Reviews :
twistee the dark : Bahahaha cut to Gideon at Game Over- "PARKOR" -The Office is probably one of my favorite shows to ever exist, I appreciate you referencing it, I laughed really hard lol
Snake577 : Yep. Truly only the beginning...
Burgie : Yeah the whole unit, kingdom, all games included are rocked by this, it's a whole grieving process. Which sucks cause I have to write it, I hate getting all up in my feelings sometimes lol
Song Listened To :
Blind ft. Young Brother by Built By Titan
*Chapter 149*
"Enough, enough," Vanellope whimpered through giggling as Ralph hummed a cute, deep noise from the back of his throat. With his face nuzzled into the nook of Vanellope's neck, his hands and arms inched about her waist as she desperately did what she could to open their front door. Finally unlatching it, she bounced with a few hops of her glitching powers, escaped Ralph's grippy hands and watched as he quickly sealed the two into their dark home. Vanellope began to peel her thick coat off, she rummaged the pockets so to retrieve her phone, "Now I feel like we got a small taste of what Turbo and Berri see, whenever they stay in his loft. That view was incredible."
"It was really nice, but... Whew, the world started to fisheye. I'm definitely happy with my bricks and my mud, the Niceland building is tall enough for me," Ralph grumbled as he rubbed the back of his head, the two meandered in their foyer, though before Ralph could wrangle Vanellope into another swing of a hug, the promise of a wonderful night of love making, the perfect conclusion to Valentine's Day, Vanellope tabbed her phone to life and furrowed her brow in a prickle of curious confusion.
"Gideon called me," Vanellope mused in nonchalance, she tabbed to his contact information, tucked the phone to her ear and allowed the two to fall silent in preparation for her and Gideon to carry on a conversation, though just as they settled in the first ring, Gideon's phone loudly began to chime from down the hallway. Vanellope sharply furrowed her eyebrows, donned a cute little smirk of further confusion and began to meander down the corridor to Gideon's bedroom. She hung up the call and sweetly carried on, "Oh, he's home? Giddy, are you here?"
"I don't think this would be a good thing, babe," Ralph grumbled with caution as he moved into the kitchen and flicked the light on, he squinted and took note of the little piece of paper by Vanellope's minty-swirled little notepad, "Turning in early on Valentine's Day? Not lookin' too good."
Ralph scoffed a small laugh of impending apology for his son and wondered if Gideon was likely having issues with Kepa and needed a shoulder. Although he had had plans to spend the rest of this sparkling night with Vanellope, he was happy to switch gears and hopefully give his son some relationship advice in the process. He merely glossed the note before double-taking on it, the discovery of Gideon's sloppy sign-off on the bottom, he grappled the note and re-read it three times over again before it hit his brain like a kill-switch of electricity that was desperate to explode.
"Uh, Vanellope," Ralph grunted nervously as Vanellope confusedly began to come back down the hallway.
"He's not here, but his phone is," Vanellope mused in soft concern, too dainty for the information Ralph now had.
"Vanellope, something's wrong," Ralph pressed with fervor that was beginning to rise to panic, though as Vanellope came into the kitchen, she nervously snatched the note in Ralph's hand.
"Sorry mom and dad, I tried. Stay tuned, I might actually win this thing," Vanellope muttered as her pupils began to tighten in full, blistered panic, she shook her head and huffed the final words written, "I love you. Gideon."
"Win this thing," Ralph repeated in a huff of whispered terror, Vanellope clutched her chest and sucked in a long, silent breath of trembling panic that began to hit her coding.
"The hell does that mean, what is he talking about?" Vanellope scrambled for his phone and, with hands and fingers that began to tremble, she cued for Tessa's number. The call rolled to voicemail, to which she urgently retried, and with this second call, Tessa picked up in a fluster, "Baby, hey, look. I'm sorry, I know it's Valentine's Day and I know you and Zed are probably busy, but there's an emergency. Gideon's phone is here, he left us a note, please tell me you know where he is."
"What? No, I haven't talked to him in almost two weeks," Tessa rushed nervously, "He left a note? What's going on?"
"He said, sorry mom and dad, I tried. Stay tuned, I might actually win this thing," Vanellope rushed as her breathing began to become erratic, she grit her teeth and peered up to Ralph in full terror that was becoming of her, "Wh-what does that mean, what is he talking about? Are you SURE you don't know where he is?"
