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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.

Chapter Text

The arm was the first order of business.

However, before FWhip could attempt to begin, he noticed a problem.

The bolts holding Pixl together didn't have standard bolt cuts found in the Grimlands. Every screw he found was a weird decorative square instead of flat or Philips. He didn't have those.

Some of the screws he could force with a Philips screwdriver, but the smaller ones wouldn't budge. Full dismantling would be a later task.

Removing the screws was easy enough, putting them aside for study later. With the screws undone, he could start opening up the plates, exposing the coils of copper wire illuminated by soft green internal lights. A few of the coils were damaged, yet to be repaired, leaking tiny red glittering flakes or redstone.

He wasn't ready for Pixl to flinch when he lodged his tools in his arm. He stopped immediately.

"....can you feel that?" FWhip asked, turning to face his test subject.

"...I can feel everything, FWhip." Pixl replied in absolute deadpan.

"y-you can....feel things?!?!?" FWhip repeated, horrorstruck.

"I can feel pain....and all emotions.....this is news to you???"

"...yeah?!?!?"

Pixl stared at FWhip in sheer befuddlement, FWhip stared back in absolute horror.

"Can....I....disable your ability to feel pain?" FWhip asked slowly.

"Why would you want to do that? So that you can keep taking me apart?"

"I mean....yes."

"Why would I let you do that?"

FWhip had no reply. Pixl was annoyingly good at forcing him to think logically. He always somehow knew the exact right question to ask to back someone into a corner or pull strings in his favor, or simply get someone to be more reasonable than on average.

It was a powerful trait in the hands of a King like him, and FWhip couldn't help but wonder where he'd learned such ways.

Or had he learned them at all? Was it all part of programming? If only his creator was still alive, he would be able to ask all sorts of questions-

But maybe Pixl knew the answers anyway and he was wasting his time in not just asking them outright. He was strangely ancient for being kept in such good condition and for being more advanced than seemed possible.

He made up his mind, opening the panels further. He was already in, so he wouldn't take things apart, but he would poke around as best he could and ask plenty of questions about anything that crossed his mind.

"Where did you learn to fight?" FWhip asked, "Or are you just programmed with that skill?"

"I wasn't programmed to do anything." Pixl retorted coldly. He could handle FWhip poking around in his arm even though it was somewhat uncomfortable.

"That's a bold statement, every machine has programming." FWhip replied, "Even the simplest and dumbest machines have a string of electrical charges that they must follow."

"Ever consider there's more to me than a metal shell?" Pixl asked.

"Look, I don't know how you gained sentience, that's what I intend to find out!"

"Good luck with that."

FWhip's gaze flitted to him for a moment.

"How....did you gain-" he started slowly.

"You should've asked that a lot sooner if you ever wanted a chance of getting the truth."

"Fine." FWhip retorted, opening another panel closer to Pixl's shoulder for further examination and pulling out an old beaten notebook to start writing things down.

"For how long have you existed, again?" FWhip asked.

"Centuries if we start counting from first assembly, three decades if we're only counting how long I've been a ruler to the public eye-"

"How are you MULTIPLE centuries old?"

"Counting how far back my memories stretch back, millennia."

"....you....have memories from before your assembly?"

"....Obviously."

"Do all of your limbs function the same way?" FWhip asked, "I want to know if I can save myself the headache of getting into your leg."

"You're aware that I'm sentient and that I can feel pain, and yet you STILL want to open me up?!?" Pixl demanded, unimpressed.

"I'm not going to completely take you apart!!!" FWhip protested, slamming the notebook shut, "I thought this was an improvement!!!!"

"An "improvement" would be not treating me like some experiment and LETTING. ME. GO."

There was something captivating in the way he spoke. The sheer emphasis left the fizzling sensation FWhip got whenever a lightning storm was on its way. His hand drifted up Pixl's shoulder, resting there as he just kept staring in awe.

Pixl stared back, mostly in disbelief at FWhip's arrogance, but at other things too.

He hadn't mentioned that there were over fifty types of screws making him up and each of them were just unique enough to need categorizing, he'd been too busy being angry, but now he saw that FWhip had studied each of them and separated them perfectly by type.

Exactly the same sorting system he'd used for his vast array of tools scattered on the work bench.

Clearly, he wasn't just the Count of Chaos Pixl had assumed he was. Clearly there was a little something more to him. Some true devotion to his craft, to the art of invention and tinkering. It really was an art form, Pixl had seen the Grimlands and their attempts to create all sorts of wonders, some more successful than others, from defensive turrets to airships to indoor plumbing to all manner of funky gadgets.

FWhip kept funky gadgets on him and it wasn't exactly obvious that the strap on his arm was to monitor blood pressure, or that the metal coils over his arm was a wrist brace, or that his extravagant goggles were actually magnifying and helped with his colorblindness.

Both captivated.

Neither willing to budge.

