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Chapter Text

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"

Pixl turned in his cell as best he could with his hands still painfully bolted through to the wall and scowled at the Count who wore his manic smile with pride.

"This is a new low for you FWhip." Pixl retorted, the regular playful teasing gone from his voice, leaving only the empty coldness underneath.

"Cuteeee." FWhip teased, drawing closer to the bars, "A copper golem elevated to a king."

Pixl tried to shift back away from him but FWhip's hand slipped through the bars and dug in painfully to the damaged copper plating on his arm, causing a dozen signals to fire all at once. FWhip just laughed as Pixl tried to steady himself.

"Honestly, I can't believe how easy it was to catch you." FWhip continued, "You trusted Sausage, an Illager Overlord, of all people, in your kingdom....and look where you ended up!"

"Let. Me. Go. FWhip." Pixl tried to demand.

"Hmmmmm let me think.....no."

"Why not?"

FWhip's grease-stained hands grabbed the sand-colored collar of Pixl's coat and tried to drag him closer, but it only forced him to contort into an awkward, painful position.

"Because, little golem, I want to take you apart. I want to see what makes you function. Such a lifelike fabrication, such a powerful mind, such a powerful warrior, yet still at the bottom of it all...."

FWhip let go of Pixl's collar and started playing with the beads strung in his coal-dark hair.

"You're a construct, an imitation of life, and that makes you easy enough to replicate." FWhip hissed, smile laced with malice that disrupted Pixl's defensive vigor. With nothing more to say, he let go of his new prisoner and left.

Pixl watched him go before turning back to the wall, finally trying to breathe.

Well, breathe as much as his damaged circuitry would allow. The deep green system warnings running through his mind told him how badly he'd been damaged by Sausage's kidnaping and dragging him here. He just had to keep thinking and eventually he'd find a way out of here.

He focused himself on the tiny deepslate emeralds that set the pins in the hinge-joints of his fingers, intentionally ignoring the dark bolts screwed through his palms.

He knew the Grimlands well, knew their prison was underneath the Mighty Forge. So he knew where he was.

And he knew what FWhip wanted. That was another important thing. And he knew a good portion of his strength was damaged from the angry gashes in his armored body. He could check his current oxidation levels, which would be important to keep an eye on without a supply of wax.

Thinking back to moments before he'd been taken, he remembered his golemkin. He loved all of his people, they were the reason he was alive, after all.

Years and years ago, Pixandria, a civilization of golems and wanderers and all sorts of lost folk, had no king, had no protection, and had no true god to follow. The craftsmanship of the golems mingled with the blueprints found in the bodies of wanderers, and together, his people proceeded to create the most complex artificial machine in all the world. They called it The Great Machine.

Generations of golems and wanderers had worshiped their marvelous creation, bringing offerings to a lifeless body. The Golems worshipped with mighty fervor, frequently with small offerings, seeing The Great Machine as one of their own. The Wanderers were not as devoted, as no wanderer is truly devoted to any one god or idol, but they brought offerings when they passed through town and spread the belief of The Great Machine to other civilizations of Copper Golems.

The Watcher of Passing Souls, simply called Vigil, took notice of this worshiping and became endeared by the faith and harmony of both peoples, and one day, she fulfilled their great desire. Vigil took an ancient king's spirit, eager to return to the world he loved and refusing to pass on for millennia, and placed it deep inside the heart of the Great Machine.

The spirit, which had lost potency over the millennia he'd spent unanchored in the Winds of Passing Souls, took power from the belief of the golems and wanderers, becoming something completely unique as he woke up the idol.

The golems of Pixandria were overjoyed to see The Great Machine alive in their presence and continued to worship him as their king, christening him "Pixl" after their home. He was quick to repair their crumbling ruin of a home, possessing powers to shape the earth, powers his wanderer people told him only were known to mighty kings of distant lands.

Pixl soon met these mighty rulers of distant lands, namely the Codvengers. They were more than happy to adopt the Machine-God of Pixandria into their little circle, and were quick to make him an official political ally when they found out how much copper his nation produced. When war had come to the Cod Empire, Pixl had been right by his side.

