Chapter Text
Sniper was stalking a very peculiar creature.
It had all started when, some hours ago, he’d heard a thunk and went outside to find a large spike of some sort sticking out of his camper. Of course, he was pissed about having to repair the dent in his van, calling over Engineer to fix it up, but it intrigued him to no end as well after he pulled it out and studied it. Some kind of hollow organic material with a brittle thread at the end of it, too big, strangely shaped, and isolated to be the bone of some abominable bird. It wasn’t a one-off thing, either; as he looked around, he’d seen strange quills sticking out of the ground or a wall- sometimes even stabbing a dead critter with it.
So, he’d been keeping an eye out for those strange spikes all day, and even began tracking whatever was making them. Collecting the blackened barbs, he’d followed a trail of them into the desert of dead grass. And finally, he saw what was making them, in the middle of nowhere through the scope of his rifle.
It was bright purple, an unusual color under the New Mexico sun, with two tall, rounded ears, white eyes, and a little pale nose on its flat face. It boasted a large, spotted tail, a scarred chest, and it walked on its back two legs like a little man. Sniper didn’t know what in the hell this thing possibly could be, but it kinda looked like a weasel, or maybe a cat. But far too large to be either, and hairless too.
It was stalking a hare from behind a bush, perfectly still, a sharp white quill in its hand as the bunny grazed- identical in all but color to the various spines Sniper had seen. He’d never known an animal could use a weapon; he’d assumed they weren’t smart enough for that. Maybe this was one of Medics weird creations? But the purple thing didn’t seem particularly… his style of horrific stitched-together experimentation.
Its arm shot forward, and with frightening accuracy, the spike impaled the hare, a shrill screech accompanying it. Hopping out of the bush, it jogged over to the swiftly dying jackrabbit and picked it up, jabbing another spear through its head as the other swiftly darkened. Something darkened the veins connecting the quills to the purple weasel as it flowed, and Sniper assumed it was a poison of some sort.
“Lil mongrel’s a sharpshooter!” Sniper muttered, staring as it stood there, rabbit in hand. But it wasn’t eating the rabbit. Possibly it was hunting for sport, or…?
Oh. He saw why it wasn’t eating.
Bloody thing didn’t have a mouth.
Sniper turned and sat against the rock he was hiding behind, his mind racing. What was this thing? There was no way this little hunter could be natural. It was Medic’s fault, he should blame Medic for this abomination. He wanted to turn back and be done with this bizarreness.
He only looked up when he saw something nudging his foot.
The little weasel had found him.
The Spearmaster was very, very confused.
One moment they had been on top of Seven Red Suns’s superstructure, fighting off a lizard clamping them in its maw and being dragged into its den, and the next, they had emerged in a desert far too flat and wide to be contained on top of an iterator. Stranger still, the den entrance along with the lizard had vanished from behind them, leaving them effectively stranded. This wide wasteland looked devoid of water but seemed like prime vulture territory- which meant Spearmaster had to get out of here, and fast.
Worse still was that what little food there was had barely enough sustenance to provide them with a good meal. Small furry beasts with large ears, like tiny rain deer unadorned with antlers, scurried across the sand. Minuscule brownish lizards too small to be good food perked up and stared at the Spearmaster, which would almost be cute if not for the low-lying fear that bigger parent lizards were lurking right behind them. In fact, there was nothing worthwhile that they could eat. Not even a vulture descended from the sky.
The Spearmaster was hungry and lost.
And then they saw the walking iterator. Or whatever the tall thing was. Far away, watching them consume one of the tiny pathetic rain deer. They had no idea how it was outside of the maze-like structure all iterators were trapped within, but on closer inspection out of the corner of its eye, it didn’t seem very iterator-like at all. It appeared gaunt and skinny, and lacked a hard metal shell, soft and pierce-able skin replacing it. It had none of the vibrant colors or regal robes most iterators boasted, instead colored the modest hue of a very pale orange and wearing a brown, tight cloak(?) with a red garment underneath. The only thing resembling antennae were small strange nubs the color of its skin on the side of its face. It had fur under its hat, and colored glass covering its eyes. It seemed more like a scavenger, without its fur or hunched spine.
But it was the only potentially helpful thing out here. If it really was an iterator, it could possibly help them get back home. If it was just another predator, well, it was certainly large enough for the Spearmaster to get its fill.
So they waddled over, wary with a quill in their hand, and poked the tall things leg- and they were almost immediately met with a strange, long and almost rectangular weapon pointed at their face.
The iterator grumbled something in a language Spearmaster couldn’t understand. It brought back memories- memories of a time before the Mark of Communication was given to them by Looks to the Moon, when all that iterators murmered was gibberish, when the only form of speaking was with radio signals and their hands. A few quick gestures with their free hand was fruitless, as the iterator simply stared with a quirked eyebrow, one eye still covered by that tool with the hollow cylinders adorning the end pointing at the slugcat. If that was a spear, it’d be mighty useless with no sharp end.
Spearmaster reluctantly set their spear down into the sandy ground and began signing with both hands free now, careful to go slow, and yet the beast still didn’t understand, though it lowered its strange weapon.
With a frustrated noise hissing out of the holes in their tail, they turned- and were caught off guard as they sported a large building in the distance, grey silhouette shrouded by dust. It was nowhere near the size of Suns’s can, absolutely not- but it was a start, at least. They pointed towards the blocky building and began walking towards it, preparing to bid farewell to this rather useless scavenger-iterator amalgamation, before they heard the shuffle of standing up. More muttered words it couldn’t make out met their ears, and as they glanced over, the beast was upright and walking besides it, its twisted spear hung across its back again. The Spearmaster trotted on, and found that they didn’t mind the company.