Chapter 9: Pac-Man
Candi, Swizzle, and Adorabeezle reached the Pac-Man game portal and entered it. When they entered the game, they looked around. Broken and rusted pac-dots laid on the ground, and the hallways of the game's maze looked dark. Lamps that hung from the ceiling of the maze were still on, but they were dim and just made the maze look gray and dreary.
"Let's just find Pac-Man, defeat him, and get out of here." Candi said.
Candi, Swizzle, and Adorabeezle started walking through the maze. As they did, a whishing sound from behind startled them, and Candi almost tripped over her legs as she, Swizzle, and Adorabeezle spun around. They saw nothing, but that didn't mean that something wasn't there. Paralyzed with fear, Candi stood where she was with her hands placed on her chest, her legs feeling like they were in cement. After a minute of nothing happening, her body loosened itself and she was able to move on.
She, Swizzle, and Adorabeezle headed to the center of the maze, where the Bad-Anon meetings were usually held. However, the room didn't look very inviting. The chairs looked like they had been tossed around and now laid in different corners of the room, and papers and twigs laid on the ground. But in the front of the room, there was a display case that held a power pellet that glowed white, instead of yellow. Adorabeezle frowned.
"Wait a minute. Why is the artifact out if Pac-Man hasn't even showed up?" Adorabeezle asked.
Swizzle shrugged.
"I don't know. Maybe it's different for the last guardian." Swizzle replied.
Adorabeezle nodded and walked up to the display case. She attempted to grab the power pellet, but her hands went right through it.
"It's a hologram?" Candi asked in confusion.
Suddenly, for some creepy reason, the power in the room went off, and the power pellet and the display case disappeared in a yellow flash.
"Now what?" Adorabeezle asked.
Suddenly, there was the sound of a twig snapping. Candi, Swizzle, and Adorabeezle froze in place, and they turned around. On the other side of the room, which was pitch black, they caught sight of something yellow and glowing. Two black dots side-by-side on the thing slowly narrowed into thin slits. At first, Swizzle thought that they might be a couple of fireball flies, but then they started flying towards him, Candi, and Adorabeezle at an alarming speed, and the closer they got, the bigger they got. Much bigger then any fly should be. Except they weren't flies at all.
They were eyes.
Panic seized Candi and she ran out of the room, ignoring Swizzle and Adorabeezle's calls of her name, and she started running through the maze. However, as she ran, she tripped on the floor, skidding painfully across it. With a tearful gasp, she struggled to push herself up, ignoring the rips and stains on her outfit. She succeeded, and without looking back, she ran again, her whole body screaming in pain. After a minute, she paused by the exit, resting against a wall while she caught her breath. She looked back and saw no sign of the glowing orbs that had been chasing her. Could she have imagined it? Had she panicked over nothing.
With a thick swallow, she hugged her tiny arms across her chest and backed up away from the wall, only to bump into something. She inhaled loudly, her mind trying to convince her that she had simply bumped into another wall.
Except this wall was soft... and warm... and breathing.
Candi tilted her head up to look above, and behind her, a ghoulish face smiled down at her, the same black eyes from before piercing into her own, bottomless like pits with no soul behind them. The smile was an evil one, black like the eyes, and two razor sharp fangs could be seen. The creature also had a long yellow lizard-like body with claws.
This was Pac-Man, the third guardian.
"Hello... little girl." Pac-Man whispered in a pixelated tone, like Sonic back in Sonic Generations.
The gentle yet malicious whisper sliced into Candi's body like a knife and she flew forward away from it. But a cold claw grabbed the back of her head before she got too far, and she fell with a whimper. Pac-Man grabbed her easily, her tiny frame no match for his own. She cried and fought the best she could, but it had no effect on him. Her arms held her tight enough to smother her, his hot breath making her nauseous.
"Hush now." Pac-Man whispered.
Two sharp teeth buried themselves into the side of Candi. She screamed, but a yellow claw shoved itself against her mouth to quiet her. The monster fed himself on her sweet sugar blood, and she slowly felt herself drifting into unconsciousness. However, before Pac-Man could finish, a massive energy ray slammed into Pac-Man and knocked him away.
"Get away from her!" a voice yelled.
Swizzle and Adorabeezle showed up, and they glared at Pac-Man. Pac-Man got up and smirked.
"Well, if it isn't Swizzle Malarkey and Adorabeezle Winterpop." Pac-Man sneered.
"You know us?" Adorabeezle asked with a raised eyebrow.
Pac-Man nodded.
"Yes, you are from the game Sugar Rush. And that means more sweet sugar blood for me." Pac-Man replied.
Pac-Man charged towards Swizzle and Adorabeezle. They dove out of the way, and Pac-Man ran right past them. He scurried up a wall and disappeared out of sight. Swizzle and Adorabeezle stayed on guard, and they searched the area around them. Suddenly, Pac-Man jumped down and landed on Adorabeezle, knocking her down to the ground. She slashed him with her claws and then threw him off of her. Swizzle then released a massive energy ray that knocked Pac-Man into a wall, and the force of him getting thrown into the wall was so great that the wall cracked and dropped debris on Pac-Man, burying him completely. Swizzle and Adorabeezle sighed, and they ran over to Candi.
"Candi, are you alright?" Swizzle asked in concern.
Candi shook her head.
"I don't really feel good." Candi replied in a weak tone.
Swizzle suddenly got an idea. He took out one of the two vanilla shakes that he had taken from Vanellope and handed it to Candi.
"Drink this." Swizzle ordered.
Candi slowly grabbed the vanilla shake and drank it. The effects of the shake happened almost immediately and she felt better. She got up and smiled.
"I feel much better." Candi said.
Swizzle smiled.
"Good." Swizzle said.
Suddenly, the power pellet appeared over the debris that Pac-Man was buried under and flew over to Candi, Swizzle, and Adorabeezle.
"The last artifact." Adorabeezle whispered.
Adorabeezle reached out and grabbed the power pellet before putting it in her jacket pocket.
"That's the last of the artifacts. Let's head back to the DeLorean and find out when Overdrive messed everything up." Adorabeezle ordered.
Candi and Swizzle nodded, and they and Adorabeezle left Pac-Man.
