Space Cadet
A/N - Woah. I got 5 more reviews in less than 15 hours! YAYYY.
Anyway, I'd just like to thank everyone again. I'm glad CZ still has some fans. AnT- Yes, Rudy is quite dull, but nonetheless he's one of the more selfless Nickelodeon characters, so we can forgive him. Michael JJ- If you mean Skrawl and Craniac 3… I agree with you 100%. (although they're really the only two main CZ villains…) I think Skrawl is cute. Yay Skrawly! Doodle- That's by far one of the nicest reviews I've ever gotten. Although I'm not fond of my own writing, I'm glad other people are. Thanketh you! BTW… I don't find Snap annoying anymore, so moo. He's actually OK now. The Skrawl/Snap idea though is just kinda creepy, but it'd be interesting, heheh. ^^;; You could try it. (Or I could, but, uh… Um… I'm very poor at shonen-ai AND love/hate relationships.) Oh yeah, and during Chapter 7, Snap just kinda stood off to the side and did nothing. Heh.
Geebus… Fluff. Love it when it's someone else's, hate it when it's mine. Blah. Humor is my main genre, so I don't delve much into fluff… So this is kind of like a first-timer for me. Whee. Go me. So, I decided to postpone the fluffness even further. Now, it's either the chapter after this one or the chapter after that one. I'm going to go back and add a chapter or something after Ch 1, so the main plot doesn't last the whole fic. I'm re-vamping this thing from the beginning to end, so by the time I'm finished, it'll probably be over 20,000 words.
Chapter 8 – System Error
The beach of the Wait 'N' Sea was deserted, its waves clashing along the barren shoreline. The globe theatre was in the same state, as a tumbleweed happened by its front doors. All around ChalkZone, houses had been emptied, their doors and windows left ajar. Few Zoners could be seen anywhere, for most of them were marching behind Biclops in a very angry mob-esque fashion. Leading the crowd was the local rapper, Rapsheeba, the only one of the mob left unarmed. She didn't actually plan on fighting, but if the need arisen, she'd defend her friends at all costs. All she knew was that the great creator was out to rescue his soul mate and Snap was going to help. The angry crowd of Zoners was running as fast as they could towards the Dome of the Future, following the rap girl's lead.
"Keep the pace, people!" She urged anxiously, although she knew they had reached their limit. "This is important, you know! If Skrawl kills the creator, he may ultimately plan on doing the same to us, and nobody wants that."
The Zoners each murmured their own responses, but none of them could bear to go any faster. Biclops, who towered above everyone else, was the first to spot the dome in the distance.
"There it is, queen." He announced. "We're getting close."
Minutes after the outer metal hull of the room was penetrated, the security system started to breech. A shrill alarm sounded and the clatter of persons moving about several stories down could be heard, only adding to the noise level. They would've been able to jump out through the hole had they not been twenty or so stories above ground level. Snap, who'd been cowering in the corner throughout the entire encounter with the Ksuyan, finally re-joined his friends near the hole in the wall.
"Great gumballs!" He hadn't realized Rudy's position before. "What happened?!"
Penny was crouched above his motionless form. Trembling, she glanced up to look at Snap, tears starting to form in his eyes. "Rudy, he… he… He's…"
Snap stared at her in horror. "No… No! He's okay. He's got to be okay! Rudy, bucko! Can you hear me?!"
The two watched him intensely, scanning for any movement. Fortunately, he was indeed breathing, but it was ragged and shallow. His chest rose and fell in a random rhythm, and his breaths sounded forced and pained. The Ksuyan's heavy metal tail was still strewn across his belly, probably crushing his lungs under its weight.
"We've got to move the tail." Penny observed, shaking from sheer worry. Snap nodded, fastening his grip on the long, mechanical link. "On 3!" She told him. "1, 2…"
Snap started early. He strained to lift the thing's large tail, but it did budge a little. Penny sat up on her knees to help him, gripping the dragon's tail and forcibly trying to lift it. Nothing happened. It was too heavy, at least seventy or eighty pounds, and that was just its tail. She hated to think about what they would've done if the dragon's whole body had collapsed on him…
"It's no use." She managed, releasing her grip. "We'll never move this thing on our own… but we've got to keep Rudy breathing. Otherwise, there's… there's just no hope for him…"
Snap gazed at her pleadingly. "If we can't move the tail, how do we-" He paused. There was a faint thump in the distance, and then an enraged holler, and it sounded nearby. Penny and Snap exchanged horrified glances as they realized what was going on.
"What do you mean, the pod's hull was crushed?" It was Skrawl's voice, and it sounded like he was directly down below them. It was muffled and toned down with what with a single floor in the way. "Once we get to the top story, we'll just see for ourselves!"
As if on cue, the door to their cell opened, as to allow passage. Skrawl wasn't there yet, but in a few seconds they knew he would be.
Penny dared not breathe. She could feel her heart caught in her throat, her blood slowly turning to ice as her body refused to move. "Snap!" She nearly whimpered. "What do we do!?"
Snap looked both ways anxiously, eyes wide. His gaze rested on the buttons on the wall- the ones Skrawl had used to activate the doors. Bingo.
He stood up - "I'll be back in a flash!" - and instantly was off, clambering across the room, using his gloved hand to press as many buttons as he could, for his hand was too wide to press a single one. The door made a strange whirring noise, and for a second, Snap didn't think anything would happen… at least, until it started to screech, and the door hit the ground, blocking entry. And just in time. Skrawl rounded the corner, only to see the door shut. He didn't see this as such a big threat, however, for there was a second control panel outside the door as well. He crawled up to it and pushed the appropriate button that would open the door. Nothing happened. When Snap hit all the buttons, he had overloaded the system.
