Commission for  impximon

Ixx finds himself brought to civilization as his captor seeks to sell him off.

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The Imp Inspection

We had been walking for what felt like ages, and even though my body was accustomed to the desert heat, the toll of being forced to walk endlessly without rest was becoming tiring. My mouth had dried after the knot of cloth wedged between my jaws absorbed all of my saliva and I figured if it wasn’t for my healing ability then I would’ve died of dehydration long ago. But at this rate, I also began to think that my regenerative skills would be put to the test The warm desert sand between my toes was beginning to get agitating, but all of my aches and pains seemed to pale in comparison to the grating sound of the black coyote constantly talking at me.

When my captor said he would be talkative I had no idea how badly he meant it. As he rode along on his large, four-legged reptile steed, he just started to talk about all manner of foreign things. He clearly didn’t care if I understood him, or if I wanted to hear it, he just wanted to get the stories out there, or he just loved the sound of his own voice that much. The coyote spoke so much, I even had to admit that I was surprised that he didn’t get nearly as dehydrated as I was. It seemed like he hadn’t stopped except to just breathe. But what made his nonexhaustive monologuing ability even more infuriating was the fact that I could see his canteen of water strapped to his hip and with every move he made I could hear the liquid sloshing around inside of it, which only made me even thirstier.

I suffered in the company of my coyote captor for three full days as we made our slow trek through the desert. He would occasionally stop to feed me some dried meats and cheeses much to my chagrin, but I dealt with it since there was no way out of my situation. During the nights, he would bind me tightly to something in the area like an immovable boulder or heavy dead tree. When none of those were available he would simply opt to just hogtie me instead just to be sure I wouldn’t escape. Even in moments where I was not gagged I still refused to speak with him. But in retrospect, I don’t know if that was a wise idea or not because it wasn’t like he needed my vocal participation to keep rambling.

If one thing was for certain though, it was that the coyote definitely had a very colorful past that was riddled with what could be spectacular events or outright lies. The coyote, or as he introduced himself to me later as Fen, was a self-described “illustrious” bounty hunter. He had only grouped up with his previous party to hunt me down under the impression that they were going to capture me, but once he found out they wanted my head he had to change plans.

“So after I left ‘em punch drunk out in the middle of nowhere, I just saddled up and made my way to you,” The pitch black coyote finished explaining with a shrug before he looked over his shoulder back at me.

After being his chatting partner for the past couple of days I had learned to tune him out. The entire time he had been speaking I was just wondering how I could break free and beat him senseless.

He chuckled as he saw me so angry and deep in thought. “Man alive, you’ve really taken to scowlin’ at the back of my head ain’t ya?” he chuckled as he tipped his hat. “Bet you wish you could just smash something into me eh?” the coyote laughed again.

I huffed in response to his comment as I slowly trailed behind.

Fen just laughed openly at me before he looked forward again. “Oh! Well, would ya look at that? Almost there little guy,” he said.

I then looked past the sloshing water canteen and stared dead ahead where I could see a few wooden buildings set up in the distance. My eyes widened in shock as I realized how close to civilization we were and I panicked a bit. I had very rarely visited townships and populated areas, as was my nature. Every time I did go, I typically hid my identity as much as possible as I got simple things like water, tried new food and fruit. I of course never had the strange coins or pieces of paper that the odd people had to exchange for the goods, so I always had to be careful every time I stole something. What helped though was my size and my ability to sneak away unnoticed since I was never caught and punished for my actions.

This time it was radically different. Instead of keeping to myself, hidden underneath a cloak that covered me from head to toe, I was uncovered and bare for all to see. I probably would have looked like a child to them if I was wearing their clothes, but with nothing on it was apparent who I was. It seemed like I was rather well known as well because I could see some posters plastering the wall that had a rather rough, parodical images of me. All of them at least got my white fur and red hair right, but a lot of them depicted me like some small gremlin with sharp teeth and claws wielding bloody spears and daggers fashioned out of the bones of my alleged prey. There also always seemed to be blood on me to some degree, but as far as my facial features went, many of them just showed me as some angry animal.

As I walked past the posters though, some of the other hunters and cowboys in the area seemed to notice the slight resemblance before they gawked at me and Fen. Others however just broke out into mocking laughter.

“Him?! That’s the Imp of West?!” they couldn’t help but ask as they approached me and my captor.

Fen couldn’t help but chuckle at how surprised they all were whilst I myself felt a bit embarrassed. They openly mocked and humiliated me as I walked through the slowly building crowd. Some of them even had the audacity to come over and poke and jab at me before I snarled and growled at them angrily. Even though I was at my weakest I still wouldn’t allow them to just walk all over me.

