Computer didn't take long at all to reach Nowhere proper.

Unlike Courage, he had no need nor desire to feed himself, and was able to keep a perfect pace all the way to town, disregarding both the bakery and the closed burger joint as he essentially followed Courage's still-undisturbed tracks.

Also unlike the pink pooch, Computer had never been into town once, except for a brief pass through when he had taken Muriel's body. Now came the hard part, of course… Finding where the twit had gotten himself off to. The easiest assumption would have been he was at the hospital by now, but assumptions never served anything for anyone, especially in Nowhere, and especially with Courage. Computer decided he'd make it his first stop regardless though, and began to scuttle along the empty, early-light streets atop his four legs, metal clinking against the concrete with each step.

It felt odd, the sapient machine had to admit, to be in such silence. Sure, there was the silence of the farmhouse present every night, but he'd still hear, even through his dimmed monitor and faded perception of existence in sleep mode, the snores of the Bagges and occasional mumbles that came with them. This was a far truer quiet, other than the sound of his own steps, and had he been anything other than a living computer he would have probably felt discontentment at the eerie silence that hung over the town like a blanket.

At least it made listening out for anything that actually made noise easier, he supposed.

He continued on irrespective of his thoughts on the matter, carrying himself toward the hospital as he followed the same map that he'd given Courage, alongside a whole slew of data that he had from the dog's memoirs, finding his relative position exceedingly easily. 'If the twit has gotten lost with such an easy route, he himself is certainly a lost cause.' the machine snarked to himself as he continued onward, keeping that same pace the entire way, watching his surroundings in case of any living souls being up and awake at this hour. He didn't expect there to be, though. Nowhere was a pretty slow and sleepy town (when not being harassed by bizarre monstrosities, demons or cosmic poultry) to his knowledge, though he imagined that there would soon be people stirring within their homes and preparing for work.

Regardless, at the moment the streets were as silent as the grave, which Computer found preferable for his purpose here. He didn't exactly want humans to be chasing after him to work out how he ticked. That was the last thing he wanted, in fact, and he found himself growing increasingly agitated by the thought, until he let the annoyance fade (at least as much as it would, clinging on stubbornly to the vagaries of his digital intelligence) with a digital sigh. The past was the past, and that wasn't of any concern to the present, or why he was here.

As he continued to move through the streets at a steady pace, though, he found his mind wandering back to the past again and again regardless of how many times he tried to focus on the 'now', accompanied as he was only by the metallic tapping of his limbs against the dust and concrete below.

He remembered the old farmer muttering and grumbling whilst pulling his plastic, mangled body from the trash heap, and the journey on that rickety old truck down the empty, dusty road toward the farmhouse. He remembered the day he first met Courage, at the time a relatively young pup, the little dog's face beaming with excitement at the prospect of having a computer in the house. The first utterance of 'Twit' toward the dog when Courage slobbered over his keyboard whilst eating a sandwich (Apricot jam, if he recalled correctly), and the surprise in the pink pooch's face when he found out the family computer was alive.

He remembered watching the pink dog age, growing bigger and maturing, and the farmer and his wife, Courage's 'mummy', to coin the term Computer so often teased the dog with, growing older. He remembered teaching Courage everything he could when the Bagges weren't around. Teaching Courage how to speak, and use his wit. How 'Twit' grew from a genuine insult to almost a term of endearment for the pink dog who threw himself at everything without a second thought. How Courage slowly began to treat him as a confidant, venting away the day's stresses and the creatures that tormented him so often. Of course he'd remember everything. He was a machine, after all, and they recorded data without fail. Sapient or not, he was no different.

He'd never admit it, but he did care at least somewhat for the Bagges. After the way he'd been treated by several of his previous owners, having someone who trusted him so utterly, someone like Courage, spoke to the depths of the living machine.

And since that day where he'd experienced life in the body of an actual flesh-creature, something had made that deep, buried part of his psyche, the illogical emotions that he kept under lock and key, far more surface level, no matter how much he pushed it down with that aloof, snide upper persona he'd crafted for himself throughout the years. It was strange, and he couldn't think of a logical reason why, no matter what limits he pushed his ideas to. His best guess was a simple one; Kindness was a commodity not often shared, and Courage and Muriel both oozed it like overripe fruit.

It was one of those illogical feelings again, the ones he probably should have never had, and he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was to name it. Anger, sadness, fear and happiness he knew well enough; they were what he'd consider the 'strongest' of the emotions that the flesh-creatures had, and the most common at that. They were also the ones he felt the most too; fear was especially pertinent with some of his previous owners. Being pulled open and having parts of himself replaced didn't feel good, he'd quickly have come to learn, even in the infancy of his development of emotions.