"I'm calling Lash," Zed's voice could be heard, though with a firm flicker, Tessa's coding suddenly erupted into Ralph's and Vanellope's foyer, a forced-task the higher-ups were capable of due to having control of the grid, a code room ability only used in instances of emergencies where fast-travel was needed.
"Lemme see," Tessa rushed nervously; although decent, it was clear by the toss of comfortable clothes Tessa had slapped on that this romantic night was about to be shattered Arcade-wide. Tessa gripped the note as Vanellope covered her mouth and grimaced a soft cry, to which Tessa's nervous, mumbly voice repeated his note three or four times, out loud, to herself, "Win this thing... Zed checked, he's not in the game, Sugar Rush has a record of him leaving one hour ago."
"We have to find him," Vanellope pleaded, she shook her head and gestured back to his bedroom, "He doesn't have his phone on him, we need to see if Lash has a record of him."
"Lemme call Zed," Tessa rushed as Ralph firmly rubbed his face in full, rising agitation, he began to anxiously pace about the kitchen in a distanced way, as if the sheer-work up was something no one here was prepared for, the detrimental information melting into the group was due to being too much for anyone to bear. Tessa cued a call with Zed and brushed her messy hair out of her face, she tidied herself a little bit more, now that she had a moment of physical stillness. Zed picked up, to which she rushed a trembling, breathy question into her phone, "What'd Lash say? Is Gideon in Turbotime?"
"No, Lash has record of Gideon leaving the game about an hour and a half ago, Kepa's still in the game. Everyone palace side is here, except Gideon, and the band obviously," Zed rushed in a spike of terror that was now rippling through Turbotime's code room, "Lash and I are on our way to you, give us a second, Lash is gunna teleport us."
"Across games?" Tessa staggered in hot worry, though everyone erupted into startled jumps as Lash and Zed's flash of hot, confused coding suddenly jolted into Ralph's and Vanellope's dim foyer.
"Holy shit, haven't game-jumped in a long time," Lash barked as he shook his head in discombobulated shock, he coughed a little and stiffened as him and Zed got their bearings and pressed into the kitchen. Lash glossed his eyes from Ralph, across the way, to Vanellope and Tessa stood tight to each other in their illuminated kitchen, the dreaded note in Tessa's trembling hands. Lash reached for her, "Lemme see."
"What do we do, what do we do?!" Vanellope began to cry as she held the sides of her head, her panicked gaze stabbed into Tessa's and Zed's in a swing of terrified confusion as Tessa shakily sighed and hugged her arm about her mother's lower back.
"Win this thing," Lash repeated in trembling dread, his eyes dipped to the absence of color as him and Tessa held gazes in darkened terror, "There's nothing else he could be talking about except Game Over, what other 'thing' is there to win and apologize for?"
Vanellope huffed a loud noise of grief that now began to consume her, she covered her face and took a firm step away as Ralph was now nearly out of the room due to not knowing even how to begin swallowing the information being lofted their way.
"Can we stop him? How do we know he actually left?" Tessa rapid-fire began to deliver the hard-hitting questions, even though the group was now due to crumpling with dreaded realization, "No one but you and Berri know where the wifi router is, how the hell does one just GET an application to Game Over?"
"I gave him that alignment, we were connected for seconds," Lash muttered through his teeth as he looked off, his eyes dart about in the swell of panic in the room, "He had to have snipped that information from me, without me knowing. Game Over applications aren't easy to get, someone would've had to have gifted it to him. You can't apply at the Arena, it's all about who you know."
"WHO does he know? Who am I murdering tonight?" Ralph suddenly bellowed, causing everyone to jump clear to the ceiling. Ralph's eyes were wet, he clenched his fists in white-knuckled, full-fledged anger he hardly ever put on genuine display, he glowered the group down and shook his head as he stared hard into Lash's grey eyes, "Get us to the router... If he's taking the train to it and meandering his way through the walls, surely we can beat him there."
"T-Teleport there?" Lash staggered in a whimper of concern as he held out his hands a little and dart his gaze between Tessa's and Zed's.
"PLEASE," Vanellope begged through her tears as she pressed closer, to which Lash inhaled a tight breath through his nose and gestured for everyone to stand close.
"Your teleportation powers works to places you've already been?" Tessa worried in the spike of emotion now caving in about her, as everyone stood closer, Lash peered his scared eyes tight to hers and shook his head.
"No, that's Turbo, he has time-warp teleportation powers only to places he's been," Lash rushed as he cued his incredible User coding and prepared for the jump of a lifetime, "I've never leaped clear across game stations before, the jump across Arcadia was scary enough."
