Infection Part 3- Courage
Final chapter of the Entity-infected story inspired by Lizzyintime's Entity drawings.
Warning: This story will be dark. It will not have a happy ending.
—-
The weeks passed as The Entity slowly infected everybody either through electronic or actual human contact. There was one noticeable side effect of being infected. The ones that were infected could easily hide the static that sometimes appeared with clothes or costumes, but it had a negative effect on camera equipment. It caused glitches in the videos that many were afraid the un-infected ones could detect. It was all easily rectified in the third week when Chick called Critic, telling him that they had infiltrated the Blip offices.
A day later, a special notice was put on the main page talking about the site redesign and how for a few weeks while they figured everything out, there would be glitches in the videos. There was special care to place a glitch in Linkara's videos once he uploaded them to not raise suspicion.
Spoony and Insano had easily transported themselves to Comicron-1 and overpowered Linksano. Nimue was a bit harder to infect since her systems were very advanced, but with Spoony's hacking, the ship was soon on its way to being under The Entity's control. Unlike the mass infection the others were being treated to, the plan was to infect each member of Linkara's crew slowly.
Within two months, there were hardly any people that Linkara knew that weren't either completely infected or in the process of being taken over. The only members of Linkara's crew that hadn't been infected were Jaeris, Harvey and 90's Kid. The rest had been infected through Linksano's demand that they get a regular medical check-up with him. Pollo had been infected when he linked up with Nimue's systems. They reported to Linksano if there were any times Linkara or one of the un-infected became suspicious. Linksano also payed close attention to 90's Kid. He didn't want the kid to find out what they were doing and warn Linkara.
—
A week passed before Linksano got the call from Spoony. "Critic says it's time. Take the Gunslinger first. He's the biggest threat and the hardest to actually capture. The others will be easy. We'll be there soon."
Linksano smirked and quickly sent the email he had prepared for the occasion. A few minutes later, Jaeris materialized.
"So ya found a way to get me back home?"
"Something like that. I just want you to step over to that platform right there and we'll be set to go." Linksano gestured to the corner and began to push buttons on the control panel. The plan was once Jaeris stepped on the platform, Nimue would wrap the man in cables and infect him.
"Don't I need to tell Linkara I'm leavin'? That'd be the right thing to do. I don't…"
"THERE'S NO TIME! JUST GET TO THAT CORNER!" Linksano shouted and whipped around quickly, causing his goggles to crash on the ground.
Jaeris took a look at Linksano's static-y eyes and recognized what this meant. He pulled his gun out and aimed it at the scientist. "You're The Entity. I've heard about you from Linkara. He told me you were dead! Linksano, if you're in there, I'm sorry." He began to pull the trigger.
"SNOWFLAME DOES WHAT THE ENTITY SAYS! SNOWFLAME IS TAKING YOUR GUN!"
A red and white blur quickly knocked Jaeris down and the man looked up to find Linksano and Snowflame looking down at him.
"No hard feelings Jaeris. Soon you'll know everything. Snowflame, restrain him." Linksano snapped his fingers and soon the man was being held in a death grip by the white haired villain.
Jaeris struggled as the static began to crawl around him, filling his body and head with the strange collective thoughts of the other infected. His breathing eventually evened out and Snowflame let go of the man. The Gunslinger reached down and picked up his hat that had fallen and placed it back on his head. "Well, I reckon it's time for me to visit Mr. Finevoice."
—
Linkara grumbled as he had to type another apologetic comment beneath his new video. Since the TGWTG site and Blip were having website troubles, his videos as well as everyone else's videos kept showing very noticeable glitches. Many of his fans kept pointing it out and he made yet another note, saying it wasn't his fault.
"Dude, what's wrong?" 90's Kid flopped down on the futon and Linkara turned around to stare at him.
"Feet off the futon. I'm just getting frustrated because of all the glitches that are happening in my videos. I know it's happening to everyone's videos because of site issues, but I'm getting tired of half my comments just mentioning them. Plus I keep emailing the tech people to ask how long it will take and they won't give me a straight answer and…90's Kid?"
90's Kid had sat up at the mention of glitches and shivered. "Wh-what do the glitches look like?"
Linkara gasped a bit. "Oh 90's Kid, I completely forgot about… Forget I said anything. It's just a website issue."
"Show me." The teen jumped off the futon and sat down in the spare chair Linkara had in his office. Linkara clicked on one of his videos and the two watched until one of the glitches that Linkara had mentioned happened to the video. 90's Kid grew pale and he quickly clicked off the video. "Linkara, we have to go. Now."
"What? 90's Kid, what are you…?"
The door crashed open and Harvey strolled in. "Heya, Kid. I've been lookin' all ova for ya. Got somethin' ta show ya."
The smirk Harvey was giving unnerved 90's Kid and he quickly grabbed Linkara's hand. "Uh, sorry Harvey, dude. We've got something we need to do." The teen began to walk around Harvey to the door, keeping Linkara as close behind him as possible.
"What the Hell 90's Kid?! What's gotten into you?!" Linkara ripped his hand out of the teen and walked up to Harvey. "We're not doing anything Harvey. What do you have to show me?"
Before Harvey could touch Linkara and infect him, 90's Kid lunged at the lounge singer and knocked them both into the futon. Harvey hit his head on one of the shelves behind the futon and fell unconscious. 90's Kid slowly got up, breathing heavily and shaking.
