***
Evil Dinosaurs from Cyberspace
Fanfic by Kathryn Grover
***
The typical "Reboot" fanfic disclaimers apply.
***
This story takes place not long after Game Over.
***
The game was finally over. Andraia felt like she could no longer stand up.
What kind of user ran this system? Some kind of Clown?
She and Enzo had finally, after what seemed like hours (literally), made
it out of Ronald McDonald and the search for Happy Land. She felt like if
she ever saw a game like that again, she'd puke.
Enzo sighed as Glitch beeped an answer he'd heard each time they entered a
system. No ports to the net. Permission denied for sprite access to the
net. But then an excited beep came that made him jump. They'd landed in a
system within a system. They were in a Windows machine running an Xwindows
emulator for a terminal that led to the supercomputer!
They raced to the principal office in hopes of finding a way to get into
the emulator. The emulator was a gigantic cube that if it had been purple,
could easily be mistaken for a game. When they reached there, they were
stopped by some police who asked where they were going. They wanted to see
the command.com. They were denied access and turned away.
They sat on the steps that surrounded the principal office. Andraia had
her fingers crossed that they'd somehow be granted permission to enter the
emulator. Enzo just hadn't been himself since the accident that shoved
them into cyberspace with no way home.
Andraia felt lonely now. Enzo had once confided in her for everything.
He in turn was the only friend she ever knew. But now, nothing she said
ever really got his attention. Nothing did was seen by him. Something just
wasn't clicking. He was like a zombie, walking around as if in a trance.
Andraia sighed. She wanted to destroy the glass wall between them somehow.
Later on, an old binome came and sat by them, asking why they were waiting
there. Andraia answered that she was thinking of a way to get into the
Principal office to see the command.com.
"Why do you want to see the command.com?"
"We're lost. We've been travelling through the 'net using the games,
trying to find our way home."
"How did you get lost in the first place?" The old binome seemed confused.
"Your friend there is a guardian, and guardians only come from systems on
the net."
"We lost a game, but since my original format was that of a game sprite, a
hacker copied my format onto his icon, and his to mine, so that I could
accompany him in the games, and so we'd also have an emergency escape in
case we lost."
"Very interesting. I must say that's quite an innovation. I'd like to meet
this hacker you speak of someday."
"That's the big problem. You see, we came from a system where a port
authority guardian had lived at the time. We had some web problems, and
the hacker erased our domain name in hopes of keeping the web out. But
before the portal was closed, a local virus threw him into the web. The
portal was closed behind him, and so was all access. Nobody else in the
system had net access, so when we were trapped in a game we couldn't win
and were forced to leave with it, we couldn't get back home. We were
hoping that we could ask the command.com for permission to enter the
emulator and get to the supercomputer and find help."
"Well, there's a problem there you see. The emulator is only an emulator.
Only an illusion, nothing more. You will still have no access to other
systems. You'd be able to look around the supercomputer, and travel the
net and other such, but the nano the user turns the emulator off, you'd be
back here. I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself before. I'm the command.com
of this system, and I'm sorry I couldn't help you. Good luck on your
search for your home."
The old binome walked off, and Andraia noticed Enzo was crying. She hugged
him. He accepted the hug, but Andraia still felt as if he wasn't there.
The glass wall was still between them.
***
Later on, Andraia tried talking to him agian. He sighed when she tried to
ask what was wrong, but he finally answered.
"I just can't face people any more. Even you."
"Why? Was it because of what happened in the game?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
Andraia sat there. They still hadn't moved from the steps. Frisket nudged
Enzo, but he didn't move.
Andraia sighed and stared forward. Suddenly, the sky went purple.
"We can always hope the game takes us back, can't we?" Andraia asked
hopefully.
Enzo sighed and got up. He glanced at Andraia, then threw down his
zipboard and raced off toward the game, Andraia and Frisket in hot
pursuit.