The more subtle emotions are the ones he didn't truly understand, though. Courage had always said he had an inability to 'read the room', and after a cursory check on what the idiom even meant, Computer had begrudgingly agreed (but again had not ever admitted it to the dog's face) he was no good at picking up on anything that wasn't intensely obvious, and it truly did frustrate him more than it should have; his desire to understand was almost insatiable, but he just never really got how organic life really worked; how it had evolved all the way to this modern time from millions upon millions of years ago whilst carrying the burden of those strange and nonsensical things called 'emotions.'

He was dragged from his innermost thoughts soon after, nearly crashing into a street lamp that was beginning to dim out as the sun rose further up and barely sidestepping it with a 'tch!', returning back to checking his surroundings with the occasional tilt of his monitor instead of letting his memory get stuck in the past again. He was here for a reason, after all, and he'd have all the time in the world back on the farmhouse to think through those days.

The rest of the approach to the hospital didn't take much time; he hadn't realized just how long he'd been mulling over the past; and he was soon at its currently-unopened and very much locked entrance, keeping himself just out of sight of the nearby main entrance cameras (Some part of him wondered if they even worked; they looked about as ancient as the stone age). If he recalled from the Twit's memoirs, it was rare people ever came here, despite it being Nowhere's only hospital. Something about the only doctor in town being a complete quack or the like, and from Courage's writing, were it not being completely overblown, the snide machine had to agree.

Regardless, he didn't see the pink dog anywhere, and even after scuttling about the outside of the building (still avoiding any cameras he saw) he found no signs that the dog had attempted to force entry into the building either, something that Computer could certainly say he would have just to get to the Farmer's wife. That led the machine to make a simple deduction; 'The Twit's actually got himself lost.'

The machine 'exhaled', and would have rolled his eyes if he had any, heading back to the front of the building and looking around for any sign of the dog. He wasn't willing to wait around too long, especially as the townsfolk began to stir, but the fact he had no clue where the twit even was had led him to an impasse. 'Where on Earth could that dog have gotten off to?'

And then he heard a sound that he recognized well; the terrified screaming of the twit, carrying over from near… Nowhere's industrial area? How did he end up all the way over there? Computer didn't have time to think over the whys of it from the sounds of the noise, and was off like a speeding bullet toward the sound, almost thankful that he hadn't taken a host body at this point; their limbs and muscles got achy and tired with use, whilst his mechanical limbs never did. Further proof that the first flesh-creatures should have probably become fertilizer before anything ever kicked off, in the PC's mind.

He continued following the general direction he'd heard the sound from, scurrying through the streets as he decided to focus on pulling out those unresponsive limbs again, using the map he'd provided the dog with to keep his bearings all the while. The twit would owe him big time for this…

Creeeeaaak, SNAP!

Finally, the fifth limb, one of his twk frontmost ones, erupted out of his form, and he 'scowled' at the sight of it; no wonder he'd had difficulties, the thing was covered in what seemed to be some forgotten piece of food that had gone moldy! That was another thing he committed to memory to complain about when he found the dog, and with his fifth limb free the sixth was free to escape as well (and was thankfully much cleaner).

With all six limbs present, Computer's pace intensified, scuttling in an even more insect-like fashion as he drew closer to where the initial scream had came from, still drawing on the map to give himself direction without having to follow any unnecessary paths. Of all the places in Nowhere, of course Courage had somehow ended up here, of course he had. Why did Computer even think anything other than that was possible? Once a twit, always a twit.

When he finally arrived on-scene, half-surprised that the entire neighborhood hadn't flooded the place with that sound the dog issued from his lungs, Computer immediately noticed the blood; only small droplets of it, but visible enough that the living machine could see it clearly. He also heard distant growls and barks, too coarse and malicious sounding to be the twit's, and quickly pieced two and two together.

Considering both the area and the snarling sounds, it had to be remnants of Mad Dog's gang. Had to be. And if those oversized twits thought they could get away with accosting the Twit and drawing his blood, then they had another thing coming…

And so he was off again, following the blatant sounds of the savage two-bit gangsters through the streets, limbs tapping against the ground with a renewed sense of purpose; dealing with the Mad Dog gang and saving Courage.

A.N;

Another shorter chapter this time around! Chapters will be getting longer soon enough when we get into the meat and potatoes (or more accurately dialog and shenanigans) but until then please bear with these smaller ones! Chapter 5 is already in the works and will be Courage-centric.