But it was that very war that today, landed him in the prisons of the Grimlands, awaiting a terrible fate.

FWhip would not be able to safely reconstruct him if fully dismantled. He knew that much too well.

Chapter Text

Returning to the meeting room, FWhip sat himself between Sausage and Gem just as Pearl finished her sentence.

"Spill the tea, what's going on?" Sausage prodded him, "How's our prisoner?"

"Secured in the prisons." FWhip replied proudly.

"Sausage, FWhip, do you really think this is the best idea?" Gem asked, passing FWhip one of her new potions.

"Gemmmm, we just crippled our enemy in a major way! We took their tactical master!!!" Sausage replied with plenty of mischievous energy.

FWhip pulled a bendy straw out of his pocket, opened the potion, and proceeded to drink it with his feet on the table, stretching his dragon wings out over the back of his chair. Sausage was right, this plan was absolutely genius! Sure, maybe Gem was right about fearing the Copper King for his reputation as a devastating warlord, but now the Codvengers had no critical strategist.

His mind wandered away from the rest of the meeting and wandered back to his prisoner. He didn't have much of a reason to pay attention now that he'd delivered his message anyways. Years ago, before the war, FWhip had met Pixl once.

He remembered that meeting with a strange adoration he only ever attributed to the joy he gained from completing work in his forge.

It had been a political meeting, they were both merely there to supervise a deal made by Pearl and Joel, a temporary trade of resources, sugarcane to bolster the drought-riddled mesa and terracotta to fix structures in Gilded Helianthia after an earthquake. Pixl had been there purely to keep King Joel from backing out in fear of Pearl. FWhip had been stationed there mostly as a motivator for Pearl's almost malicious bargaining skills.

At the conclusion of the meeting and around a pot of Mezelean fudge, they had exchanged a few niceties, but FWhip remained captivated by Pixl, tinkering eyes wandering over the carvings in his hands and face, how his emerald eyes shifted over everyone and everything, the absolutely detailed and embroidered coat he wrapped himself in and the mysteries hidden underneath. As an inventor, master smith, tinkerer, artificer and alchemist, he couldn't help his blatant and unending curiosity about such a feat of engineering as Pixl was.

FWhip had built copper golems before. Copper was one of the easiest materials to work with when it came to golems. It held the charge of redstone so much better than iron or gold, and it was so abundant, not to mention how easy to form it was. He'd tinkered his little dragon heart out in experimenting with the copper golem formula, but time and time again they were rendered overly mechanical, finicky or so convoluted they ended up compromising themselves. most of them he'd built could handle complex instructions and directions, but none of them could truly think for themselves, nor did any of them hold delicate finesse to their touch and movement, nor also did they have the strength to shape the land around them.

Pixl was hauntingly lifelike in all those areas and more, even bleeding glittery redstone powder when first brought to the Grimlands in a startling interpretation of blood.

"FWhip?" Gem tried to cut in, "FWhip, do you think Sausage could get some more gunpowder by the end of the week?"

"Yeah yeah whatever you need." FWhip replied, not actually paying attention.

He didn't mean to be rude to them, he simply could not force his mind back to the meeting no matter what he tried, he was too busy dreaming of the mechanical exploration it would take to fully comprehend such a masterpiece of design and engineering, reveling in how much technical information was waiting for him at home.

Gem took notice of this.

"Stop. Daydreaming. Already!" she tried to chide him, much to his annoyance. She was a great alliance member, but sometimes she could be a bossy older sister.

"I don't wanna." FWhip retorted, smiling stupidly.

"Then at least tell us what's so entertaining." Sausage teased, poking at his side.

"Thinking about dismantling Pixl later." FWhip casually admitted.

"You never told me you planned to DISMANTLE him!!!" Gem almost shrieked.

"Yessss, FWhip!" Sausage cheered, "Rip him appart! Make it agony! Make him suffer in brutality-"

"Are you both crazy?" FWhip asked, sitting up slightly, "I'm going to take him apart piece by piece and learn everything I can and then replicate the technical skill he works off of so that we can have a bolstered armada! I'm not going to make him suffer, I'm not a sadist, honestly."