“Now come on, he’s my quarry!” Fen hollered over the crowd in order to get them to calm down a bit.

Even though some of them were still a bit incredulous to the fact that I was the sole being terrorizing them in my territory, they still respected Fen to some begrudging degree. Some of them finally decided to leave me alone while others approached the coyote personally to see if they could get any information out of him.

“So is that really him? He looks way too small,” one of them, a bull asked in a whispered tone to the coyote as he tethered his steed to one of the posts and got off of it.

“Yes indeed, all I did was set up a shiny trap and the little guy walked right into it,” Fen chuckled as I glowered at him angrily from behind.

“No way that’s him, you just tied up some child you sicko,” another one interjected, this one a portly wolf who laughed at Fen. “You really believe anyone will think for a second that he’s the Imp?” he laughed loudly into Fen’s face as spittle flew out of his mouth.

“Don’t matter what anyone else thinks, I just need one group too,” Fen explained cooly with a devilish smile as he looked around. “Where’s the doctor and his little band of deviants? Haven’t kicked them out of town yet have you?” he asked loudly which made the few people around him go dead silent.

The sudden quiet made me uneasy as I looked around curiously to see that a few people seemed shocked and afraid that he would call for them. To my knowledge though, a “doctor” was the word that they used for someone who had knowledge of healing techniques though, so unless I misunderstood them, then something was definitely wrong.

The wolf gulped nervously before he wiped off some sweat beading up on his brow. Even I could tell that he was probably the most fearful of the entire gathered congregation.

“No, the Doc and his nurses are still here…” he trailed off leerily. “He’s uhh… set up just a few shacks down,” the fat wolf explained as he pointed further down into town.

Fen tipped his hat and smiled. “Thank you kindly,” he said as he took the rope that was wrapped around my neck and tugged violently to get me to follow after him. “Come on then, little guy. We’re almost there,” the black coyote smirked. “Once I drop you off and get paid, you’ll never have to see this handsome mug ever again.”

Without any other choice, I was forced yet again to follow after the coyote as we further into the town before we stopped in front of a shack that simply had the word “Doctor” painted onto it along with a large red cross. The door to it was closed and I couldn’t see anyone inside through the window, but that didn’t stop Fen as he unceremoniously opened the door and walked in with a holler.

“Helloooooo?” he called out as he tugged me inside to join him.

The door slowly closed behind us with a slam and I could see that there was a wooden countertop build inside of a tiny room. Behind it was a large shelf with all manner of things floating in jars or packed with strange writing on it that I didn’t understand due to my lack of knowledge on their language. Somewhere deeper in the shack though I could hear a lot of muffled noises of clattering and yelling along with what I assumed was some kind of begging. Fen seemed to ignore the disturbing sounds though as he walked up to the counter and rang the bell to signal that a new customer had arrived.

Immediately the noise in the other room went silent before I could hear whispered voices talking to each other. I looked on with a sense of impending dread before the sound of footsteps could be heard and a figure dressed in a long white coat pushed his way through the swinging doors and walked behind the counter. The other fur was a tall, smart looking orange fox with a pair of round glasses perched on his snout. He looked on at Fen with an agitated glare before he finally spoke.

“So it’s you, what do you want? And please make it fast, I have other patients to attend to,” he spoke quickly and venomously. Whatever history he had with Fen, I knew it was not on the friendliest of terms.

“Well, I could’ve just turned this little sucker in for the bounty,” Fen started as he tugged me forward so the doctor could see. “But I heard through the grapevine that you’d pay much more for him alive,” the black coyote chuckled.”

The doctor’s eyes widened behind his glasses as he leaned forward over the counter to get a better look at me. I reeled back in surprise since I had never been scrutinized so much by a single person before. The fox looked me up and down before he hurriedly went around the counter and got down on a knee to inspect me further.

“Fascinating, how did you capture him?” he asked Fen as he poked and prodded at me.

“Does it matter?” Fen scoffed in return. “Do you have the cash or not? Because there’s always someone else who can pay,” the coyote threatened much to the doctor’s dismay.

“Simple fool! You have no idea what you have as your quarry!” The doctor responded angrily as he stood back up and shook his head. “No matter, if money is what you want for him, then money is what you shall receive,” he grumbled irritatedly.

The doctor then hurried back behind the counter and deeper into the shack before he returned with stacks of paper. I looked on with confusion as Fen’s eyes lit up with glee as he took each stack and counted each little piece of green paper before he nodded and whistled a happy tune.

“Well shoot, how do you make so much money doc?” he asked with a surprised chuckle. “You don’t just take it off their dead bodies do ya?” he snickered.