"You can do it, we're all capable of fueling your coding along the way," Zed assured as he allowed his palms to come to life with his silver coding, and with the pop of color that included Ralph's and Vanellope's electric purple into the mix, Lash sucked in a shaky breath and squeezed his eyes shut in the hair-raising shoot of electricity he crowned Sugar Rush with.
"Hold on tight," Lash whimpered, and with every single last ounce of coded, User-information to his name, he stiffened his core, held his breath, sourced the information of the router's outlet hub and did everything in his coded being to usher all five beings clear across creation, to a point on the grid that the group was wildly unsafe, a point of escape that he hadn't been to in a very long time.
With the crackled, ear-shattering eruption of thunderous coding that suddenly laid waste to the outlet's grid coding, the group stumbled on their feet, upon arrival, and allowed the boosted waves of electricity to course through the five for a moment. As every last pixel shot into each being, one by one, rapid fire pellets of heat, collective consciousness kissed them to life, once and for all. Lash coughed a hard wheeze, bent his knees a little, held his forehead and now heavily panted as the energy was enough to deplete him for the next month. His User powers coursed through his skin like lightning bolts as everyone released hands and did what they could gain back a feeling that even remotely resembled normality. As the five nervously looked about, the harsh reality of the darkened, scary hub of the empty wifi router's outlet only added to the stark, terrifying reality of this situation, and it was here did Vanellope's tears turn into begging, whimpering wails of desperation, a mother's worst nightmare coming to life.
"C-Can you tell if he was here? Did we beat him here?" Vanellope loudly begged, Tessa tenderly gripped Vanellope's shoulder and quietly shushed her for the sole fact that they were now so incredibly far from home, and if there were souls lurking here, being loud and proud, right in the mouth of the dreaded internet, wasn't wise whatsoever.
"I-I don't know, lemme see if I can read this grid," Lash staggered with the sheer-wipe of power now leaving his body.
Lash sucked in a breath and felt that a gentle cooldown would get him back to where he needed to be, to transport everyone back home, he knelt down and pressed his hand to the ground, the black, glassy, gorgeous tiles this vastly updated outlet harbored. With a push of his User coding into the grid, one that splayed in the gentle show of his coral-colored coding, Lash was able to bring up whatever coded information this grid had to offer, whatever beings had come and gone. Although Lash felt relieved to only see one set of bare footprints show up, due to the fact that no one that didn't belong in Litwak's was coming and going, the one set of footprints seen leaving was the one set he was begging didn't come up. Big, familiar, bare footprints pressed all the way to the router's beam of green light, the beacon of full, entire escape, edging on a death sentence to so much as consider traipsing into the wild chaos that was the internet, Gideon's name came up next to his footprints, solidifying the harrowing notion that he was, indeed, gone.
Vanellope read her baby's full name on the ground, her terrified eyes trailed his footprints leaving, she grappled the sides of her head and grimaced a tight expression of unadulterated pain, the final hit to her heart. Tessa covered her mouth with both of her trembling hands as Vanellope suddenly uttered the loudest, heart-wrenching cry only a mother experiencing loss could ever utter. The sound pierced the walls in a bounce of harrowing detriment, Vanellope barely fell to her knees before she clumsily returned to a stand and began to glitch-hop towards the beckoning entrance of the internet, the glowing beacon of a haunting green. Ralph scoffed a noise of terror and urgently began to glitch-hop after her, and though he was successful in wrangling her out of her own messy coding and holding her back from diving face-first into the internet, to rescue Gideon, she loudly struggled against Ralph's sturdy, unwavering grip.
Tessa's eyes laid on the visual before her, a visual paired with deafening, harrowing cries from her mother, tears freely spilled down her face as she squeezed her eyes shut and understood, from here on out, life was now due to being so impossibly beyond her, a new level of difficult she wasn't even aware was achievable. Through all the things the palace had gone through, the colossal amount of loss, trauma, grid moves and unplugs, Tessa felt a cold wash come through the whole entirety of her kingdom, her family, every branch that extended from it. The hit of molten regret that promised her that no one would ever recover from this exponential loss, a notion so bordering death that remaining hopeful for Gideon's success and return wasn't something they could even emotionally afford. Tessa squeezed her eyes shut and allowed the echoing, haunting cries of her mother to pierce her heart straight through, the pain the palace was now viciously face to face with was equally paired with the nasty grin of total remorse. The millions of things that could've been done to prevent all of this erupted from the screams Vanellope's voice was saturated in, and it was in this moment did the whole world sit still.
