A Communion of Monsters [CLOSED]

[Hollow]

Lightning split the sky with light and rain pelted the ground as a fierce storm shook the world around a tall, thin Stitchpunk. It was hunched protectively over something on the ground, giggling and talking in hushed tones to it. A sanguine light poured from it's optics, illuminating the ground around it.

"... And so I told him, 'the more you struggle, the more it's going to hurt'. What he didn't know is that I'd secretly been prodding his reactive circuits, and directly causing his seizures." He said. The object on the ground, a stitchpunk, whimpered past a gag made of an old oilcloth. He'd covered it's entire head, save it's optics, and was giving it his trademark traumatizing grin. "I did warn him, at least."

He had peeled back the fabric covering the stitchpunk's body, and had used jagged shards of metal to pin them to the ground, as though he were dissecting a frog. With it's internal wiring and skeletal structure exposed to the elements and leaking oil, the doll appeared to be fading fast. Organs lay shredded and strewn about the area, as well as one or two of the stitchpunk's ribs.

The trapped doll's hands twitched feebly around the spikes driven through it's wrists. He sighed slightly and plucked out the spike in it's right hand, eliciting a relieved (If not muted) sigh, only to moments later tear the limb from it's socket. He laughed through the muffled shriek of pain and held the limb up for his captive to inspect. "Looks like you could use a hand." He said, voice dripping with false sympathy. He roared with laughter, slapping his thigh with his captive's severed hand, rocking back and forth.

"Oh, I slay me. But first, I slay you." He leaned over the body, talons poised to sink into the doll's sternum.

[The Basilisk]

If someone listened, against the sounds of the storm, something else was thundering- something closer to the ground.

The Basilisk took a running leap at a puddle and splashed into it, the behemoth's thick body slamming into the ground with a crash to carry above the rain and wind. It threw its forelegs up in the air, watching water droplets sparkle before gravity drove them back down again, just more rain.

Daddy had been very specific about not going out to hunt for a while, in case the bad preythings were still out there and the little things hadn't found them. So the monster, the executioner, was engaged in something that few might ever catch it at:

It was playing.

"FUN!" Basilisk bellowed, turning sharply and sending his fabric-colored tail swinging through the puddle, sending up an even more impressive splash than before. The gaping lights of its optics stared lidlessly into the storm, but its jaw hung wide open in a haunting semblance of a grin. "FUN FUN FUN!"

In two bounding strides it had crossed to another puddle and bellyflopped into it, not catching itself on its legs but sprawling contentedly, not caring as its already soaked hide took its twenty-third unnecessary bath.

"Ehehehehehehehehe" it chattered, curling the blades of its forelegs to stack its skull atop them, not letting its head dip under the water. The names on the List were already running faintly, but Basilisk still took the consideration to keep it out of water. Its tail wagged like a dog's, knocking into an unsteady can and sending it rolling off into the storm.

[Hollow]

Hollow paused, talons millimeters from the stitchpunk below him's vitals. He turned his head to the sky, listening. He thought he'd heard a familiar voice. A lance of fear pierced him, and he shivered in relish of the feeling, a wide grin splitting his broken face. Yes, this creature in particular he had followed for quite a while. He frequently travelled out to the Factory and stalked the creatures that lived within. Such marvelous, powerful killing machines, so much fear bent and broken into their names... He relished it, and almost worshipped the Fabricator.

Almost. He knew that this beast may not stay to parley if it happened to come across him whilst he was unawares, and so he made a judgement call. He put a finger to his lips as he patted his victim's cheek, smiling. "Don't move a muscle, my friend, I'll be right back to finish our game."

He cackled quietly to himself and skittered off to one side, folding his spindly limbs in and squeezing himself through a cracked metal plate, turning to look out from the gash. He flashed his brilliant red spotlight eyes like a signal beam, hoping to get the monster's attention.

[The Basilisk]

Against the looming darkness of the storm, the bursts of red were as striking as blood on snow. The Basilisk's head snapped up, jaw closing in a flash of teeth.

"Little thing?" It pushed up from the puddle, staring out at the storm. Its first instinct was suspicion, maybe even a prickle of fear. The memories of its vicious beating were still alive in its mind, but the past was always so irrelevant compared to the present, and its current gamesome mood overtook its doubts in a rush.

The Basilisk charged towards where the lights had come from, legs churning the wet dirt as its girth threw splashses of water from every puddle it passed over.

"LITTLETHINGIWANTTOPLAY!" it shouted, charging into the clearing to find...