“Does it matter?” The Doctor asked in a mocking tone that mimicked Fen’s when he said it first. “Take the money and leave me to the Imp.” he then ordered the bounty hunter.

Fen didn’t need any more prompting as he easily shoved the leash at the doctor and tipped his hat.

“Pleasure doing business with ya doc,” he chuckled before he looked down at me again. “And you have yourself a good evening, at least try to I suppose,” he laughed before he shoved the stacks of money into his pockets and was on his way out of the shack.

I watched Fen leave with a look of shock and confusion before the doctor tugged on my leash. I looked back over at the fox and could see that a wide smile was spread across his face as he seemed overjoyed with the idea of having me in his clutches.

“So many experiments! So many things to test!” he said excitedly to himself as he tugged again and made me walk deeper into the shack.

I growled angrily in response, hoping to intimidate him into releasing me, but he ignored me. Instead, he brought me past the swinging doors behind the counter and into another room where a few beds were placed, a few with other furs laying in them. Some of them slept soundly whilst others let out low, pained moans. The Doctor lead me into another, darker room with shelves lining the wall and some chairs scattered in the middle before he made me stand in the middle of the mess.

“But first, I have to be sure you’re a good little test subject!” he said, practically bursting with happiness as he withdrew an odd circular object attached to a golden chain.

The odd Doctor dangled the device in front of my face before I realized that it was one of the weird contraptions that the outsiders used to “tell time” or a watch as they commonly called it. This one, however, was designed oddly, with all manner of spiraling patterns within it embedded in the clock face. The fox then took one of the nodules on the side of the watch and turned it a few times with a winding click before he released the clock and let it swing back and forth in front of my face. As the ticking of the clock sounded, the device that the doctor had wound up inside of it began to whirr to life as all of the black and white spiraling shapes on front began to move on their own.

At first, I gasped and took a step back, surprised at the odd witchcraft I was seeing before me, but the doctor placed a stern hand on my shoulder to stop me from getting any further. I looked at him and he stared back at me with a pleased smile.

“Now don’t you worry, just relax and look at the colors!” he said with a devious tone before he grabbed me by the chin and forced me to look at the swinging clock.

Perplexed, my gaze easily fell back onto the device before I found the entire scene a bit entrancing. The swirling, winding colors, the ticking clock noise and the smooth, swaying motion of the device seemed to calm me down. My shoulders loosened up, I could feel my breathing become slower and evened out and I even seemed to let out a sigh of relief as I watched the back and forth motion of the odd pocket watch.

As I continued to watch the clock I barely even noticed the doctor smiling and giggling to himself as he swung the device in front of my face. The entire world around me became a blur as my eyes focused in on the motion of the black and white swirls and the sound of the ticking clock. It wasn’t until the doctor stopped swinging the clock that I realized that my head felt foggy. The books on the shelves, the doctor’s face, the wooden floor beneath my bare feet, they all seemed just slightly out of focus whilst every noise was muffled.

“Alright, now don’t move,” ordered the doctor, his voice ringing surprisingly clear despite everything else.

I felt like in any other situation I would’ve rebuked his command, but I found myself standing still as the desert plateaus as he slowly undid my bindings and removed my gag. Even with my arms and legs untied, I had no drive to run, and with my mouth unstuffed I felt no urge to bite or scream. Instead, I just looked at the doctor with a blank stare as he walked off to a desk in the room and took out a few items that I could not recognize.

“Arms in front of you and mouth open,” the black fox then ordered me, to which I easily complied.

It felt so wrong to be listening and obeying him without question but the motions came so naturally. It almost felt good in a sense.

With me in such a vulnerable position, I was easy prey as the doctor fastened some sturdy, leather cuffs around my wrists and tightened them up. Afterward, my open maw was stuffed with some kind of hard, red ball before the doctor fastened that around my head to prevent me from spitting it out. Finally, the doctor placed a brown leather collar around my neck with a simple metal tag that read “Subject 5” on it. I didn’t understand the significance of the words as I blankly looked up and stared at the doctor.

The black fox smiled gleefully at me before he attached a rope leash around the metal ring in my collar and lead me into another room. Here I could see that it was still made of brown wood planks, but there was the distinct smell of some kind of chemical cleaner that I knew that the outsiders liked to use. There were more shelves and cabinets lining the walls, except these had glass vials and cups filled with different colored liquids. There were also all kinds of weird mechanical contraptions scattered around the room, the one that drew my weary eyes was a metal bed with what appeared to be fresh blood smattered onto it.

The doctor looked down at me and smiled. “Let the testing begin.”