Linkara started to advance to the teen. "90's Kid! What the…!?"
"Linkara, get out of here! NOW! Go! RUN!"
"What are you…?" Linkara didn't get a chance to finish as 90's Kid tackled the reviewer to the floor and wrapped his hands around Linkara's throat. Linkara tried to pry the teen's hands off before finally reaching for his gun and slammed it against the teen's head.
90's Kid's sunglasses fell off and Linkara froze as he saw the static in the kid's eyes. "No…" he whispered and started to struggle even more than he had been. He was prepared to fire at his friend when a jolt forced him to drop the gun and he looked in horror as the gun was beginning to show signs of static on it.
"R…run…Lin…ka…ra…." The hands around his throat loosened and Linkara pulled himself away, glancing briefly at the teen, who was struggling with the static. He threw off his jacket, which had got a bit of static on it and looked back once more at his friends and gun, before running out of the room and into his bedroom to grab another weapon and his communicator.
"Nimue, I've got a problem. I believe The Entity is back. It's already infected 90's Kid, Harvey and Margaret. I need you to beam me up to the ship so I can plan out what to do next."
"Affirmative, Lin-Linkara. Tel-teleporting now."
Linkara threw down the communicator a split second before it spewed static from the speaker. "Damn it! It got Nimue! It probably has the ship too! How did it…?"
A police siren broke him out of his thoughts and Linkara went to the window to see Liz and Jaeris step out of a police car. Even though it was a bit of a distance, the reviewer could vaguely make out the static that twitched on their bodies. Linkara gulped and silently thanked that his window had a fire escape. He waited until the two were out of site before crawling out his window and down the escape.
Linkara rounded the corner to get to his car and stopped short when he realized Boffo and Ninja Style Dancer were leaning against his car. Looking both ways to see if the coast was clear, the man bolted toward small forest that was behind the apartment complex.
—-
Two months. For two months Linkara had been on the run from his former friends. He soon learned that everyone he held dear had been infected by The Entity and they were all looking for him. His family kept putting Missing Person flyers up and and videos on the news. The entire Police Department, courtesy of Liz, patrolled the areas he use to frequent, even his fellow producers put videos out, begging for him to come back.
Linkara was glad he had found one of his old tracker jamming devices in his old abandoned place. Nimue, Linksano and Insano kept making sweeps to try to detect him. He had moved a total of five times when someone got too close to his hiding spots. This last place was a secret lab miles away from the city and underground where he had cloned Spoony.
It was here that Linkara tried to make some sort of antidote to whatever The Entity had done to his friends. He had discovered a small tendril of static had hitched a ride with him and trapped it in a specimen jar before it could grow. With this sample and the various chemicals and tools in the lab, he was bound and determined to save his friends.
Linkara kept a small bit of the static hooked up to one of the computers so any hive thoughts that any of the infected thought would be projected to the computer and Linkara would have an idea of what they were doing. So far, they hadn't been able to find him or come anywhere near where the lab was.
The place was stocked for two months with food and water, but Linkara rationed carefully. He had already been here for almost a month and didn't know how long it would take him to finally make a breakthrough. He barely slept because he would hear the voices of his friends tell him to give in.
Lack of food and sleep were starting to wear the man down. But he pushed through. Whatever The Entity wanted, he'd find a way to stop it and save everyone.
—
"….kara…Linkara…wake up…"
Linkara's eyes shot open and he dodged out of the way before the hand touched him. He quickly turned around to see the two men standing before him. "Critic! Spoony! How?! How did you find me!? I was…so careful…"
"Your desire to spy on us cost you your downfall Linkara." Spoony walked over to the computer and picked up the sample. "You hooked up this little guy to the computer not knowing that it became a two-way communication. You heard us but we also heard you. All we had to do was listen long enough for you to slip up. You really shouldn't talk in your sleep you know."
Linkara slowly backed up to where his weapon cabinet was, keeping a close eye on the two.
"I really wouldn't do that. Your weapons are gone. We took them and gave them to 90's Kid who's standing outside with the rest. Even if you did take us out, you're still surrounded." Spoony began advancing toward the man.
"Oh Linkara…Lewis… if you had only given in, you'd be at home with your crew making reviews and equipping Comicron-1 for our dimensional travel when we take over the other universes out there." Critic took the other side and soon the two men trapped Linkara in a corner. "We missed you Lewis. It's just not the Three Schmuckheads without you. You're the third member of our Triforce. Our Courage just like Spoony is our Wisdom and I'm our Power. You fought for so long, but it's time to come home."
Linkara slid down the wall as his body gave up on him. He was too tired to fight anymore. Tears streamed silently down his face as he slowly accepted his fate. There was nowhere to run anymore, nowhere to hide. He had failed. He looked up at his friend's static-y concerned faces. "Doug…Noah…does it hurt?" he whispered.
The two men smiled at him, their true smiles and not the smirk The Entity seemed to had adopted.
"It feels weird at first as the static creeps over you but you get used to it." Critic slid down the wall next to Linkara and wrapped his arm around the man's shoulder.
"But we're here for you every step of the way. You're in good hands." Spoony slid down on the other side and repeated the action.
Linkara grabbed the free hands of Spoony and Critic and closed his eyes letting the static that curled off of the two men's bodies slowly take him over.
