Chapter Text
Cold wind grazed across some traces of grass growing from cracks in the metal floor, forming a soft melodic whistle that seemed to wake all sorts of small bugs.
The electric hum of a shelter opening for the morning filled the air as a hole was made in the metal wall nearby.
Artificer woke from her slumber, roused by the noise created by the pipe opening, signaling morning for her, but something about today felt...off.
She rubbed one of her eyes to shoo away the sleepiness and ensure she woke up properly, following up quickly by pushing herself up to her hind legs and weighing herself for a moment to catch her bearings, after a moment of stretching she noticed how strange her mind felt...things have been more eventful lately, all she needed to do was find out why.
She began recounting the events of recent days, starting with a mantra she often repeated to herself to stay calm. "My name is Artificer, I am alive."
Her mind successfully trailed backward, speeding past her actions long ago with the scavengers, then slowly recounting the events.
She remembered how everything was normal until the strange mechanical god Pebbles called her into his chamber, something about discovering something new...things changed that cycle, many things, not everything she was aware of. Her insides burned like never before, her inner fire was still noticeably present, but the slight sting in each of her veins was more noticeable, although it did take a moment for her to notice. Another thing was that her mind felt lighter, not by much of course, but enough to have more headaches like the one she was experiencing at the moment.
She also managed to somehow find herself almost an entire region away from the can of Pebbles, if she had moved there, perhaps she just hadn't remembered.
She finally decided to leave the shelter, taking a deep breath outside once her hind leg made contact with the sun-heated metal, her maroon fur blowing ever so slightly in the faint wind. It felt nice out here, especially to her fur that already radiated heat.
She knew, however, that she couldn't stay here forever, she couldn't even stay for too long, the cycles were rather short here, at least as far as she could remember.
So it was off to her morning routine right away, all the while she was thinking about past events and why everything felt so blurry and familiar.
Her ears perked upward as she heard the familiar sound of metal hitting against metal, the spear she found herself holding tightened to her body as she scanned the area, what could it be? Lizard's heads were metallic, at least as far as she could tell, although in her experience that made more of a scraping noise, and nothing else bared metal other than...of course.
The answer found its way to her mind as she spotted a spear lodged in the ground, her eyes trailed upward to the ceiling...it always was hard to find these things, but her eyes were mostly used to seeing hidden things, she could thank the white lizards at the wall for that.
There, holding itself up on the underside of a bridge, just above the spear, was a dropwig.
She was familiar with the creatures, while they were easy work for her and her ability to propel through the air, most other slugcats struggled with these little critters, especially-...
She found herself lost for a moment, thinking of a small slugpup grabbing what it shouldn't and dying because of it.
She had promised not to think of that.
It took her a moment to catch her bearings again, she shook her head and gathered herself before propelling herself through the air and getting ready to stab at the beast now in front of her, and for a moment she witnessed things how she often saw them, slowed by adrenaline.
The dropwig's mandibles spread open as it saw movement, it was reeling backward to pounce as a hiss began escaping its mouth, but it was already too late, Artificer already had her spear ready and held back above her shoulder, just one spear, that's all it would take to kill it, that's all it ever took.
The sound of metal slamming and scraping against metal sounded against the walls, followed quickly by a loud and sudden hiss, then another hiss, but from a more cat-like source.
Artificer found herself on the ground a moment later, as if her body had moved on her own, the spear fell from her hands and landed on the ground, forming a cross with the other that the dropwig planted, but she couldn't focus on that now, her hands were firmly planted on the mandibles of the dropwig which was on top of her, hissing and biting at the air in an attempt to bite and kill her.
How did she miss? How could she let herself miss?
Questions for later, she needed to focus now apparently. Breakfast was fighting back.
It all happened in another swift instant, a second drawn out to a little eternity by the adrenaline, she sent a shockwave out, knocking the dropwig off of her as she followed it into the air, holding where she identified its 'head' secured as she bit underneath it, being sure to have it land under her and be minorly stunned by the impact.
It didn't take long for her to rip its throat out, and for the critter beneath her to stop writhing in an attempt to nab itself a meal, as she had already secured one.