...One preything stuck to the ground?

Basilisk would've blinked if it had eyelids. That wasn't a little thing. Preythings didn't make red like the little things did, only sometimes when they were preythings that used to be little things.

It circled curiously around the pinned doll, reaching towards the cloth-wrapped face. The twitches of pain given off by the soon-to-be corpse fascinated it, and it took the doll's head delicately in both hands, studying the expressions that passed on the uncovered optics. Its teeth, milimeters from the hapless victim's face, chattered thoughtfully.

"Preything, why'd you have to go and give your coat away? I want that." It imagined that this doll must have been a particularly nice color, the desirability of the fabric spiked higher by the simple fact of it not being there for the taking.

[Hollow]

Hollow eased his way out from the crevice, silently skittering up the side of the slope of blasted fragments. He was silently hoping that the Basilisk would not take his kill from him. He sat cross-legged atop a particularly flat chunk of rubble, and stared at the behemoth, eyes warming up and casting a dim glow upon the scene. "Hello." He said, his alarmingly quiet voice cutting through the storm with ease.

He grinned unfearingly- He was unarmed and quite unthreatening at the moment. He did not have any illusions of attempting to attack the creature before him, which would prove suicidal. No, he'd have had to sneak up on it, perhaps in it's sleep, and even then he had no wish to butcher such a beautiful machine. "You are not supposed to be out playing, little snake."

"I've taken the mouse's coat. He didn't realize what it was worth until it was gone." His tone held an air of sympathy as the little doll screamed beneath his gag, twitching and struggling against his bonds. He tilted his head to the other side, grin unfaltering on his torn face.

[The Basilisk]

Basilisk reared curiously over Hollow almost as soon as it had noticed him. This was a new little thing. A little thing that smelled like dust and decay, and didn't skitter away the moment he came close.

The creature tilted its head one way, and then almost horizontally the other way. Its jaw hung open in its lack of awareness, and one could imagine it blinking in befuddlement.

"I'm not a little thing," Basilisk's words bubbled over in a jerky, hissing laugh, its metal teeth shuddering horribly. It dropped on its legs, crouching so as to be nearly nose-to-torso wtih Hollow. "You're a little thing!" It giggled again, almost sincere, and nosed him gently in a way that could've bowled over a stitchpunk twice his girth.

It was surprisingly quick to abandon the stitchpunk on the ground. After all, preythings weren't THAT interesting. Not as interesting as a little thing that didn't scurry.

"Daddy said I could play. So I'm playing." It didn't add that the Fabricator had told it not to hunt. In fact, that may have entirely slipped its mind at this point.

[Hollow]

The eerie creature sat, stock-still, as the behemoth before him examined him like a new toy. This would be the moment to make or break every interaction the two of them had in the future- Would the snake be another masterpiece, or an ally? When it's confusion became apparent, Hollow could not contain his amusement, which slid onto his crooked face in a grin. He dearly loved that reaction.

If anything, Hollow's grin merely widened as the Basilisk nudged him with it's nose. He swayed gently with the motion, and slid almost fluidly to his feet. His long, spidery arms unfolded with the sound of clicking joints and creaking parts, and he swept forward in a flashy bow to the deadly construct before him. "I am not a little thing. I am Hollow." He said, both stating his name and explaining what he was with a single word.

The talons of his left hand clicked slightly as he ran them over each other, reaching up to tap his chin as he looked the Basilisk over. True, the Fabricator had surely said nothing as to playing, but he had been there when the beast had been caught and tortured. Naturally he'd done nothing to stop it- Despite it's status as a marvelous instrument of death and, more importantly, fear, it's wounded cries had been quite delicious. He'd watched from quite a ways away, far enough to escape the notice of both the Basilisk itself and the participants of the act, but he'd seen and heard, all right. So it begged the question- Why would 'Daddy' let it's little pet out so soon after that?

"Did he now?" Hollow purred. "Well, it certainly is a nice night out for playing, isn't it?" He creaked down the side of the hill, over to the ragdoll pinned to the ground, oil-stained skin pinned out around it like an obscene flower. "What do you think of my little art project?" He bent over the stitchpunk with another of his mind-searing grins, lights flickering up and down it's body as he assessed it's state of being. It was nearly dead now, nearly dead.

[The Basilisk]

At Hollow's introduction, the Basilisk's voicebox burst over with giggles again, and its fabric tail thumped the ground in thunderous amusement.

"Hollow's not a thing. Hollowthing. Hollowthing." It sampled the word to itself, rolled it around the accoustics of its skull, listening to the result and repeating it a few more times.