When the game landed, they were out on a playground, and little kid game
sprites that had huge smiles on their faces were running around in any
direction. Their eyes looked blank and displayed phoney happiness.
Suddenly a gigantic rain cloud with a big frown on it's face came overhead
and rained on everybody. All the game sprites with the phoney happy faces
started frowning a frown that looked even more fake.
"Great. All wet," Enzo said.
"Hey, I like water," Andraia said back. But she was somewhat surprised
that he even said anything. He was looking at Glitch, watching the
display.
"You've got to be kidding me. There's no way for the user to win."
"What is it?"
"Some game called Barney the Dinosaur. The user has to make everybody else
in the game happy. Like that'll happen."
Andraia noted that he still sounded depressed. He never lifted his head to
look at her. "Come on. Lets have some fun with the game. Please?"
Enzo finally did look up. Andraia looked worried. He sighed, and tapped
his icon. "ReBoot".
Andraia did the same. They ended up looking like the "sad" kids who were
standing around the playground, with the false sad faces plastered to
their heads. Other than that, they looked the same, in their
regular clothes and everything. Andraia couldn't help laughing, but the
sad face stuck even though she was giggling like crazy. And this fact made
it even funnier to her. She noticed Enzo was not amused and that he was
looking toward the school building near the playground.
"Andraia? I'm gonna check it out and get this game over with. See ya." He
ran off.
Andraia just stood there, and didn't say anything.
***
Enzo ran, trying to get away from Andraia so he could concentrate. Every
time he saw her, he just felt overwhelmed with guilt, hopelessness, and
embarrassment. He found a quiet corner in the building. Maybe he could
just have time to think.
He looked to Glitch to status on the game and the user. The user was not
far from here. Enzo was hoping for an encounter to get his mind off of
everything that happened recently. Suddenly, he heard from behind
him...........
"I love you............."
He was grabbed from behind and felt some foreign code take over. The last
thing he remembered hearing was "You love me..............Resistance is
futile.............."
***
Andraia walked around the gamespace, and saw more and more of the "sad"
kids act like "happy" kids. The false frowns were becoming false smiles.
This game was too wierd.
Andraia walked around the hallways in the school building. There was no
sign of the user. But there was a person in a familiar blue uniform
walking down the hall toward her. But something was different.
"I'm happy! How about you?"
"Gah!" Andraia said. She jumped about five feet into the air. Enzo now had
one of those fake smiley faces on him, and was walking around like a
zombie.
"Let's be friends!"
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Andraia said. She waved her hand in
front of his face. He just stood there with a hunched back somewhat like
Pinky and he even gave out a "NARF!".
"Oy. Okay, follow me." Andraia took him by the hand and led him through
the hallways in an attempt to find the user. He followed, and stumbled
around while Andraia made every attempt possible to pull him in the right
direction.
Andraia eventually met up with some AI's who's function was to hide from
the user. Andraia asked them how to find the user, and talked about game
info for a long time, then discovered that Enzo was missing!
"Oh, great." Now she not only had a user to defeat, but a friend who's
mind was in cyberspace somewhere while his body was taken over by a purple
dinosaur.
Andraia noticed as she searched that the amount of "children" with the
fake happy faces on them was increasing. Many of them were singing "I love
you, you love me..........." as off key as possible. She had not yet
visited the science room(On the door read "The lab of happiness"), so she
figured she might as well, and checked it out. There she found the REAL
Pinky and the Brain, as well as three strange looking child sized animals
discussing the possibility of using the Anvil Song on the user. Also there
was Stimpy cramming the head of his buddy, Ren into a Happy Helmet (TM),
and pressing the button, making Ren look insane, and also plastering the
fake smile onto him. They both got up on a stage and started doing the
"Happy Happy Joy Joy" dance, and Andraia noticed something. Enzo was up
there dancing with them. She got up and dragged him away. He was still
muttering in a trance "I'm happy. Are you happy?"
