Disclaimer: I don't own 9.
Author note: Yeah…somebody is going to die by the end of this. Sorry for misleading you guys into thinking that this was going to be a happy fluffy plot less story but the truth is, the world has always been a cruel place, and that will never change. E6 doesn't know this though, and reality is about to hit him head on.
This is unedited and I'm not too happy with it. But I'm stuck on how to fix it. It's just too broken for my liking. But I had to post something because I'm losing the drive to write. I need words of encouragement to push me on. So I'm posting this up in its current state. The edited version will be posted when I get it back from my editor. And your words of wisdom are most welcomed, reviewers!
Almost forgot--for those who didn't get the memo, I'm on deviant art! I'm on deviant art! (Tora does a happy dance!)
Light the Way
Chapter 3: Shattered
It was early in the morning. So early that the sun hadn't risen yet from its hiding place under the horizon. A fog had settled in making the earth smell damp and fresh, at least for those that could smell.
E6 peaked out of his room, listening for the others. He crept quietly down the hall, careful with every move that he made.
"E6, where are you going?"
The fuzzy doll nearly jumped out of his fabric in surprise and quickly spun around. "To my workroom!" he spluttered out automatically.
A2 stood in a door way and cocked his head in interest. He was a burlap doll, like 9, or at least partly. His limbs and head were burlap but his chest was faded red velvet. He was covered in patches and stitches from his younger days as a fighter. Oddly enough, he didn't have an opening device on his front, but rather a small button behind his head that kept a flap on his upper chest held shut.
A2 smiled kindly and said, "Isn't it a bit early? You don't need to work so much child. Come and sit with us."
E6 backed away shyly, shaking his head. His steps quickened until he had turned around and ran for it.
A2 sighed in defeat. He returned to the room and announced to D2, "Your creation is being strange again."
D2 waved him off, "Let him have his space. He's probably not used to so much attention."
"He's dedicated at least," said B1 as he sat down on his cushion with a bowl of oil, "I've never seen such a determined younglen."
B1 was a leather doll with a crack in his left lens, a crooked smile and wooden claps along his right side. He slumped happily into the plush seat as he undid himself and lathered up his inner workings.
"He's not working. He just messes around when no one is watching." D2 frowned and took out a piece of wood and carving tool and started to whittle away.
"Phff---that's more than the rest of you did at that age. It was a hassle just to get one of you into that room in the first place!" A2 chuckled, but it quickly turned into a grown as his body squeaked in protest as he tried to sit down. "Pass me some of that, will you?"
C9 offered her own bowl to the elder. She was a dainty, skinny thing made from a blue checkered hankie with large lenses and two little brass buttons on her front.
"I resent that! I was well behaved during my training." D2 waved his tool to make his point.
C9 sighed and shook her head. "Apparently you don't remember the catapult. I don't know what was going on in your silly head when you built that thing!"
"Oh, that was priceless all right," B1 moved his right hand in imitation of something flying through the air, and smashed it against his other hand, flinging some oil in the process. "Whooo-splat! Righ---right into the wall! You didn't even come close to the window! Hahaha!"
"Knock it off, I get it!" D2 punched the other doll in the shoulder out of embarrassment.
He settled back down and picked up his piece of wood again. "He's not like that though. He doesn't try to run away or argue with me… he's so silent sometimes that it's creepy."
"But he does get frustrated when he messes up." The sharp point of his metal tool dug too deeply into the wood and left a nick that D2 hadn't intended to make. He frowned and rubbed the wood. "We both get frustrated. I don't know what to do with him."
"He's an odd one, that's for sure; I don't know what to tell you, creation, besides don't give up. That's the last thing either of you need." C9 offered.
"Try to get him out of that room at least. It might do him some good," advised A2.
"Right..." D2 said half heartedly as he continued to work on the little piece of wood.
E6 groaned in misery, stabbed the needle back into the fabric, and groaned again.