"Oh." Sausage and Gem said at the same time in completely different tones.

"Smart move, FWhip, better than him just being a prisoner anyways, might as well make use of your tinkering genius." Pearl added in the silence.

"Thank you, Pearl, you get it!"

"Of course I get it, its a genius war move."

"Can we be dismissed now?" FWhip asked in the same voice Gem's students gave her. He knew exactly how to piss her off.

"Just go." Gem conceded, pinching the bridge of her nose in utter annoyance. She was two years older than him, 28 and 26, but sometimes she was absolutely sure he wasn't a day over 12.

FWhip got up, mock saluted his friends, and took off into the night without another word.

Chapter Text

FWhip finished setting up the center of the prison as a makeshift tinkering lab and approached Pixl's cell.

"If you cooperate with me, this'll go by faster." FWhip said, unlocking the cell door, "So don't try any funny business, okay?"

"Fine." Pixl retorted shortly. FWhip slowly cracked the bolts on his hands free and loosened them manually until they fell out. Pixl, begrudgingly, followed him up to the platform of the makeshift tinkering lab.

FWhip was careful and quick in removing Pixl's sandy coat, exposing more of his copper plated arms.

In the split second he'd turned to set it down, something heavy collided with the side of FWhips head and sent him sprawling to the floor.

The something heavy had evidently been Pixl's fist as with not a moment to waste he struck for the count's face again. He wasn't given a moment to try to escape between blows, each one more painful than the last. Frantic struggles met perfect calculated skill. There was no besting Pixl's superior strength, especially from being pinned underneath him.

At least there was no besting him if his opponent was unarmed.

After several minutes of frantic struggling, FWhip found the little black box from in his pocket, flipped it open and rammed it's deadly prongs full force into the gash on Pixl's arm that exposed his delicate circuitry. Thousands of volts of electricity ripped through him in an instant and the agonizing sound that escaped him as he collapsed was both inhuman and unholy.

FWhip scrambled out from underneath him, breathing heavily. Pixl stared at him with fury, knowing he had at least a full minute before he'd recover from such high voltage.

"I thought I told you to cooperate." FWhip spat, stemming a brilliant red nosebleed with his scarf.

"I don't cooperate with terrorists." Pixl snapped. FWhip was surprised he could still speak.

"Im not a terrorist."

"Is holding a foreign ruler hostage not a form of terrorism?"

"It is but you're not a hostage, you're a prisoner of war, we haven't set up a means for them to get you back because we're not giving you back!"

FWhip struggled to drag Pixl back up to the lab setup, but finally managed to after a good hard pull. Pixl scowled at him the entire time as he was chained upright in such a way to allow for ease of disassembly.

"You can't contain me, FWhip."

"I can. There's no escape."

"Big talk for a man fifty shades of purple."

"Big talk for an imitation of life."

"The most advanced imitation you've seen then, as advanced as your own imitation of intelligence."

FWhip had no retort for such a comment and instead busied himself in setting up his tools. Pixl was right about the most advanced imitation of life he'd ever seen, but he'd left out that he was the most complex, most strange, most fluid, most lifelike, most delicate, most powerful, most beautiful-

Machine.

He caught his line of thinking quickly. He was a thing of beauty, for sure, gorgeous by many standards, but even more gorgeous by a tinkerer's standards.

Tiny shards of emerald made adjustable lenses for his eyes, tension-coiled springs hidden under the plates in his hands, delicate carvings adding definition to his face, hundreds of tiny copper tubes peeking out from under the layered plates of his wrist and arm, plating layered in such a way that he was impervious to the sands of the deserts, touches of oxidation where the wax rubbed off, dulling the polished shine, the honey in his words and the way such a foreign tongue phrased commonspeak where he knew he should instead be speaking a desert tongue of clicks and chirps-

It has a hard habit to put a stop to, but he had to put a stop to it, he couldn't be too caught up in admiring to keep him from dismantling, the whole point of bringing him here was to find out exactly how he worked and mimic it.

He wasn't here to adore. He was here to gain more weapons for the endless cycle of warfare.