"Enzo, you sound like you're drunk!" Andraia exclaimed. She was getting
very impatient with this game. "This user is sick! If this is happy, I'd
rather you were depressed for the rest of your life!"
She impatiently stomped down the hall, dragging Enzo by the collar. (Of
course he didn't notice.) She was so mad that she forgot what the game was
about, and suddenly the user took her by surprise.
"Hey! Let's try Coexisting!" said the user. "I love you. You love
me..............."
Andraia covered her ears. "GO AWAY!"
"Resistance is futile."
"NO!!!!!!!"
Andraia then heard singing from somewhere else.
"It's made of solid Iron! It weighs a ton or two! Would you like to meet
the anvil, well it wants to meet you too!"
Suddenly there was a loud *CLANG*. The three strange animals that Andraia
had seen earlier were singing the Anvil Song.
Suddenly a loud bell was heard.
"Aw, shucks. Out of time. Still have time for one last song though," said
the evil purple dinosaur with his big dumb face. The three animals made a
sly face.
Everybody: I love you!
Barney: I love me!
Animaniacs: He's as dumb as dumb can be! But we found a way that we can
get along!
Barney: I stand still......
Animaniacs: For the anvil song!
*CLANG!*
Andraia quickly changed her own icon to game sprite format and reached
over to touch Enzo and Frisket's. Andraia hoped that Enzo wouldn't be in
this trance state the whole time they were stuck in the game.
*Game Over!*
***
Enzo shook his head as the game left. He felt as if he'd just taken a
long nap. "What happened?"
"You were assimilated by the evil purple demon," Andraia replied.
"Remember? The one you said would never get you?" Andraia teased him and
laughed. Enzo looked at her confused.
"Wait. Are we still in that game?" Enzo looked at her wide eyed.
"Yes, but I'm hoping it will land soon. Some of these game sprites are a
lot of fun though."
Enzo looked at her. Then he burst out laughing.
"What?" Andraia said, surprised.
For the first time, he'd noticed the fake frown face plastered onto her
head.
Evil Dinosaurs from Cyberspace
Fanfic by Kathryn Grover
***
The typical "Reboot" fanfic disclaimers apply.
***
This story takes place not long after Game Over.
***
The game was finally over. Andraia felt like she could no longer stand up.
What kind of user ran this system? Some kind of Clown?
She and Enzo had finally, after what seemed like hours (literally), made
it out of Ronald McDonald and the search for Happy Land. She felt like if
she ever saw a game like that again, she'd puke.
Enzo sighed as Glitch beeped an answer he'd heard each time they entered a
system. No ports to the net. Permission denied for sprite access to the
net. But then an excited beep came that made him jump. They'd landed in a
system within a system. They were in a Windows machine running an Xwindows
emulator for a terminal that led to the supercomputer!
They raced to the principal office in hopes of finding a way to get into
the emulator. The emulator was a gigantic cube that if it had been purple,
could easily be mistaken for a game. When they reached there, they were
stopped by some police who asked where they were going. They wanted to see
the command.com. They were denied access and turned away.
They sat on the steps that surrounded the principal office. Andraia had
her fingers crossed that they'd somehow be granted permission to enter the
emulator. Enzo just hadn't been himself since the accident that shoved
them into cyberspace with no way home.
Andraia felt lonely now. Enzo had once confided in her for everything.
He in turn was the only friend she ever knew. But now, nothing she said
ever really got his attention. Nothing did was seen by him. Something just
wasn't clicking. He was like a zombie, walking around as if in a trance.
Andraia sighed. She wanted to destroy the glass wall between them somehow.
Later on, an old binome came and sat by them, asking why they were waiting
there. Andraia answered that she was thinking of a way to get into the
Principal office to see the command.com.
"Why do you want to see the command.com?"
"We're lost. We've been travelling through the 'net using the games,
trying to find our way home."
"How did you get lost in the first place?" The old binome seemed confused.
"Your friend there is a guardian, and guardians only come from systems on
the net."