Chapter Text

How many hours had he been working, taking things apart, opening things up, removing what he could in good conscience.

FWhip didn't know the number of hours.

Pixl did. Nine hours, seventeen minutes and twenty-three seconds, exactly. Hard to loose track of time with perfect memory.

FWhip had moved on from his arm and was working on his shoulder and chest in utter silence, save from muttering to himself before frantically making notes. Pixl had gotten a glimpse of the notebook only to see illegible handwriting and glittery blue gel pen ink smears.

Frankly it was too tedious, to painful to try to put up a fight now while so open.

At least FWhip hadn't gotten too deep. Hadn't gotten to his core.

Over the rest of him, pain was relatively low so that he could take as many hits as possible in case of war. This was flipped in his core, which protected his soul, where messing with it was excruciating. The closer something got to the emerald that made his heart, the more devastating the agony got.

At least FWhip hadn't gotten that far in.

Ever-precarious about every little detail, FWhip was doing a lot more writing than he had been.

"....ok what's the power source in here?" FWhip asked, no longer musing but back to asking directly.

"Redstone for strength and some other things." Pixl replied. FWhip, unimpressed, shifted around some somewhat loose parts until he found enough raw redstone crystals to constitute a 'block' measurement.

"The other things are?" he prodded, setting things back.

Pixl baited him for a moment before letting his face drop to the most pretentious deadpan as possible. A non-answer, just to be annoying.

Like usual.

"Eventually you're going to have to tell me!!!" FWhip protested, "You can't keep your secrets locked inside you forever!"

"I can and I will!" Pixl snapped back, smug at irritating the count.

"I don't want to hurt you-"

"Too late."

"I just want to study you! Y'know? For science?"

""For science"" is a terrible excuse."

"Surely, you've used it."

"Not on something sentient."

FWhip made no rebuttal. Just kept tinkering away as he had for all these hours, slow and steady progress.

"You really are a wonder." he said absentmindedly after a while.

"Wow, good to know." Pixl replied.

"Cut the sarcasm, I mean it!"

He got up, grabbing some of the removed pieces and started putting them back in place, much to Pixl's surprise.

"I can only work 7 consecutive hours on a project, doctor's orders." he explained, "But I do mean it. I'm going to keep having to research because I've barely scratched the surface of your functions. This is the most gorgeous and ingenious interfacing I've ever seen! The detailwork, the modular systems that allow for fluid movement, the coils and wires behaving like blood vessels and muscle systems all in one...."

"You sound infatuated. Obsessed even."

"I AM obsessed!" FWhip replied, "you're stunning! This is some of the most astounding acts of creation I've gotten to witness and its all in you right here!!!"

"Yknow," Pixl tried, taking a chance on what he knew was a sudden and dumb hope, "If you free me I can show you a lot more wonders. Your kingdom could benefit from them."

"Absol-" FWhip paused, staring at him.

"....Well?"

"....I'll put you back together but I'm not freeing you, I....I can't trust you. I don't know what I'm thinking."

More plates and screws returned to their places. FWhip made quick work of it, quick, but efficient and gentle.

As the last plate clicked into place, Pixl let out a sigh.

"I don't know what I was thinking either." he replied.

Chapter Text

Despite having been attempting to fall asleep for hours, FWhip laid awake in the master bedroom of the Great Grim Manor.

It was rest, technically, even if it wasn't sleep, but his mind wandered.

Unsurprisingly, his mind wandered back to his prisoner. But not in the way it often did when he was working on a new project or invention. This was a unique feeling. The tinkerer's curiosity was definitely there, but it was mixed with something else.

It was captivating.

And he didn't understand it.

He didn't understand a lot about Pixl. Now that he thought of it, he didn't know much of anything about Pixandria.

He knew about the Vigil, a sacred monument to the goddess of death.

He knew there were no villagers, just copper golems in varying states and wanderers who set up extended camps there when the rest of the world was too frozen to travel on.

He knew about the anthill, a colossal copper mine that provided the entire kingdom it's copper supply.

But beyond that....there was so much he didn't know.

And FWhip hated not knowing things. It felt like an itch in his core, something he just couldn't handle. So now he needed answers.

The Grimlands library was currently under construction, but that wasn't going to stop him. He got up, threw his coat over his cheesy potion-patterned pajamas, and took off to the Crystal Cliffs.

Gem, unlike her brother, had a very healthy relationship with sleep. FWhip's lack of sleep was helping her theory that he was in fact just a 12 year old in an adult's body. Along with how he ate, how he climbed things, and how recklessly he flew. It was a long theory.

The theory was furthered when she heard something crash into the library of her tower in the middle of the night and scrambled down the stairs to find FWhip, flying around her giant library, pulling books off the shelves. He only noticed her when she turned on the enchanted crystal chandelier.

"What. Are." Gem started through gritted teeth, "You. Doing?"

"Researching Pixandria!" FWhip replied.

"....Why?"