She took a small moment to catch her breath, a small encounter being changed into that was not the most ideal thing she could think of.
After a moment of indiscernible time had passed, she raised herself and grabbed the critter by the mandibles again, pulling it toward her shelter so that she could go find more food before eating, no doubt this would not fill up her stomach, so she needed to find something else, luckily, and equally strangely, her stomach felt full from the night prior, it felt as if she could sleep another night before having to worry about food.
It only took a small moment and a few steps while carrying the dropwig, she staggered backward and clutched her side. After checking and pulling aside fur that was slightly too bushy, she noticed that she had a small bruise, probably gotten from the sudden forced landing the encounter forced her to be subject to, she took an extra minute to kick the dropwig out of anger.
She wouldn't let that hold her for long though, so he just tucked away the dropwig and walked onward, holding her side carefully as she picked up her spear once more, strange yes, but she didn't have time nor mind space for 'strange', she was a busy scug.
The cycle felt quick to her, green lizards were rather plentiful here, and she found those trivially easy to kill, as well as yielding great meat on their bones, after taking a long white dragging the beast back to her shelter, she began to rip into the green lizard, letting its blood splatter against her fur, it never made too much of a difference anyways, at least not on most of her fur, the charred bits were easier to notice, but she liked the advanced scare tactics she could-
She felt her thoughts be interrupted as she felt the meat she had just eaten slide back up her throat, forcing its way out into the open world again.
It took a moment of her hand on the head of the lizard to regurgitate the few bite fulls she ate, watching through blurry vision as red hunks of raw meat covered in her explosive saliva lay sizzling on the ground, cooking itself well done.
That was...strange...but once more, she didn't have time for strange, there were more pressing matters, like the small raindrops she felt on her fur.
So without much of a second thought, she bent over onto all of her paws, using one full arm to scarf down the spilled meat, then hurrying to eat some more, and before she could allow her body to respond, she was up and dragging the dropwig into the shelter to eat in the morning.
She barely noticed the night passing, she had few nights without nightmares, but surprisingly this was one of them, she always took a moment to appreciate it when that happened.
She took little time to dawdle, heading out of the shelter and outside, feeling the warm sun on her heated red fur, much like any other morning, she always had a moment for that feeling, a new day.
After a small moment though, she left intending to head closer to where she knew others of her kin were, at least then she could ask questions to someone.
She caught herself in the middle of thinking as she walked forward...why not ask Pebbles? He always had an answer for everything, and more often than not cared that she was doing normal, although past that he didn't pay much mind to her that she could tell, although she liked to entertain herself with the thought of her caretaker worrying over her behind her back.
That was probably wishful thinking, from what she had heard Pebbles was even cruel to his siblings.
But she chose to stay hopeful. For all of her life after meeting him, she chose to believe he had the best intentions at heart.
So why did that sting to say now, of all times?
Why did her body burn to move, and hurt her neigh constantly, unlike the natural firey way it did before, this was different...this was unnatural.
She hadn't considered how long she had been walking, but it made itself apparent as she bumped head-first into a wall, she rubbed her head for a moment before heading into the pipe, exiting to see a decently large room, if her memory served her right this was just short of a gate in the direction she was heading, but she had a moment to gather some food, if she remembered right there should be some in the room ahead.
She climbed through the final pipe where she believed food was, heading into the room and shielding her eyes, the light was a bit brighter in this room for some reason, maybe it was the way it reflected off the metal walls and platform.
But as her eyes adjusted, there was more than just a simple room layout with a platform, more than even a simple green or pink lizard that she expected to be here. There was a figure on top of the platform. It looked like a slugcat, holding itself in a very relaxed position, even after presumably seeing her. She could have sworn most slugcats were nervous around her...maybe things finally changed.
But as her eyes adjusted, more and more details of the figure revealed themselves. This slugcat had red fur, scars scattered about its body, and some strange yet small growths across its body.
She only knew one slugcat who looked like that, and his voice confirmed that to an even greater degree. "Hey Arty, long time no see."
"NSH wants a word but...we have some time before we have to be there, let's catch up."
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FP: The solution has been found.
FP: The solution is portable.
FP: The solution can be easily applied at scale.