"We lost a game, but since my original format was that of a game sprite, a
hacker copied my format onto his icon, and his to mine, so that I could
accompany him in the games, and so we'd also have an emergency escape in
case we lost."
"Very interesting. I must say that's quite an innovation. I'd like to meet
this hacker you speak of someday."
"That's the big problem. You see, we came from a system where a port
authority guardian had lived at the time. We had some web problems, and
the hacker erased our domain name in hopes of keeping the web out. But
before the portal was closed, a local virus threw him into the web. The
portal was closed behind him, and so was all access. Nobody else in the
system had net access, so when we were trapped in a game we couldn't win
and were forced to leave with it, we couldn't get back home. We were
hoping that we could ask the command.com for permission to enter the
emulator and get to the supercomputer and find help."
"Well, there's a problem there you see. The emulator is only an emulator.
Only an illusion, nothing more. You will still have no access to other
systems. You'd be able to look around the supercomputer, and travel the
net and other such, but the nano the user turns the emulator off, you'd be
back here. I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself before. I'm the command.com
of this system, and I'm sorry I couldn't help you. Good luck on your
search for your home."
The old binome walked off, and Andraia noticed Enzo was crying. She hugged
him. He accepted the hug, but Andraia still felt as if he wasn't there.
The glass wall was still between them.
***
Later on, Andraia tried talking to him agian. He sighed when she tried to
ask what was wrong, but he finally answered.
"I just can't face people any more. Even you."
"Why? Was it because of what happened in the game?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
Andraia sat there. They still hadn't moved from the steps. Frisket nudged
Enzo, but he didn't move.
Andraia sighed and stared forward. Suddenly, the sky went purple.
"We can always hope the game takes us back, can't we?" Andraia asked
hopefully.
Enzo sighed and got up. He glanced at Andraia, then threw down his
zipboard and raced off toward the game, Andraia and Frisket in hot
pursuit.
When the game landed, they were out on a playground, and little kid game
sprites that had huge smiles on their faces were running around in any
direction. Their eyes looked blank and displayed phoney happiness.
Suddenly a gigantic rain cloud with a big frown on it's face came overhead
and rained on everybody. All the game sprites with the phoney happy faces
started frowning a frown that looked even more fake.
"Great. All wet," Enzo said.
"Hey, I like water," Andraia said back. But she was somewhat surprised
that he even said anything. He was looking at Glitch, watching the
display.
"You've got to be kidding me. There's no way for the user to win."
"What is it?"
"Some game called Barney the Dinosaur. The user has to make everybody else
in the game happy. Like that'll happen."
Andraia noted that he still sounded depressed. He never lifted his head to
look at her. "Come on. Lets have some fun with the game. Please?"
Enzo finally did look up. Andraia looked worried. He sighed, and tapped
his icon. "ReBoot".
Andraia did the same. They ended up looking like the "sad" kids who were
standing around the playground, with the false sad faces plastered to
their heads. Other than that, they looked the same, in their
regular clothes and everything. Andraia couldn't help laughing, but the
sad face stuck even though she was giggling like crazy. And this fact made
it even funnier to her. She noticed Enzo was not amused and that he was
looking toward the school building near the playground.
"Andraia? I'm gonna check it out and get this game over with. See ya." He
ran off.
Andraia just stood there, and didn't say anything.
***
Enzo ran, trying to get away from Andraia so he could concentrate. Every
time he saw her, he just felt overwhelmed with guilt, hopelessness, and
embarrassment. He found a quiet corner in the building. Maybe he could
just have time to think.
He looked to Glitch to status on the game and the user. The user was not
far from here. Enzo was hoping for an encounter to get his mind off of
everything that happened recently. Suddenly, he heard from behind
him...........
"I love you............."
He was grabbed from behind and felt some foreign code take over. The last
thing he remembered hearing was "You love me..............Resistance is
futile.............."