It wasn’t long before the Doctor had me tied to all sorts of odd mechanical devices within his shack. First, he had me strapped to a chair as I could see and feel him poke and prod at my body. He never really did me any harm, but he took fur samples, inspected my eyes and ears, and at one point he even ungagged me briefly to inspect the inside of my muzzle and have me spit into some kind of glass container. Afterward, he seemed to take a particular interest in my feet as he rubbed and inspected them closer.

“Interesting, you don’t wear any sort of covering or protection on your feet at all and yet they’re so surprisingly…” he trailed off as he traced a finger up from my heel to the balls of my feet. Even in my hypnotized state I couldn’t help but let out a little giggle at the odd feeling. “Soft… no calluses, no bruises, burns, scars, and yet I could only imagine how many miles of burning hot sand you’ve walked over, or how many rockfaces you’ve climbed yourself… very interesting,” the black fox commented as he wrote some more notes down.

Even in my dazed state I couldn’t help but still grumble and growl at my newest captor before he unstrapped me from the chair and reapplied my strict bindings even though I couldn’t even will my own arms and legs to move. Once he was satisfied he began to order me around again. As much as I wanted to rebel against his orders and commands though, every word he said seemed to compel my legs forward as I walked where he wanted me to. The next device was just as odd because it looked like some kind of long, tanned leather hide stretched and looped across some kind of mechanical contraption.

“Stand on it!” ordered the fox doctor as he tugged my leash and my legs walked onto the device against my will.

In a few short seconds, the doctor tied the end of my leash in front of me at the bottom of the machine. During that time I yelled mentally for my body to move. I tried to run, scream, tug against my cuffs, but nothing seemed to work. Everything seemed to get drowned out as my brain went back to remembering the swinging clock and the swirling black and white shapes within it.

Whilst I was busy trying to get my body moving again, the doctor pressed a few buttons on the machine I stood n before it whirred to life. If I was fully in control of my body I would’ve yelped and hopped off of it immediately but I was helpless as the leather beneath my feet began to move.

“Walk!” The doctor then ordered.

My legs moved on their own as I walked forward and surprisingly, I didn’t walk off the machine. The large leather band underneath my feet seemed to loop into the machine and come up in front of me, causing me to walk in place. I had never seen such a mechanical marvel before, but I couldn’t express my surprise due to my near slack-jawed, mindless face I had on. I walked endlessly on the contraption without physically moving anywhere for what seemed like hours as I felt my feet begin to ache again and sweat bead up on my brow. Even though I couldn’t control my body, I still managed a pleading groan as I felt my legs begin to shake and quiver beneath my body.

But as time went on, I did not collapse, nor did I need water. Instead, I just felt like I was constantly on the edge of dehydration and intense muscle pain. The pitch black fox took careful notes of my condition as he observed me, “ooh”ing and “ahh”ing every now and again as he saw me nearly fall to the floor. By the time the doctor turned off the machine, he ordered me to stop walking and I nearly collapsed if it wasn’t for my magically enchanted body. I remained shakily on my feet as I moaned from the foot and leg pain.

“Very interesting, your endurance levels far exceed normal levels,” he spoke seemingly to himself as he checked over his notes. “Definitely need to perform more tests tomorrow, but for now you must be stored,” the fox smiled.

“Remain still,” the Doctor ordered as he walked away and grabbed a few things from some shelves in the room. When he came back I could see that he had a few rolls of pristine white bandages in his hands.

Without another word, the Doctor tied one end of a bandage around my ankle and began to slowly wind it up my leg. It was only a matter of seconds before my entire left leg was covered in a layer of bandages before he repeated the process with my other leg, and then slowly brought the cloth up my body. As he reached my arms he undid my cuffs and wrapped each of them individually before he pinned them to my sides with more bandages.

As I felt my body getting trapped beneath more and more layers of bandages, I wanted to scream and yell at the Doctor, but I knew that I could only give him a blank, glassy-eyed, half-concerned look. The Doctor actually seemed to somehow understand my mindset though as he just sadistically looked at me in the eye and smiled as he started to wind the bandages around my neck. After a few more minutes, he had my entire body wrapped beneath a layer of white except for my eyes before he repeated the entire process again.

“Must make sure you won’t get away~!” he quipped, even though he knew that the hypnotic commands he had locked around my mind would keep me still anyways.

After what felt like an eternity, the Doctor had another, stronger and tighter layer of bandages sealing my body before he finally went over my eyes. He tied off the other end of the bandage and inspected his work, but to me, all I could see was utter darkness. I groaned pleadingly in my sorry state before I felt the fox pick me up and carry me a short distance. He then laid my body down in some sort of container as I heard him chuckle from above.

“Now you get some rest, I will get you out in the morning,” were the last words I heard before the lid of the wooden trunk was locked shut.