"Hollow's not a thing," it said and laughed again, wriggling its whole body gleefully. Then it was distracted, as easily as changing channels on a television set, by Hollow's question.

The Baslisk moved on its legs, skittered over to the morbid scene and reared up to study it from the benefit of height. Much as it had with Hollow, it twisted its head in a few directions, jaw clicking a few times from its musings.

"It's not wiggly." came the frank summation. "Gotta be wigglier." For a creature with little sense or care for aesthetics, the fun died when the prey did: amusement could not be sustained with a lifeless doll as it was by a living, screaming toy, one that was practically all a game in itself. It liked the way Hollow had stuck it down, though. All pinned in place and cut open... so many bright little bits inside. It would've never guessed those were in there.

"Hollowthing, how's the preything all full of shinies?" it asked, prodding the near-inert doll's chest with one bladed leg.

[Hollow]

Hollow's wide grin remained focused on the ragdoll below- He too prodded it's chest with the tip of a talon, although as he kept the pressure steady the long sharp appendage bit into the metal of it's sternum, through it, making the doll writhe and scream through it's gag. "The shinies keep the preything alive. It's so easy, once you know how they work, to find what keeps it alive. It's like a fine string..." As he explained, his talons slowly walked their way up the squirming doll's chest, delicately positioning themselves over the doll's throat, thumb and forefinger gently lifting the esophagus out of the mess of cables and wires. It was thick, and pulsed treacherously as it's owner vied for escape. "So easy to... Cut."

His fingers twitched slightly upwards; There was a gentle 'snick' and the tube burst open, spraying oil all over the ragdoll's face. It made a few short wretching noises and spasmed violently before ceasing it's movement. Hollow's electric grin widened, and he swept his claws violently across it's face, gouging deep, disfiguring wounds in it. Half an optic went skittering off into the rain, as did a few small scraps of fabric and metal. He sighed, almost disappointed, and wiped his claws off on the corpse's thigh fabric. "All good things must come to an end, they say."

He turned to the Basilisk, grinning ever-presently, and began walking over to it. "But you know all about that, don't you? How is work on your list coming, my friend?"

[The Basilisk]

Basilisk watched with something approaching awe at Hollow's demonstration. The spasm stilled and then stopped, and it prodded the still body, poking at it with its legs. Those had been really interesting wiggles. It had never made a preything do THAT before. It started to look at Hollow in a new light, one almost displayed right on its features by the slightly open jaw as it stared up at the approaching doll.

It seemed to snap back to reality a bit at the mention of the list, one of its hands making a delicate circle on its lower jaw.

"Daddy says not to hunt for a while 'cause the bad preythings." Baslisk said, matter-of-factly. But its focus was on something else, something much more interesting. Something that had everything to do with the oil slicked on Hollow's fingers.

"How do you know which of the shiny bits make it wiggle?"

[Hollow]

If the grin on Hollow's face widened any more it might have split his face in two. He gestured to the corpse. "Allow me to show you." He slunk back over to the corpse and delicately lifted the severed tube by one end. "This is their breathing tube. When you cut this, they suffocate."

He pried off the sternum plate and reached into the mess of wires and parts, got his claws around the heart, and lifted it free of it's ribs. "This is the heart. This will kill it quickly, but it does bleed a lot and... wiggle a lot when you remove it." He tore it's heart out and tossed it away uncaringly. He indicated it's stomach, lungs, and spine. "These, also, garner a response. The trick is not which bits make it wiggle... It's testing the limits of it's parts." He freed an arm from the ground and bent the elbow backwards until it snapped. "Take your time with your prey."

[The Basilisk]

Basilisk followed the morbid lesson with rapt fascination, the massive coils of its body curling around to form a sort of natural stage. What Hollowthing was doing... the machine's mind lacked the words to describe it. But he managed to make the dead preything... almost interesting again, and Basilisk found itself peering at the pieces with something bordering on awe.

Slowly, purposefully, it lifted one of its legs, and stabbed into the corpse's spine, rewarded immediately with a sickening snap. The idea of making that itself- of picking a preything apart, taking out all of the shinies- and not just a preything, those things, THAT thing! All the bad things that had hurt it... it could take them apart, make them bleed, make them dance in that very same way, just by playing with those secret shinies that Hollowthing had shown it.

Suddenly Basilisk rushed Hollow again, this time nosing him in the feet in a bid to scoop the tall doll up onto the top of his skull. "I like you!"