Chapter 2: A Desperate Search
They could hear it. Even at this distance. A constant metallic clanging, thunderous booming, and the hissing of steam. It was all the sounds of a factory amplified to an unnerving degree. Any glimpse of the city that they could still get at this point showed the same eerie sight that they had first seen after being deposited in that pond on the outskirts. The city was shifting and moving about as buildings were dismantled to create something new. It looked as if massive walls were slowly being built up, even though it wasn't as if the amalgamation actually needed such a thing. No living creature or machine could go near that city now, not without falling under their control.
Courage had to fight to ignore the intense pain in his legs as they ran. Even with Computer at the helm it didn't stop Courage from feeling the same pain that his companion could so easily push past to keep them going. Not even their short break at the gas station had been enough to restore strength to his aching limbs. Courage knew that his ill body desperately needed some genuine rest, but with how much he could feel Computer's worry for the puppies, he did not have it in him to speak up. He would endure this for as long as he could.
It had taken them a little while to figure out where they were going. Computer did not know the area particularly well so he could only go off of certain landmarks that he could remember seeing when Charon took him into the city. After a bit of guess work, he managed to find the street he was looking for some distance away from the highway and gas station.
Courage had never thought that it was possible for anyone to be so relieved to see so many run down, boarded up buildings, but that was exactly what Computer was feeling right now. He rushed down the street, looking for a specific turn that he needed to take.
Courage found this place somewhat interesting, in a depressing sort of way. This might very well have been the main street of a small town ages ago. Perhaps the continual growth of the city had caused this place to lose any relevancy it might have once had and most people moved away.
"Almost there!" Computer said when he found the heavily degrading street that he needed to turn down. He could sense just how much Courage was having to fight to not let the pain and exhaustion get to him, so he wanted nothing more than to hurry up and reunite with the puppies so Courage could get the rest that he so badly needed.
They had to slow down considerably on this street thanks to how cracked and overgrown the pavement was with vegetation. Courage inevitably picked up a few images from Computer of the chase he had gone on to catch Spot and get his stolen thing back. Now his companion was left wondering how he had ever managed to keep up with the pup on a road like this.
An extremely old and weathered looking house soon came into view. Courage was amazed that it was still standing with how rotten the wood looked. It reminded him of the farmhouse back in Nowhere, if it had been left abandoned for a decade or two.
Computer was familiar with this place, but passed it up. They instead went around and headed into a small grove of bare, twisted trees. A little beyond that was their destination, something that Computer silently assured to an aching Courage.
But of course, just as they were nearly through the trees, Courage's body finally gave out, much to Computer's dismay. The brief wave of hazy weakness struck and then exploded into indescribable pain. Courage's legs came to a stumbling stop, but they did not fall. Instead, Courage's shaking knees locked into place. Even as every nerve in Courage's body exploded into fiery agony, Computer kept them standing. It would have amazed Courage if it did not hurt so much. He had never, ever been able to stay standing like this during an attack. By now he'd be writhing on the floor, unable to control his limbs.
Computer took a step forward, their shared vision darkening and becoming increasingly red, like the veins in Courage's eyeballs were bursting. Fighting the attack only made it hurt so much worse. Courage felt like every muscle in his body was swelling up and ready to tear apart. He was only getting the smallest amounts of air into his lungs because his chest muscles were locked in place and constricting every breath he could take. He felt like he was drowning on dry land.
And still Computer did not let them drop. He reached out for a tree trunk to steady himself and continued to push past the utter hell Courage's body was going through. But of course, what he could deal with was not the same for Courage.
Another agonizing step forward only increased the pain tenfold, and Courage hit his limit. He wanted to scream, and he could only hope that it would get Computer's attention, but when he tried to do exactly that, he realized with a jolt of horror that he could not do anything at all. The thing that Computer had been trying to avoid, in his desperation to get to the puppies, he was doing it without realizing. Courage was trapped in his own mind, with no control over himself and no means to make his plight known.
Another step and even more liquid fire ignited in Courage's legs and torso. He was suffocating, burning up, having hot knives stabbed into every part of his body over and over again. He screamed uselessly inside of his own head.
'Stop! Please, stop!' He thought, desperate to get Computer's attention, but his companion was so focused, so determined to keep moving and fight through the ever increasing pain that he could not hear Courage calling out to him or sense how much pain he was putting him in.
'Stop! Stop! PLEASE!' Courage begged, his panicked thoughts increasing in tempo as the pain only continued to grow. He could not help but wonder in his agony if Computer's recklessness was about to get them killed. His illness would beat Computer's unshakable determination in the end, and there was no way to know what the damage of this prolonged fight would be.
'Stop! Stop! STOP! STOP! StopStopStopStopStop!'
His mind gave in to fear, panic, and pain, and all conscious thought ceased. There was nothing left other than sheer agony and a feral plea for it to end.
Finally, finally, Computer picked up on Courage's emotions. Horror ripped through him as he realized what he was doing. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, with his concentration broken, he immediately lost control of Courage's limbs and dropped. They both blacked out long before Courage's body hit the ground.
….