He hated his practice work. He knew he would screw up no matter how many times he tried, but they made him do it over and over. It was okay when D2 left to visit the other E's, which he had been doing often now that he was no longer restricted to the sacred place. During those times the other creators would check up on him, but he would pick his cloth back up and pretend to be busy. Then when they left, he would go back to slacking off.
But D2 was present today and watching him from across the table. E6 groaned for the fifth time that hour and threw the mangled mess of fabric and string at D2.
"Are you still proud of me?" He huffed angrily and crossed his arms.
"I always will be." The denim doll went to the entrance, "Why don't we take a break? I have something I've been meaning to show you."
Curiosity peaked, E6 fallowed as D2 led him to the other side of the building. He paused when a peculiar sound rang through the air to its own beat. He knew he had heard that somewhere before…
"B1 must already be working on the pieces you need."
"Huh?"
"He's a smithy."
B1 was small for a smithy, in E6's opinion. The blacksmiths at the village were huge and their hearty laughs could be heard from the farthest point of the town.
" He's probably molding the pieces you'll need for when you start working. Except for the hand pieces." D2 looked at his own hands and bent his fingers, "Those are always tricky to plan ahead for because there are just so many different ways you can make them…"
"I thought I was supposed to do everything though."
"Of course not. We would be bored out of our minds otherwise." D2 pat him on the shoulder and whispered, "You're not alone. We can't do this for you, but we'll make sure to do anything possible to push you in the right direction."
"Now, enough dittle dattleing! The storage rooms are waiting." E6 fallowed his enthusiastic creator through one of the wide entrances.
His mouth fell open in shock. There were piles upon piles of cloths of so many different colors and textures. Metals and coppers caught a hold of the light coming out of the room's window. And there were so many little doo-hickys and thing-a-mabobs and other things that he couldn't name…
E6 finally managed to speak, "We've been mining and…and going through all that trouble to find resources and this has been here the entire time? Do you have oil stored in here too?" It would explain why they had been so generous when he first arrived.
"No!" D2 laughed at E6's reaction, "These are reserves for future generations. You can come in here whenever you want to, and pick out anything that catches your attention. That way, when you start working on your creations you'll have a nice small pile of material to choose from and you won't have to dig through these giant mountains for the prefect piece."
D2 went to the farthest wall where papers had been pinned up. "These are the blueprints for each and every doll. They're here for you to look at for ideas."
E6 scanned over them, until a particular set caught his optics. "Are these…the ancients?"
"Yep, that's them."
E6 felt strange as he stared at those pictures. They didn't look so much different from the dolls in the village. But if he went into the small town, he would never find those faces.
He forced himself to look away, and searched for a new topic. "What's in there?" He pointed to the door next to where the piles started.
"That's 9's private storage."
"Oh. Do you know what he keeps in there?"
"Just this and that…and life," chuckled D2 teasingly, "Come on, there are four more storage rooms to see."
E6's shutters flickered in surprise.
The fuzzy doll growled in frustration as he tried to fix a metal box that B1 had given him to work on. Unfortunately the metal plates and bolts were rusty because the smithy didn't want to waste any of his good metal.
"You know, it would be easier if you use this tool instead."
E6 looked up from the piece of metal and frowned at the offered tool. He snatched it and tried to remove a screw that had gone in crooked but it was stuck tight.
Angry, E6 threw the tool across the table. "This is pointless. I'm just a horrible failure."
"No, you're not. You're just inexperienced. You will get better with practice." But D2 didn't sound as confident as he had a few weeks ago.
E6 stood and slammed his fist onto the table. "I've been practicing! I've been doing nothing but practicing and studying since I got here and I'm not getting any better! Just send me back and pick someone else!"
"We can't. This is your place, E6." His creator stood, watching the angry stitchpunk carefully.
"How do you know 9 didn't mess up?"
"He doesn't make mistakes where this is concerned."
"How do you know?" E6 hollered, "How do you know he isn't going senile?"
D2 walked around to the other side of the table, glaring, and he spoke in a deeper tone that sounded uncharacteristic of the usually kind denim punk, "No creation of mine will show such disrespect to an ancient. Apologize!"
