t help but laugh at how silly he looked, which may have been the entire point in him doing it.

“Well… maybe think about how it felt to have them out? Not hungry, obviously, but maybe something you enjoyed while having them out?” He suggested, backing away once more, “Whenever I want my wings, I just think about how nice it is to fly around!”

Something she enjoyed? It wasn’t a lot. She was terrified out of her mind when she’d been transformed and went crazy.

Though… even though they had been falling, talking with N had been really nice, he’d been so understanding, and didn’t once judge her or look scared…

“Hey! You did it!” She heard him exclaim, and she opened her eyes in surprise, not even realizing she’d closed them, she looked backwards and found the dull purple, tattered looking bat wings unfurled from her back, her tail was out too, looking at her curiously. She gave the wings an experimental flap, stretching them out and examining them.

“Awesome! Now all you have to do is crouch down-“ He crouched down, wings spreading out behind him before he lept up into the air with a single mighty flap, sending the newest layer of snow that had fallen onto the roof out in all directions. “-and jump while giving your wings a good flap, you don’t have anti-grav though, so make sure to keep flapping!”

She did her best to mimic his pose from before, crouching down and spreading her wings out behind her, in contrast to him, the lighting did her little favor, instead of being angelic her leathery wings made her look more demonic, the veins within the thin membrane shining through.

Then she jumped, trying to time her flap to be at the same time. And found herself going forward and upwards quickly, she felt herself smile, she did it! She took off! That wasn’t so hard!

Until the second and third flap, where momentum and inexperience caught her off balance and she went tumbling forward into a spin, hurtling to the ground at high speeds.

“OOOOH SHIIIIIIIIIIT” She yelled as she flapped her wings frantically to try and right herself, only causing her to spin faster and making her dizzy, she saw each story fly past her at insane speeds, this was it, she was going to go splat on ancient pavement and be nothing but a black stain on the ground.

She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable, but found it never came. Instead, she landed in a pair of large arms and a warm chassis, which she immediately and instinctively grabbed onto like a cat about to come into contact with water. She trembled as she wrapped her arms and legs around her savior, not caring if she looked silly or not at the moment.

“Well you took off! You just couldn’t stay up…” N laughed, finding a golden blush gracing his face at their proximity, it wasn’t often Uzi was affectionate, even if at the moment that was due to fear. “You good?”

“Y-yeah.” She replied, unconvincingly, and when they reached the top of the building again she was reluctant to let him go, at least until it became slightly awkward and she forced herself to.

“Maybe we can try another way?” N hummed, looking out over the city until a figurative lightbulb appeared over his head. “Hey, I have an idea!”

He bent down in front of her, and pointed to his back, a beaming smile on his face. “Hop on!”

Uzi blushed once more, looking away and out over the building before sighing and clambering onto his back, where his hands came to grip onto her legs, and they took off into the sky, going even higher then before.

“Okay Uzi, spread your wings!” He said once they were gliding high up over the layer of thick fog that clung to the buildings below them, Uzi felt her nerves alight as she looked down.

“What?! It’ll create too much drag! I’ll fly off!” She yelped, gripping onto him more tightly then before.

“No you won’t, trust me!” She grumbled, squeezing her eyes shut and spreading her wings, slowly letting go of N as she felt herself suddenly become weightless.

“Open your eyes!” N’s voice was somewhere below her, and reluctantly she did, finding herself gliding unaided, her wings stretched out above her and the wind whipping up around her, held up by her own wingspan.

“N! I’m flying!” She belted, not feeling this excited once in her entire life, sure she was loosing altitude slowly, but the feeling of the wind underneath her wings was so… freeing.

“Kinda! You’re gliding! Now try flapping!” He was flying belly up, ignoring the laws of physics with his anti-grav just so he could remain where she could see him, and he could remain in saving distance should she start falling again.

She flapped once, the air catching underneath her and bringing her upwards, she smiled as she was brought up closer to the clouds, and found herself laughing as she did it a few more times, enough so that her back touched the underside of a cloud and her wings parted it, leaving her mark on it.

N came up directly below her, smiling as she began to let herself loose altitude, giving her two dorky thumbs up as she giggled at him, a blush on her face she didn’t even try to hide.

“You’re doing great! You can angle your wings to go left and right!”

She did as she was told, tilting her wings so that she tilted left and right as she glided through the air, she got more confident, getting used to the feeling underneath her wings.

“This is amazing!”

N had never seen his friend this happy, and she was doing miraculously well for someone with as little experience as she had, he laughed as she figured out how to force herself downwards, gaining a little bit of speed as she went.

“Just be careful, it’s kinda foggy and any lower there might be-“ A building whipped past him, startling them both as they both looked ahead. Tall dark shapes stretched out before them, hidden by the fog but even from here they could tell that the buildings were dense. -“BUILDINGS!”

N switched over to flying belly down, using his sensors to try to map his way through the quickly approaching buildings even through he couldn’t see them very well, he tried to look for Uzi, but couldn't find her before he had to dodge another building.

Oh no… there was no way Uzi was going to get through all these buildings with her experience, and he couldn't slow down in time without risking hitting a building himself, he frantically looked around, trying to place her.

Finally, he did, just in time to see her come face to face with a dense fallen buildings, and he readied himself to go to catch her when she clipped one.

Only she never did.

She zipped past the first one, expertly gliding into a small hole and popping out the other side completely unscathed. N was taken aback, impressed with the skill.

A flag pole came into view in front of her and she angled her wings to flip over it, body arching to move out of the way and ending facing the same way she started, her face was determined and focused.

It was so… foreign. The way she moved.

He was much too heavy to consider moves like that, dodging buildings at high speeds were difficult, even for him. But she was light enough and small enough to flit over and through buildings no problem.

Another collapsed building got in her way, and instead of trying to dodge it, she scrabbled up it on all fours before taking off again, gliding from building to building without thinking twice.

It was like watching a dance, and he couldn't help the gold tinting his cheeks as he watched her spin into the air to glide through a shattered window, she was beautiful… she was-

“Agh!” He crashed headfirst into a building, chassis crumpling painfully as all of his forward momentum was suddenly stopped by a surprisingly solid concrete wall, the wall cracked when he made contact with it, creating a loud and echoed crack!

And he fell, systems going dark before he hit the ground…

… Rebooting …

“N! Oh robo-god, are you okay!?” There was a voice calling his name and flurried movement above him, every joint and plate he passed ached, and his mouth was uncomfortably dry.

“Eugh…” Was the first noise he made, voice plagued by radio-static and a million miles away, Something thick, warm, and sweet entered his mouth, making him sigh in relief.

His visuals became more clear a moment later as his nanites repaired his flattened body, Uzi was hoving over him, completely unharmed as she held a worker drone arm in her hand, it was still leaking oil. Though her visor was streaked with worry.

“Holy hell, you scared me! Your visor was dark for twenty minutes, I thought you were dead!” Her violet eyelights were filled with tears threatening to fall, and despite feeling like he'd been crushed in a compactor, he couldn't help but feel his core-beat speed up at the though she'd been so worried over him.

“Nah… M’fine. Been through worse.” He croaked put, even though he couldn't remember another time where he could feel his arm snapping back from being turned the exact wrong way.

“How did you hit something and I didn't?” She asked, after another minute of checking him over and seeing all the places his nanites were repairing.

He blushed, so his visor must be fully functional again.

“Oh uh… I got distracted…” He smiled, though awkwardly, now probably wasn't the time to tell her it was her he was distracted by.

“Pfft, see something shiny?” She teased, causing him to laugh too as he felt the last of his wounds get sealed up and the pain slowly subside.