"What!?" Skrawl pushed the button again. Still nothing. "Oh, that nuisance!" He growled, pushing it a third time, although he knew it would do nothing. "They've locked me out! What a terrible thing to do to their host."
Although not too distressed, he activated the chalkie-talkie, the one that would broadcast his voice to every station across the entire dome.
"Craniacs?!" He demanded, his voice a low, irritable grumble. "Tabootie's jammed the lock on the door, and I can't get in. I don't get it- The Ksuyan should've finished him off. Get the system back up and running. I think I'd like to take my revenge personally this time around."
Craniac 3 was the first one to come in. "The boy crashed the system? Such a thing could only be caused by a processing overload… Oh well. We will try to get the system functional again."
"You'd better." Skrawl snapped back. "If it's not operational, I can't get in, and they'll find some way to get out."
"That seems impossible. I did not think them capable of surviving if dropped from such a height."
And Craniac 3 went back to work. He was on the base level of the tower, fiddling with the controls, adjusting the plugs and trying to get everything working again. Unfortunately, the system had crashed, and in order to get everything working, he'd have to reboot the computer, the one that controlled every function in the tower. And rebooting such an important processing unit took time. It'd take about ten minutes. Unfortunately, Craniac 3 was unsure Skrawl was willing to wait ten minutes… and so he secretly prayed that big jellybean wouldn't dismantle him later.
Snap was having a hard time coping with his mixed emotions as he took a seat next to Penny. On one hand, he was angry at her for getting him into such a mess… And on another, he was trying to decide whether or not he should tell her Rudy's little secret. Well, either way, they were both hunched over their best friend, both overcome with worry.
"Oh Rudy… That was such a stupid thing to do." The girl whispered. The tears welling up in her eyes were fogging up her glasses, but she couldn't care to wipe them off. Snap seemed a bit startled at her input, but he tried his best to ignore it. Although Rudy's feelings for her were always quite obvious, Snap had secretly always doubted that she liked him the same way. She seemed a bit obsessive over math and science, but she never seemed quite the romantic type (Had he been around when Rudy had found his father's old love letter, he might've thought otherwise). Now, he was starting to have second thoughts.
"Say, uh, Buckette?" Snap intervened, his voice quiet. "He's still… with us, right?"
Penny gave a feeble nod, her gaze resting on the ground, silently. "Although, to be honest, I just… I just don't know if he'll be waking up, Snap. I mean, Skrawl is probably already sending reinforcements, and by the time they get here… Well…" Her voice trailed off. "And… Unless we find a way to get Ksuyan's tail off of him, he may suffocate."
Snap felt himself flinch at these words, but he saw them coming and he merely had to accept the bitter reality. He still had some questions, though. "Say, uh, Penny?" He asked, curiously. "Why'd you come to ChalkZone in the first place? You know, before Skrawl bagged you?"
Penny wasn't expecting this. She looked at him strangely. "Come to think of it… I came to talk to you." She told him. "I was going to ask you what's been going on with Rudy."
Snap stared at her, unbelievingly. Slowly, he came to realize what that meant. Rudy's feelings for Penny had, in the long run, been his fate. And now, the three of them were trapped on the uppermost cell of a twenty-story tower in the middle of the Future Dome with Skrawl plotting his revenge. It was stupid.
"I'm sure the whole city's out looking for us now." Penny mused, mainly to herself, although she looked down at the unconscious boy while she said it. He was still breathing, although it was still hoarse. She couldn't care less about what the people of Plainville were thinking about them at the moment, however. She just wanted them both to get back home in one piece.
"In case Rudy doesn't wake up… There's really something you oughta know…" Snap spoke up, his voice trembling.
However, he didn't say any more, because Rudy started to stir. His eyes opened slowly, his pupils blurred and indistinct. He could barely see a thing. Penny heard him murmur, although it was part of an exhale, so his lips didn't move. His voice was cautious and weak, as if it took all the air in his lungs to muster out the word.
"S-Snap? P-Penny?" He smiled. "You guys are alright!"
He paused, then started to cough, and folded his legs against his chest while his eyes started to water from the force it took to clench them shut. Penny grimaced in discomfort as she watched him, unsure of what she could do. One hand went to his shoulder while the other ran gently through his hair. It soothed him, apparently, for he stopped twitching and started to relax. She knew it would; she wasn't sure how she knew, either. It was just kind of a… subconscious feeling.
"Do you feel all right, Rudy?" She asked him softly, her eyes mere inches away from his own. "Don't speak. Just nod."
The boy uttered something of a "yes", despite what she'd just said. He was feeling quite the opposite, though. His vision was out-of-focus, as if he was cross-eyed. His lungs felt as if they had been set aflame and each breath left his windpipe sore. All sounds of the outside world were nothing but static, except Penny's voice, which mysteriously came through to him crystal-clear. He was sure it was the only thing keeping him awake.
"Hold on. We'll get you out of here. We'll find a way." She assured him.
To Rudy, everything after that sounded distant, faded, quiet, as if watching TV with the volume turned on low. Their pending escape plan suddenly seemed of no great importance to him as he drifted off further into his own thoughts.
"Rudy! Bucko! Come on, can't you get up?" It was Snap's voice, but he sounded very far away (although in reality, it was only a few inches). "We gotta get out of here! The computer network thingie is starting to re-activate! The lights are flickering back on!"
Rudy tried to tone out Snap's frantic voice. His friends were still, of course, his main priority, but in his current state-of-mind and disorientation, his main desire was just to close his eyes and forget about the world. There was a crushing, pressuring pain from his abdomen and it was making it difficult to breathe.
He wasn't disturbed much after he slipped out of consciousness. Some time later, he was positive he heard a familiar female voice with a hip-sounding lisp, and then of course, many loud collisions and explosions. But impotent he was in his current state, and so he was oblivious to all that was going on.