E6 stood his ground and glared back, "This is all your fault. Why did you make me a failure? Why did you give me This!" He pulled the fur on his chest in emphasis.
"It was a gift!"
The fuzzy stitchpunk gasped in surprise, and D2 took the silence as a chance to calm to down.
"The ancient always picks a special material out of his private collection for each creator. He gave me that fur…as a gift."
His creation didn't say anything, and the suffocating silence returned. E6 reclaimed his chair but sat with his back to D2, his legs pulled up to his chest in a hug.
"I hate you."
E6 looked up in surprise when he heard the door slam shut, followed by a click.
He rushed for the door and tried to yank it open, but it held tight.
So that's what those little devises on the door were for…
"Oh, come now, it couldn't have been that bad…" C9 placed the plant specimen that she had been examining down and went to her creation, who was huddled up into a ball on her bed.
"He hates me…my own creation hates me…"
"No he doesn't. He is just a very angry and confused child." She scooted closer to D2 and pulled him to her, forced his head onto her shoulder. "He needed to lash out, and when someone lashes out, they say things that they don't mean. You were no different when you were that young."
"I never said such hurtful things to you."
"Maybe not, but you had your bad days, too."
"He said he hates me, because I made him a failure by using that fur when I created him."
"You know that's not true. You had no control over how the others would react and treat E6. You couldn't have predicted that they wouldn't understand how special that fur is. So it's not your fault."
"I could have done something though."
"Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't matter because it's in the past," whispered C9 into the side of D2's head.
Her creation nuzzled her in appreciation. "Thank you, C9. You always know exactly what to say. I wish it could come so naturally for me."
C9 pulled away and ran a hand down the back of her creations head. "It will come with time. I was once in your place too, whimpering in B1's lap when you gave me a hard time, and surly enough, when E6s' turn comes, he's going to run weeping to you about his own troublesome creation."
"Go on now, you can't keep him locked up forever." D2 rushed out of the room, making C9 chuckle.
It wasn't as easy as C9 made it sound. E6 was quiet and wouldn't look at him as they walked back to the living area. An annoying awkward silence hung between them and D2 couldn't think of what to say.
E6 was suddenly knocked across the room. It happened so quickly, he didn't have any time to process what happened.
He stared up at an alien white face, a single red eye glaring down at him. It was a strange thing, made of metal and wires and that weird white, almost like clay but not.
E6 was frozen in shock, so scared he couldn't even shut his eyes as it roared at him and lifted a limp, ready to slash into his delicate plushy body.
Something smashed into the side of the creatures head, and it turned, abandoning E6 in its anger.
E6 tried to run but he couldn't get his feet underneath him so he scooted backwards awkwardly as he watched the monster encircle D2.
D2 threw something else at the monstrosity.
He dodged claws and razor sharp teeth, practically bending backwards to keep out of reach…
… but D2 was no fighter.
E6 watched in horror as a claw tore into his creator's body.
D2 winced in pain and tried desperately to pull himself loose, but with just a flick he was sent into a wall.
D2 lay motionless.
E6 suddenly felt a surge of…something. He had never felt such strong, powerful emotions before.
He darted for his creator, ran head on toward the beast. He dodged the first strike, nearly got swiped by the second blow, but lost his balance trying to duck the third.
He grabbed D2 by the shoulders and tried to drag him to safety but the extra wait slowed him down and he was once again knocked clear across the hall.
He couldn't get back up. He was shaking too badly, and he hurt. He hurt somewhere deep in his systems and he wanted D2…D2…
He curled up on himself, eyes shut, knowing that the monster was coming…
The E jumped in shock when something grabbed him and he struggled wildly.
"Calm down, child. Its over."
E6 blinked up at 7, then looked behind her, where the monstrosity was torn to pieces.
His frantic mind couldn't put it together, so he let it go. After a few failed tries, he managed to mutter, "D…D2…"
"He's fine. Unconscious, but fine." 7 smiled at him, completely calm, as if these kinds of things happened on a daily basses.
7 looked over her shoulder and shouted to the other creators, "Go get 9, quickly!
The beasts are back."