A/N: Hey there everyone! Happy (late) New Year! This chapter is slightly smaller than the rest (and very tiny compared to the 4000+ words monstrosity that was Chapter 6), but don't worry, it introduces some new things, and maybe even a new character?
Miles away from Toontown's city limits metal feet walked up hurriedly through a dimly lit corridor. At the end of the hall a gigantic door stood tall. The owner of the metallic feet stood in front of the door and clicked a comparatively small button to make a bell ring. For a while nothing could be heard from the other side, but soon enough someone disrupted the silence.
"Who is there and what do you need?" boomed a very deep voice behind the door.
"I am 025-SC; boss," replied the Cog standing in front of the door, instead of wearing a suit and having facial features, he was just the inner skeleton of a normal Cog, a Skelecog, "I have urgent news to share with you."
"Come in." the voice behind the doors said, and 025-SC grabbed a small handle in the otherwise gigantic door and pulled it open, entering a large, even darker room quietly. The Skelecog approached the middle of the room, where a lamp was illuminating a small spot on the otherwise dark room, taking the role of a spotlight.
"What is it that you needed to tell me?" The deep voice asked.
"Sir, we have reports of strange creatures roaming about the streets of Toontown Central, the toons are up to something." 025-SC explained.
"Strange creatures have always been roaming around wherever toons live, 025," His boss scoffed, "What makes this encounter any different? It was probably just a pathetic Cog getting scared over butterflies."
The Skelecog shook his head, "No boss, this time it's different. The new creatures are sentient, and according to the witness, they looked like Cogs."
025-SC couldn't see his boss' face, but he could tell by his silence that he was intrigued about the news.
"I've sent the video files to your computer, boss." 025-SC assured, and a few cranking noises could be heard, and then with a click a very big light illuminated his boss' face. Or should I say the Chairman's face.
The Chairman was an intimidating figure, his face was a dark gray, and unlike other Cogs, he didn't have a mouth, but instead had a metal plate emulating teeth, making him look like his teeth were always gritted. But what stood out the most were his eyes. Whereas most Cogs would have beady round eyes, which for some reason were more than enough to scare young toons, the Chairman had cold, pitch-black eyes with red glowing pupils that one could describe as being able to stare into your soul. Even his more trusted workers feared having to gaze into his eyes whenever he was angry.
On the computer some videos recorded from the Cog that had witnessed the strange beings was being played. The Chairman stared attentively at everything that he was watching at the screen. When the video stopped, he went back to points where the humans were in full view and analyzed them. As much as they looked like Cogs, they appeared to be really young, and all of them had a sort of toony appeal to them.
"Hmm…" The Chairman hummed, glancing back at 025-SC, "This is certainly very interesting. Is there anything else I should be informed about regarding this?" he asked.
"Our intelligence team theorizes that due to being living beings, they might be resistant to gags," 025-SC added matter-of-factly, "But so far we'd need more knowledge about them."
"That's exactly what I wanted to hear," The Chairman hummed, "If we find out how those beings work, and where do they come from, I'm certain we'll finally get an edge over those blasted toons."
The Skelecog in front of the Chairman nodded, "Yes sir, that's what I've been thinking, too," he assured, "What do you want us to do?" he asked, raising a finger in the air.
The Chairman's eyes darted off to look at another direction for a while, and then returned to gaze at his worker, "Tell your most trusted co-workers to roam around Toontown Central and keep their eyes open, if they do see those beings again, tell them to register as much as they can without getting caught, then come back directly to my headquarters to analyze their memory recordings."
"You don't want us to capture any of them?" 025-SC asked.
The Chairman shook his head in disagreement, "No. That would bring unwarranted attention to us and my headquarters," he stated, "Besides; it's dangerous to bring someone whom we don't know anything about to this place."
The Skelecog nodded, "Understood, boss. I'll tell my fellow workers right ahead. Thank you for letting me in." he thanked.
The Chairman nodded, "The pleasure was all mine, now you can leave." he stated, and 025-SC walked back to where the door was and exited, closing it as he left. The Chairman looked back at the computer screen. Just what in the world were those beings? They looked like Cogs, yet at the same time behaved like a toon would.
Perhaps they only acted like toons because they were exposed to those sickenly-sweet critters. Perhaps if they were persuaded into working for him and the rest of cogkind they would have been more than willing to. All of these speculations running across his hard drive were just that – speculations. All the Chairman could do now was sit and wait until he had the knowledge about what they were and how they acted.
However he had his hopes up, there was a chance that some of them could be worked with. Maybe – Just maybe, he could use them to his advantage. The Chairman just knew the toons had brought them from some place to try and get an advantage over them, it was pretty obvious.
And he'd be more than willing and able to flip the tables on them.