***
Andraia walked around the gamespace, and saw more and more of the "sad"
kids act like "happy" kids. The false frowns were becoming false smiles.
This game was too wierd.
Andraia walked around the hallways in the school building. There was no
sign of the user. But there was a person in a familiar blue uniform
walking down the hall toward her. But something was different.
"I'm happy! How about you?"
"Gah!" Andraia said. She jumped about five feet into the air. Enzo now had
one of those fake smiley faces on him, and was walking around like a
zombie.
"Let's be friends!"
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Andraia said. She waved her hand in
front of his face. He just stood there with a hunched back somewhat like
Pinky and he even gave out a "NARF!".
"Oy. Okay, follow me." Andraia took him by the hand and led him through
the hallways in an attempt to find the user. He followed, and stumbled
around while Andraia made every attempt possible to pull him in the right
direction.
Andraia eventually met up with some AI's who's function was to hide from
the user. Andraia asked them how to find the user, and talked about game
info for a long time, then discovered that Enzo was missing!
"Oh, great." Now she not only had a user to defeat, but a friend who's
mind was in cyberspace somewhere while his body was taken over by a purple
dinosaur.
Andraia noticed as she searched that the amount of "children" with the
fake happy faces on them was increasing. Many of them were singing "I love
you, you love me..........." as off key as possible. She had not yet
visited the science room(On the door read "The lab of happiness"), so she
figured she might as well, and checked it out. There she found the REAL
Pinky and the Brain, as well as three strange looking child sized animals
discussing the possibility of using the Anvil Song on the user. Also there
was Stimpy cramming the head of his buddy, Ren into a Happy Helmet (TM),
and pressing the button, making Ren look insane, and also plastering the
fake smile onto him. They both got up on a stage and started doing the
"Happy Happy Joy Joy" dance, and Andraia noticed something. Enzo was up
there dancing with them. She got up and dragged him away. He was still
muttering in a trance "I'm happy. Are you happy?"
"Enzo, you sound like you're drunk!" Andraia exclaimed. She was getting
very impatient with this game. "This user is sick! If this is happy, I'd
rather you were depressed for the rest of your life!"
She impatiently stomped down the hall, dragging Enzo by the collar. (Of
course he didn't notice.) She was so mad that she forgot what the game was
about, and suddenly the user took her by surprise.
"Hey! Let's try Coexisting!" said the user. "I love you. You love
me..............."
Andraia covered her ears. "GO AWAY!"
"Resistance is futile."
"NO!!!!!!!"
Andraia then heard singing from somewhere else.
"It's made of solid Iron! It weighs a ton or two! Would you like to meet
the anvil, well it wants to meet you too!"
Suddenly there was a loud *CLANG*. The three strange animals that Andraia
had seen earlier were singing the Anvil Song.
Suddenly a loud bell was heard.
"Aw, shucks. Out of time. Still have time for one last song though," said
the evil purple dinosaur with his big dumb face. The three animals made a
sly face.
Everybody: I love you!
Barney: I love me!
Animaniacs: He's as dumb as dumb can be! But we found a way that we can
get along!
Barney: I stand still......
Animaniacs: For the anvil song!
*CLANG!*
Andraia quickly changed her own icon to game sprite format and reached
over to touch Enzo and Frisket's. Andraia hoped that Enzo wouldn't be in
this trance state the whole time they were stuck in the game.
*Game Over!*
***
Enzo shook his head as the game left. He felt as if he'd just taken a
long nap. "What happened?"
"You were assimilated by the evil purple demon," Andraia replied.
"Remember? The one you said would never get you?" Andraia teased him and
laughed. Enzo looked at her confused.
"Wait. Are we still in that game?" Enzo looked at her wide eyed.
"Yes, but I'm hoping it will land soon. Some of these game sprites are a
lot of fun though."
Enzo looked at her. Then he burst out laughing.
"What?" Andraia said, surprised.
For the first time, he'd noticed the fake frown face plastered onto her
head.