Courage woke with a shuddering gasp. Computer jolted back to life in the same moment. They were cushioned by the grass that Courage slowly and painfully raised his head up out of. Drool trailed from his mouth, although his tongue felt like sandpaper. Keeping his head raised like that was simply too tiring for him and so his snout hit the grass again.
He rolled over and saw that the sky was turning a sunset orange. Night was nearly upon them. He could only assume that it was the same day of his attack or else the amalgamation would have likely had the time to expand and bulldoze this area, taking them out along with it.
Mortified by what he had done, Computer pressed himself back in Courage's mind as far as his much bigger presence would allow and let Courage take over in full. It was no use though. No matter how much Courage tried to stand, it hurt too much. All he could do was flounder there in the grass looking pathetic and weak. Computer had no other choice but to take over again, but even he struggled to get Courage standing.
They slowly pressed onward, Courage sinking deeper inside of his own head, too tired to do much else. This concerned Computer considerably, but all he could do was press onward for now. Putting aside the puppies, it was too dangerous to linger in this area with the amalgamation possibly expanding outward. As soon as they were somewhere safe, he would force Courage to rest, end of the world be dammed.
They soon came upon the ruin of a collapsed house and Computer found a small gap in the broken piles of rotten wood. He squeezed through it, having to fight Courage's fatigue just as much as he had to fight to work his way downwards through the hole. He came out in a small clearing in the basement, calling out to puppies before he could even get a good look.
There were no puppies, as he quickly found out with considerable dismay. Signs of their existence still lingered. Empty wrappers were strewn about, along with open, empty cans of soda and bottles of water. There was no way to know when they had abandoned this place, or where they might have gone. Computer was, ultimately, no closer to finding them.
Sighing, he turned and made his way back up through the hole in the ruins. Once on the outside, he collapsed into the grass, suddenly unable to bear the constant pain and exhaustion gripping Courage's ill body.
"Why is everything always going wrong?" He groaned, running both of Courage's paws down his face.
Courage was too wiped out mentally to respond. In fact, he barely heard Computer at all, and he did not have a good grasp on what was going on outside of himself either. His mind was barely functioning. While not unconscious, he was not fully 'there' either. It was just one more thing that Computer was slowly growing more and more worried about.
After a few minutes of resting, and fighting past a feeling of overwhelming defeat, Computer shakily got back onto Courage's feet. He had them go back the way they had come, and once there, he stepped inside that rotten, old house to check if the puppies might have returned there.
It was abandoned too.
He slowly made his way back down the overgrown street, exhausted and overcome with worry. Thinking for a little while, he said to Courage, "I've decided on what we should do next."
Courage did not respond. He did not even acknowledge that Computer had spoke at all. His presence was a small, dim, dying flame compared to Computer's overbearing one.
"Courage?" His companion asked. "Courage!" He repeated, louder. "COURAGE!"
That shout was enough to shake Courage out of his exhausted stupor. "Y-yeah?"
Silent for a moment, something that Computer had already reluctantly decided upon only became more settled and fully justified in his mind.
"I'm going to search for a little while longer for any clues as to where the puppies might have gone, and after that I'm taking you back to the SCC."
His declaration brought Courage back to full alertness and he fearfully cried out, "Wait, no! D-don't do that!"
"Courage, I-" He began to argue, the words dying on his lips. He seemed to reconsider what he was going to say and rephrased it, "This...isn't good for you. My presence is wearing you down, and it will be the end of you at the rate things are going. We both knew from the very start that this was never going to be sustainable. Besides, I blew it back there. It's proof enough that no matter how hard I try to act otherwise, I am still made to suppress the mind of my host, and all it takes is one slip up like that to make you suffer unjustifiably. We may be able to exist like this in something at least resembling harmony, but I still have ultimate power over you, and you know better than most that I'm not someone who should have any sort of power over others."
"But, but-" Courage argued, trying to get his worn out brain to start thinking properly again. "We can't go back to the SCC! You're the only person and machine that can go near the amalgamation now without immediately being taken over. What do you think is going to happen when the SCC figures that out? Nothing good, obviously!"
Computer shook his head listlessly. "It doesn't matter. I will not be the cause of your death, and since we don't have another means to remove me from your brain right now, we have to go back to Elizabeth."
They continued to argue about this until they had walked nearly the entire length of the dilapidated main street. They only stopped when they heard the rumble of an engine followed by an amplified voice declaring a mandatory evacuation.
The two of them hastily looked around for a place to hide, just as an SCC van turned down the street. While Computer did want to go with them, he wasn't ready to leave just yet. He still had some small amount of hope that he might be able to figure out what had become of the puppies.
It was getting dark enough that their glow would easily be seen, so they needed to find a hiding place that would conceal them entirely. Courage's eyes scanned the boarded up windows and doors closest to them, and noted a window with one board missing. It would be a tight squeeze, but...
Computer acknowledged what he was thinking and went over to it. He jump upward, the tips of his fingers just barely managing to reach the windowsill. He climbed up onto it and squeezed through, probably pulling some of Courage's fur out in the process. It was not a moment too soon though. They heard the van rumble past as one of the people inside continued to repeat the evacuation message over a loudspeaker.
