Dust to Dust: Monster 04

Claw]

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Meandering calmly through the forest, the rabbit had no idea of the danger tailing him. His mine was lost in a haze of digestion and exercise, marveling at the inner heat that kept him mobile. As he leaned his head into another patch of undergrowth, the fox changed her stride from stealth to speed, overtaking the rabbit in a breath.

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The view of leaves and dirt shook, snapping in all directions, as the golem realized that something was shaking him. The fox had him by the back of the next, flinging him from side to side. No pain was felt except for the chattering it cased in his stone teeth. Curious, the rabbit sent heat out towards his neck, and quickly retracted it after feeling the white hot pain of the fox's teeth.

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However the situation had now changed. On contact with the inner heat from the golem, the fox's expression had changed. What was once a simple matter of predator and prey had mutated into something far less natural. The cur, hackles raised, let loose a feral growl, angered by something, and again tore at the hare.

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But not at the neck. No, the heat had led the fox's attention elsewhere, and now it was fixated on the core of the golem. Blind to anything but the small bounty that laid before it, the fox singlemindedly worried away at the rabbit for its prize.

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The creature of mud and stone didn't have much agency in the current situation. Being tossed about like a rag doll and having no natural weapons to fend off predators has that effect. Periodically he would send out a pulse of energy to feel the fox's progress into his body. The progress was slow, but steady. In a matter of minutes the regenerative flow of dirt into the gap would cease to help the situation, as he would be out of water to keep the dirt moist and effective. Luckily he had just filled his storage pouch with a green paste, and would have a few hours. Well, not a few hours anymore, he was eating through the paste at a fantastic rate, having to use the heat to perpetually fix and reinforce the hole in his back.

Worn stone teeth clamped down on the fox's leg, doing absolutely nothing to cease the feral creature's advance towards the golem's core. The muck's force wasn't strong enough to tear at the canine's corded muscles, and his scavenged pebble teeth were now showing their weakness.

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Attempting to fail about only hurried the fox's progress and depleted more of the precious green paste in storage. All current solutions had been exhausted, and the golem would soon be stripped of its core and once again left for dead. This time, there would be no chance of survival.

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Sticks littered the forest floor, left to rot by the trees that dropped them. The rabbit scraped the ones in its reach towards itself, rolling them into its soft body. The inner heat reached out to them, drawing them to where the golem wished.

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The fox, tearing away in its frenzy, came upon something hard. Ecstatic, it bit down deeply into the assumed core, but all that it tasted was rotten wood. Spitting out chunks of chewed on and muddy sticks, the cur barked its fury at the resisting prey.

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But the rabbit wasn't listening. He had far more important things to handle. Small branches were sticking out of his side, reaching towards a fractured stone too for for the hare's paws to reach.

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Slowly, surely, while ignoring the encroaching jaws of the canine almost to his core, the golem drew the broken shards of stone into himself, guiding them to their intended destinations.

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Frenzy and fury became pain and indignation as the fox felt a searing pain on his front paw. Leaping backwards, he inspected the offending region to find it gouged and spilling blood. His perceived prey slowly rose before him, gathering onto its legs properly. Judging from the crimson dripping stones protruding from the rabbit's paws it was easy prey no longer.

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But the hunger for the golem's core wouldn't let the fox run as its instincts were telling it to, and the creatures of flesh and mud readied themselves for the fight to come.

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A flash of red and the fox was upon the rabbit once again, attempting to end the fight before it began. The momentum from its charge tore the hole in the hare open farther than ever before, the copper core dimly glinting underneath the mud. With joyous yips the canine teeth tore towards their final destination as the fox and rabbit tumbled through the fallen leaves now stained red. A final push and tear, and the fox tore the hard clump out of the rabbit, satisfied that it wasn't sticks this time.

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Retreating as fast as its blood loss and wounded paw would allow, the fox inspected its prize, a rounded pebble stained green.

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The golem, now one tooth short, had used the fox's focus on the core to distract his enemy, and was now closing in on the confused and angry canine. The rabbit chomped its teeth onto the fox's neck, attaching itself to the bottom of the maddened cur.

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And then came the claws.

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Sharp, unforgiving, cruel. These would all perfectly describe the swipes the golem used to ravage the fox's stomach, eviscerating the overthrown predator. With a final weak yip, the fox collapsed into a pool of its own blood and entrails, and died.

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And with its death came a series of flashing lights and and noises as the fox dissolved into the air itself.

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Curious as to the disappearance of his first vanquished foe, the rabbit inspected the area. Where the body and blood once lay only remained a small hunk of copper like the one that resided within him.

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New instincts taking over, the heat within him reacted to the masterless copper lying on the forest floor, drawing it closer. The copper core rolled across leaves and sticks, crashing into the muck rabbit that eagerly awaited its arrival.

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The twin cores meshed in the muck interior of the rabbit, growing hotter and hotter as they collapsed onto each other. The reserve green paste was burnt away without a second thought, all things now secondary to the merging of the cores. All the running, eating, and mating in the world couldn't match this feeling of GROWTH. The heat soon reached a crescendo as the two orbs became one, and the rabbit golem collapsed, mentally exhausted.

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For the first time since its rebirth the golem was quietly resting, its muddy button nose twitching in the air as it dreamed.

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Beel here! Went longer with this one, I'll be keeping chapters above 1k words for now.

The chapters will grow organically longer at certain points in the story, but its too soon for that. Hard to write longer chapters without all the exposition and dialogue other stories get to have. (This will have that too, in a week-ish)

Introducing more mysteries as I go. You'll get more questions than answers for the next few days :P