Hero's Cuties, and veeerry depressing. Tissues at the ready, people!
The end of Hero's Duty couldn't have been more painful. So much had been lost when the game had been unplugged. It had taken months to discover all the cybug eggs in the Game Central Station. A few other minor characters like Coily and Jubileena Bing-Bing had died outside of their own games. Kohut and Markowski had been the only two to escape alive from the game. And it had all been because of the filthy mass-virus that inhabited the first-person shooter game escaping from their own game. But there was one thing that Felix missed the most now. When the apocalypse of Hero's Duty had come, the sharp knife of a short life had taken his dynamite gal from him...
"Tammy? Tammy!" Felix's heart had been in his mouth when he'd stepped out of his game, Q*Bert and Ralph behind him, to find the arcade's central point reminiscent of a quarter alert in Calhoun's own game. There were cy-bugs everywhere. No-one who know how to actually deal with the things save for Kohut and Markowski were anywhere to be seen. Glancing around, he took in the extent of the scene of carnage. Vanellope, Taffyta, Candlehead and Crumbelina were huddled under a bench, Taffyta's face streaked with running mascara, the four of them shrinking from a cy-bug that looked terrifyingly like Jubileena. Ralph was currently on top of a cy-bug, seeming to be attempting to wreck it. Q*Bert was basically running about and swearing in Q*Bertese. And he couldn't see Tamora anywhere. One more time, he cried her name, frozen to the spot and freaking out. "TAMORA!"
It wasn't until Kohut almost tripped over him that Felix had the sense to ask where she was. "Kohut? You...you haven't seen-"
"She's...somewhere over there..." Kohut gestured vaguely behind him. "Sorry, Fix-It, but...I don't think you'll like what you see..."
After eventually finding her following running about madly for a bit, screaming like a little girl, Felix stooped to his knees. How could this have happened? "Oh my land, Tammy..." Felix couldn't help but die a little on the inside. Her face was utterly covered in tiny cuts and bruises; there was blood everywhere, spilling through the huge gash in her hip that was almost tearing her in half. Her hand was clamped down over the injury in a futile attempt at holding it closed and stemming the flow of blood.
"Felix..." she stuttered, her eyes only open slightly as she stared into the face of her husband.
"Tammy, please, I can't let you go," he whispered, moving closer to her and stroking the hair out of her eyes.
"I can't fight it Fix-It...I've tried, I'm not that strong" she muttered almost inaudibly, tears running down her cheeks and leaving streaks in the blood.
"You shouldn't have to...Ma'am, I'm so sorry..."
"Woah, at ease, Soldier. What should you be sorry for?" She looked into his eyes, taking in the hurt that he was trying so much to control.
"I'm sorry that it's you that you're in so much pain, that I can't do anything and yet I have to be selfish and beg you to stay, to stay with me," He admitted, looking to the floor; ashamed of his request.
"Don't you dare, Fix-It, I promise I'll always be with you," she jerkily placed a blood-soaked hand to his heart. "Maybe not here...maybe not now...But I'll always be with you...in here..." He leaned into her, sobbing uncontrollably. "I won't make it through this...I know it, Kohut knows it, Wreck-It and Captain Cavity over there know it, and you do too, but you're just being a stubborn you-know-what and refusing to believe it," she attempted to laugh, but it turned into a fit of uncontrollable coughing.
Felix smiled as he locked eyes with this woman who meant everything and more to him; a woman who couldn't be any more opposite to the kind of woman he thought he would end up married too. "I'll miss you, my dynamite gal..." She was nearing the end. He could see that. But he couldn't say anything more. In her weakest and last moments, he had to be strong for both of them.
"I'll miss you too, Felix...Look, take care of yourself, talk to Wreck-It about this if you have to. Promise me."
"I promise, Tammy," Courage be damned, he let himself subside into a fit of sobbing. "I don't want you to go..."
"I don't wanna go either, but it's time, I'm sorry. I love you, Fix-It..." she whispered, growing more and more tired by the second.
"I love you too, Sergeant..." her eyes slid closed, and he bent forward before placing a small kiss on her forehead.
He lay across her, sobbing for a while amid the chaos, until he felt a small hand tap him on the shoulder. Vanellope was standing behind him, something held in her hand; Markowski, Kohut, Ralph and Taffyta standing around her. "Felix," she gingerly handed him his golden hammer. "D'ya think this'll help?"
Gathering all he had left, Felix smiled weakly, taking the tool from her, before sadly murmuring; "I can fix it..."
He tapped the fatal wound in her side gently. Nothing notable happened. Her body was rendered completely unscathed, but she was still gone.
Ralph was sobbing buckets. Taffyta was crying and hugging Markowski's leg. Even Kohut was sniffing. Vanellope slowly stepped forward, taking Calhoun's body in her arms and hugging her. "G'bye, Sarge..."
He was broken, numb and he knew she had taken a big part of him with her, a part he was never going to get back. Slowly, as the others stepped back, he sobbed, hugging her and kissing her over and over; begging her to wake up though he knew she would never rise again. "Sleep well, my dynamite gal..."
END OF PART 1