Chapter 5

Parasite and Host

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20857010/chapters/49762205

(This one is kinda gross, guys. Beware)

The dripping of water was a constant cadence in the mires of lower Waterfall. The stoppage of the fetid waters, forming in slimey pools and choked puddles, reflected ever more water in their murky surfaces, rushing in falls from the surface but bringing no modicum of relief to their pollution.

 The never sleeping falls from Above only filled them with more refuse, towering piles of garbage, litter, waste, and trash heaped as far as the eye could see, only becoming more inundated with foul smells and disease the longer they lingered in the swamp of dust, mud, and death clogged waters.

 It had always been an inhabitable place, what had once been affectionately known as the Dump to the monsters… then, it had held potential treasures, though, technology that could be learned from and books that could be salvaged and unknown things that could be wondered at. Now, it was a toxic, noxious wasteland, avoided by all surviving beasts but for the bravest of their kind…

 The bravest, and the most sure of their own intimidation.

 They that ventured into the Waste knew what dwelt within, what now stirred beneath a great pile of old tin cans, sending the topmost of the tower careening into a pit beside the heap… what let out a tittering, gurgling shriek of laughter, a horrifying, jagged mouth opening within the pile, lined with rusty, sharpened bits of metal and bone.

 They had been there long before the Hunger tore the Underground apart, had turned its inhabitants into fiends with a never ending desire for violence and flesh. What had once been a merely grumpy, violent guardian, though, had become something far worse, and only those that knew the being could not defeat them dared set foot in their hunting grounds.

 Mad Dummy was more than a training dummy, now. No longer did they idly take the punches swung at them, and only toss insults, mildy damaging drones, or knives at their enemies… now, they had no need for knives.

Now, they were the mightiest hunter in lower Waterfall (barring Undyne, and Sans, when he decided to visit… and the Temmies… and Shyren… and the creature- shut up, shut up, SHUT UP).

 They were a king, over their little kingdom… far cry from the powerless being they had been when they had first possessed their host.

 They had sought another, at one point… searched far and wide across the Underground for a form suiting their design. They could have done as Ha-… as their cousin had done, and requested they be MADE a new body, made for war and conquest, befitting the rage within… but in the end, had settled with the first form they had found.

 It had served them well, too. Inconspicuous. Easily looked over, canvas and long missing button eyes and twine stitches… their camouflage was undetectable, flawless in its accumulation of trash to hide them with the other refuse piles… their attacks were incomparable, vicious and cruel as the fanged jaw that had opened along their middle.

 Nothing had been able to touch them yet! Nothing, nothing, nothing!

 The ragged, living maw of the hidden, cackling being widened beneath the pile of cans, some falling into their mouth unheeded as its laughter only grew in volume and insanity. Tufts of stuffing flew wildly, decorating the slime covered, oily water, and from within that gaping, mad grin vomited forth a deluge of insects so foul and numerous that the fetid waters and steaming air boiled, maggots and fully grown flies swarming about as though on more important business  than leaving their host.

 The pile of cans heaved with the leaving of insects, retching and gagging nearly drowning out the riotous chortling, but the being within seemed uninterested in anything but wrenching their mutated jaw shut, smashing several of the insects in its closing and, at last, cutting off the pouring forth of vermin.

 Through a few gaps in the cans, old, rotted canvas material, dotted with candy wrappers, crumpled papers, and soggy bits of old clothes was now showing, the disturbance of the dummy’s hiding spot betrayed by the parting of insects, and yet, strangely, the being did not seem disturbed at all by the occurrence, merely grinding their jaws to further mush the flies caught in their teeth and letting out a long, deep belch, leaking a few more squirming larvae as they did.

 Their canvas skin roiled sickeningly, under the covering of trash, evidencing that what the monster had spewn forth was only a fraction of what lay within their bloated form, before Mad Dummy, seeming to be comfortable enough to return to their wait, sunk back into the cover of the cans, laying in wait for someone, anyone, unfortunate enough to pass through, looking for useful tools or a way to the capital.

 Idiots, idiots, IDIOTS.