"The Others"
Chapter 3 "The Hound"
"9, let's talk about this," 7 called out to him as he started piecing together a lightstaff. "Not now, I have to find them. I have to make sure that it's true, that we're not the last," he told her. The cloak they found had only one meaning and one meaning only. There were others, other ragdolls given a soul.
It was an opportunity that should not be wasted. "We don't even know if it's true! The beasts may be gone but nature's threats aren't!" 7 pleaded. 9 continued gathering supplies, he heard her words but wouldn't let them stop him from trying. "I'll be back," he told her then he was gone.
With his own cowl and lightstaff, he trudged off into the ruins of city. 7 watched until she could see him no more, then, she went back inside and joined the twins in the main hall then to the reading area. "He'll be fine, he'll be back," she constantly muttered to herself.
…
13 abandon the attic room, she was driven insane by the dream to find the place from the strange dream. Her mind could only focus on the dream, a deep desire to find the very place, all other thoughts were cast aside into the dark.
"Gotta find it, must find it," 13 insanely muttered to herself. She wandered the ruins of the desolate city, if a pebble were to fall it would echo throughout the entire city. "The place, the place, the dream, key-KEY! There's a key!" she jabbered. She kept wandering and wandering the empty city until strange new debris caused her to somehow find herself on a street not far from the Library.
"Close, close," she muttered and climbed the debris of an old house, she observed the area, looking for the spot she dreamt of. "Hey! Hey!" she heard a voice in the distance call out. She shot to the streets and looked around frantically. "Nothing, nothing, voices! More voices! Whispers tell a secret!" she yelled aloud and started digging in the dirt. She pulled out metal shards and old bones.
"Wait! I'm a friend!" she heard the voice again. "Friend?" she thought to herself, she turned her back to start digging again when she realized that the voice didn't belong to anyone she knew. "Friend? Friend! Friend! FRIEND!" she shouted back happily but also confused still as he sanity slowly returned. She heard creaking metal, she turned around to see a hulking shadow.
The towering figure stood over her with its head leaning over. She could make out the outlines of the eyes. 13 slowly unslung her bow, the figure's joints loosened and creaked. Then, a beaming red light flashed out of one of the eyes, she fired on arrow wildly at it. It simply bounced off the head and fell into the mud, the beast crushed it with its front paw.
It growled angrily, 13 notched another arrow. "Heh, hehheh, you know that wasn't on purpose and that I'd never do anything like that!" The beast lashed out but she was quicker; she leaped to the side. The beast continued to unleash a massive furry of attacks with its front two paws. The large cloak fell from the beast, revealing a design mix of the Cat-Beats mixed with the Winged-Beast and with hound design.
The beast roared angrily and ran in circles around 13, taking bites at her but missed. She fired wildly at the beast, most of her arrows went through the exoskeleton. "Bring it! Come on!" she taunted the beast, she slowly backed up to a broken drainage cap. "What's going on?! Hello?!" she heard the voice call out again.
"Run! Get to- "she tried to shout to the voice but something wrapped around her leg and pulled her down. "Why I outta- no! I won't- ARGH!" she exclaimed as the ground fell beneath her, losing her balance, falling into the abyss.
The beast stopped circling, it peered into the abyss. "Hey!" the voice shouted closer, the beast shot its gaze to it.
9 stopped in his tracks, the beast slowly walked towards him. "Stay back!" he commanded and held the lightstaff out. "The beast simply laughed to itself, then out of a window of the towering building there was a crash. The beast instantly turned its attention away.
9 slowly backed up until he felt something grab his shoulder. He shot around to see a cloaked figure grab his forearm and pull him away from the scene. They ran to a pipe and the figure shoved him in first hastily then followed in close behind.
"Who are you?" 9 asked but the new-found friend shoved him. "Quiet! Now's not the time for questions, you've asked enough of those seeing how it left only four of you alive," they told him. But 9, stubborn as he can be, continued to ask questions. "Were you one of those others? The once I called out to? The owner of this cloak?" he asked then pulled out the cloak.
The figure stopped dead in their tracks, "Where did you find this? What did they look like?" they ordered. Before he could respond, the pipe shook violently. It was pulled out of the building; the beast shook it madly. It peered into the open end, the red light illuminating the pipe. The figure pushed 9 down the pipe, he crashed into the ground and looked up at the figure landing in front of him.
The figure pulled out a small metal pole with a button on it, they clicked it and it extended out into a glaive. They grabbed their cloak and threw it off, revealing a white hair that covered the right half of their head and ended on their shoulders.
The light revealed her body: it was slim, slimmer than him and 7, it was made of dark brown hessian except for her left arm which was made of corduroy, her feet were similar in design but looked to be made for climbing rough terrain, her fingers looked almost identical to 7's but were made of gold or copper, their optics gleaming silver and on their back, was a number but he couldn't make it out.
The other Stitchpunk charged at the beast, 9 joined them in the attack. The mechanical beast threw the pipe at the, 9 slid under it while the other Stitchpunk leaped onto the pipe then off it. "What is that thing?!" 9 exclaimed as they got closer. "Hound-Beast! They've been hunting us for a long time!" the other Stitchpunk answered, their voice having an accent that sounded English (9 found old audio tapes and listened to them with the twins once).
The Stichpunk reached the beast's feet and began hacking away, running from one paw to the other constantly. 9 grabbed stones and hurled the at the head, they just bounced off the skull with a few getting stuck in the metal.
In a fit of rage, the Hound-Beast went berserk and thrashed at everything relatively close to it. 9 retreated from the fury but the other Stitchpunk would not. They rolled through the attacks and climbed up the legs into the exoskeleton all the way up to the chest. "This is for my family!" the Stitchpunk yelled angrily and shoved their hand into the beast's wires and yanked something out. Then they climbed to the neck of the beast and sliced it with their glaive.
The beast roared one last time then collapsed into the streets, the head rolling against the crumbling wall, the Stichpunk hopped off and landed in front of 9. "Nice work but who are you?" 9 asked her. She held out her hand, "72, my family calls me 72."