"Did you hear that?" Computer said, which was a pointless thing to ask since they shared the same hearing. "It looks like they've set up an evacuation camp for the people who have been displaced. I bet Elizabeth would be there, and the puppies might also..." He trailed off, knowing that it was wishful thinking. The puppies had been on their own for well over a month. Anything could have happened to them in that stretch of time.
"Hey, who are you!" An old, crackling voice suddenly yelled, pulling Computer out of his thoughts.
He looked up in alarm to see an old, decrepit, shaggy dog standing in the darkened doorway across the room. He was somehow even smaller than Courage himself. His black, beady eyes leered at them from behind a curtain of dirty, tangled fur.
"This is my house!" He snapped, shuffling forward on stiff legs. "You can't have it!"
The elderly dog was not exactly a threat. At most he would try to bite them, or more like gum them with his toothless mouth.
Computer raised Courage's paws in a nonthreatening gesture. "We're not moving in or anything! We just needed a place to hide!"
The dog came to a slow and somewhat delayed stop, like it took awhile for his body to catch up with what his brain was telling it to do.
"Is that so?" He asked, raising a big, shaggy eyebrow. "At least knock then for goodness sake! You're going to give this ol' mutt a heart attack droppin' in like this!" He let out a huff that sent his facial fur flying for a moment. He then turned and went on muttering to himself, "...Makin' me think that Charon's come back from the dead to start harassin' those of us with nothin' but the fur on our back for protection money again."
Computer blinked in surprise at the dog's grumpy ranting. "You know that Charon is dead?"
The elderly dog whipped around again. "O'course! Everyone could see the smoke, even from here, and then some stray came back from the city to tell us the good news."
"I might have had something to do with that..." Computer offered, prepping to ask his next question with the hope that it might instill some goodwill in the crotchety old man. "Hey, you wouldn't have happened to see any puppies around here lately? Spot's group?"
The dog's beady eyes sparkled with understanding. "Them kids? Oh, yes. I've seen 'em. They disappeared for awhile after Charon took Spot. Figured they had a stash of food hidden somewhere for when the inevitable finally happened. I'm just surprised Spot could keep 'em from eatin' through it before then. Well, they did eventually run out, 'cause I saw them around here scroungin' for any food that they could find. I suppose that poor Spot kid got blown up along with Charon, if one of Charon's fighters didn't get to him first. He was always lookin' out for the rest of them kids. Bit of a sad sight to see them all so desperate after everything he did for 'em."
Courage's ear drooped in dismay as Computer took in everything he was being told. "Do you have any idea where they might be now? Have you seen them around recently?"
Part of him was terrified that they had left for the city in a desperate bid to find food, and if that were the case then they had likely been caught up in the amalgamation's attack. The only thing that offered him any sort of comfort was that the amalgamation would have known about them through his memories and so they would have tried to use them against him. Since they had not been there with the others, maybe...
"Yeah," The elderly dog answered. "I saw 'em this morning."
Computer jumped onto Courage's aching feet at that.
"W-where? Do you know where they went?"
The dog waved a paw toward the gap in the window behind Computer. "I look out through that window a lot, to pass the time. Those black vans have been going through here all day, tell'n us to go to this evacuation camp of theirs. Bah! I ain't leavin' my home! No, sir! Don't care if danger is comin'! I'll die here if I must!"
Impatient, Computer interrupted his ranting, "But what about the puppies?"
"Oh, right. Well, they were doin' their thing this mornin'. Gettin' ready to split up to look for food. One of the vans came through then and they all hid, like you did. Once it was gone, they came back together and started talkin'."
"...And?" Computer pressed when the old dog trailed off into silence.
"They decided that they were going to head off to that evacuation camp because there might be food there. If yer lookin' for 'em then you've missed 'em by almost a day."
Relief washed over Computer. His hunch had been right. Not only could he save Courage now, but the puppies were safe in the place that he wanted to get to anyway. He hoped that he would be able to see them again soon.
"Thank you." He told the dog. "We'll, er, I'll leave you and your 'home' in peace."
One more fur destroying squeeze through the gap again and he was back on the outside. Not a moment too soon either because the van was circling back toward him.
Ignoring Courage's plea not to do this, he took a deep breath and stepped out into the middle of the road. The van slowed to a stop. He could see the two occupants inside staring at him with their mouths agape in complete and total shock.
"Yeah, uh, Missing Government Super Weapon here. I would very much like it if you could give me a ride to this camp place you've got set up so that I can talk to Elizabeth."
The two SCC people looked at each other with absolute terror in their expressions and proceeded to hug each other while screaming.
"I don't have time for this." Computer grumbled, stepping toward the van. He climbed up the front of it, crawled across the hood, and pressed his snout into the windshield with a deep frown and piercing glare. "Let me in before I go all Super Weapon on you morons!"
Still hugging each other and trembling, one of them reached forward and pressed a button on the dashboard. The sound of the back doors opening could be heard.
"Thank you for your cooperation!" Computer sarcastically told them with his face still pressed up against the windshield.
End Of Chapter