"I realized I know like....nothing about it and you always say nothing is worse than an uneducated fool!"

"I think you might be worse than an uneducated fool."

"Well, maybe."

"FWhip, why do you need to do research? Don't you have, I dunno, the King of Pixandria in your basement????" Gem asked.

"Yeah, but he's recovering from how much taking him apart I did today." FWhip replied much too casually, "Man, you really don't have a lot of books on Pixandria in here."

"I do." she corrected, "They're just all written in Pixandrian."

"Pixandria has a language system?!!?!?" FWhip gasped in delight, "How do you read it?!"

"....Im not teaching you a whole language in a night." Gem retorted, "I thought you knew it was one of the world's languages?"

"Gem, you know I only know the core languages, Common, Grimmish, Elvish and Oceanic. The additional languages that only like...two kingdoms use is like....not something I've bothered to study."

"Well, I can tell you this much. Pixandrian derives itself from the Copper Golem Code, the system of programming copper golems for future generations?"

FWhip, who had settled on a chair to start reading, however he was distinctly sitting on the top of the chair, not the seat, looked up in delight.

"You mean to tell me that the programming language used for Copper Golems directly translated to a written and spoken word as the kingdom evolved? You mean to tell me that Pixandrians would become so accustomed to the patterns of their programming language that to invent something using it would be as simple to them as just....telling a program acceptor what to do?"

Gem stared at her maniac brother for a good long time. She did not possess his spark for machines and tinkering, she was much more into cultivating magic and the expanding practice of mana stores.

"Sure, whatever you say." she eventually conceded, not sure what she was supposed to say.

"I need to see this!" FWhip remarked, scribbling it down in his notebook, starting a list of subjects to study. Gem just watched him.

This wasn't normal. The eccentric-ness, sure, but FWhip had never cared about culture or language or traditions or anything he was reading books on now. He barely spoke elvish and had had a week-long mega-study of how Mythik was an offshoot of Grimmish language, but other than that FWhip was, as Crystalians would say, an uncultured goat.

What was up with the sudden fixation?

Surely, she reasoned, it had to do with Pixl. That was the only possible explanation.

But now she wondered what in the world Pixl had said to spark it all.

Chapter Text

There wasn't a window in Pixl's cell.

There wasn't anything but walls and bars. Nothing he could use.

Nothing except for himself.

FWhip had made a dumb mistake when putting him back together. He'd repaired all the damage he'd taken from being dragged into this prison, so the gashes leaking redstone dust and weakening his internal force were gone. Sure he was currently bolted to the walls, but FWhip had been dumb enough to believe he wouldn't try to attack when he let him out.

So clearly, he was also dumb enough to leave him unguarded in a cell that had to have some sort of weakness.

Clearly, his hands were going to be scrap if he wanted to escape, but he'd try to salvage as much as he could. The mechanics in Pixandria would be able to repair him.

He could probably brute-force the iron bars. He didn't know if they were connected to any warning mechanisms.

That just left getting out of the prison itself. He didn't understand how FWhip made his entrances, but there had to be a way. He didn't just fly in through a window, though that would be fitting for him. There weren't exactly windows for him to fly through down here.

There were too many variables about alarm systems and warnings. And of course, about FWhip's location. There was always a chance he escaped and then rand directly into him.

Pixl had a major disadvantage against FWhip when it came to escape. Pixl had no means of arial travel without his trident.

That was something else he needed to figure out. Where was his signature weapon and main means of travel? Did Sausage take it or had FWhip stored it somewhere? If Sausage had it, had he turned it in to Xornoth and he'd have to just count The Stormbreaker as a loss of war? He definitely didn't want that to be the case. If FWhip had it, where had he stashed it? Was he keeping it on him like he had the Codfather head?

Thinking of the Codfather head, where were Pixl's allies? Where were the Codvengers?

What were they doing right now? Did they realize he'd been captured? Did they know anything about that or was Jimmy too busy trying to get his head back? Had anyone checked for him or had they all been busy? How long would he be waiting to get found out?

No, waiting was out of the question. The Codvengers were completely useless most of the time, so they would not be his way out.

Escape was his only option.

He couldn't just wait for his friends. They were good people, good monarchs, but terrible alliance-mates. He wasn't going to wait for them to find him too late.

The art was in the timing. Just like most escapes. His best bet on foot was through the Undergrove, then north to Mezelea where Joel could get him faster, but that could be several weeks worth of walking with how gigantic their territories were. Shrub was neutral territory, while she was technically friendly with FWhip she wasn't a Wither Rose, and anything was better than the Lost Empire right now.

He could get sanctuary there if he could reach it.

There was his plan. The moment he had FWhip's schedule mapped, he'd make a run for it to the Undergrove when he knew FWhip would be too far away to catch him. If he played his cards right, maybe FWhip would give away his plans freely under the guise of small talk.

That might mean having to endure another session of dismantling, but it would be worth it.