Reviews :
Burgie : Yyyyyes indeed. Here'goes.
Songs Listened To :
Hyperion by Celldweller
BEWM by Slushii & Tokyo Machine
TRIGGER WARNING : This chapter has descriptive gore
A/N : Due to the sheer length and importance of this chapter, my next upload will be this Friday, Feb. 11th :) I've also been uploading the Wrecking Limits Saga Webcomic to my Twitter, so do be sure to check that out! I've decided to change it up, and I will be uploading new pages now every Tuesday and Wednesday, instead of the Fri/Sat schedule I had. I'd like my weekends to be free for me to not use my brain lmao so just know the schedule changed a little. New uploads will be more frequent during my summer and winter breaks, with likely 3-4 pages a week, as opposed to 2. But until then, without further ado,
Enjoy the show...
*Chapter 152*
The whole room suddenly shook, a beam of brighter light stabbed through Gideon's shut eyelids in a reveal of vulnerability. Gideon sucked in a tight gasp and jolted awake with a lurch of a clumsy sit, his tired eyes barely had the chance to even gather the information being tossed at his brain, though the second he remembered just where he was, just what was happening, he heavily panted through his nose in a limb-scrambling toss of true, terrified dread the second his hazy stab of delirious eye contact was met with the vast expansion of Game Over's arena, now suddenly and viciously available to him. Gideon urgently got to his feet, ripped his coat off, tossed it to his cot and firmly remembered Mura's words. He was well aware his cell was now swiftly considered a coffin, he did everything he could to scuff out onto the Arena's soft, loose dirt, though, in doing so, he urgently looked about in full preparation to slay the first thing that moved. Adrenaline pumping, senses heightened, Gideon sucked in a nervous breath and suddenly heard the whole crowd roar with riled excitement.
Desperate to not get caught up in the mess of being suddenly idolized, he firmly looked about and knew up until his arm was raised in true victory, he had absolutely no reason to celebrate any of the little wins in between. He wanted to allow the crowds screams to fuel him, the fact that there were hovering cameras on drones nearly everywhere, he dry-panted and clenched his fists in the mind-boggling toss of having to wake up in this entire split second of adrenaline-pumping terror, this was his one and only shot to prove his worth to the whole world. He heaved a long, trembling sigh through his nose and desperately tried to center himself in the throw of beaming lights, thousands of screaming fans, the hum of cameras nearby, he long-blinked and diligently allowed his imagination to drown out the noise so he could focus on the dreaded, cold-hearted tasks at hand. With the dull of distractions from his brain, his eyes scoured the land for threats, he skillfully turned in a few circles and looked all about him. The Arena's main floor was clearly manipulatable, though for now, it was a lay of loose dirt coupled with a thin layer of fog that hovered a few feet from the ground, making it impossible to see further than fifty feet.
Gideon flinched and could hear an echo of scuffles happening, the toss of fire suddenly beamed to his left, he figured other individuals were fighting, what seemingly could be the potential to have forty-nine kills all depended on the status of whatever tier of fighters Gideon was in, on whether or not Gideon dove in and was first to slaughter everyone before any other gamer had the chance. His mind was now boggled at the idea of a semi-free for all, the idea that he had to now look out for multiple opponents freaked him out, though before he could glitch-hop to the nearest scuffle of urgent cries, so to diligently make this as quick of a game as possible, he sharply flinched in whole shock as a laser-precise rocket of glowing, toxic goo cut mere inches from his face. Gideon gasped, took a few steps back, turned to source the culprit and cued his coding, so to glitch-hop about and make his opponent's life hell, though as his eyes landed on this individual, running full-speed at him, both beings scuffed to a world-altering halt, full dread that suddenly made the whole world stop dead in its tracks. Gideon scoffed a shaky noise and shook his head, and though he kept his ears out for the potential for other threats, nearby, he uttered words out to the atmosphere in full, unadulterated dread.
"Chase, the hell are you doing here!?" Gideon cried, he grit his teeth and clenched his fists harder than he ever had in his life. He felt fully enraged and frustrated over the fact that he had come here to forget everyone he left behind in Litwak's, though the fact that Chase was the first person he was running into had every single last loving memory of Sugar Rush, of Kepa, the lighthouse, the lazy days at Flint's, everything hit Gideon between the eyes. He grit his teeth harder and now angrily screamed at Chase from the two dozen foot gap, "You KNOW how this ends! You KNOW the consequences!"
"Yeah, I know," Chase called as he began to step closer with a demeanor of confusion, though it was clear that he was en-route to sticking to his own guns, he gave Gideon an apologetic look of harrowing dread and unfurled his terrifying claws, all scarily dripping with the poisonous, gooey spray he proudly boasted, "Sorry it has to end like this, Gideon..."
"Me too," Gideon quipped meanly, sadly, he squeezed his eyes shut for a second before glueing his predatory gaze tight to Chase's, a menacing show of concluded thoughts, he glowered him down and uttered final words to his childhood best friend, "You'll be missed."
Chase snarled in full yell of rage, harrowing emotions both boys had so diligently suppressed during their tame, lazy hang outs, true depths of sorrow and anger no one truly understood the colossal size of, until now. Chase lunged forward and, with a few swipes of his scary claws, Gideon was lofted a nasty spray of hot poison. Gideon skillfully ducked out of it, due to his glitching abilities, and though he dodged the first bullet, Chase swung around with another healthy loft of toxic goo that now was due to burning Gideon's eyes, simply due to the intense fumes. Gideon tucked in a clumsy roll to the ground, got to his feet, squinted through the burning sensation and caught in time to see Chase taken a running lunge of a high leap into the air, hands pointed straight for Gideon's point on the grid, and though such a scene was being played out for Gideon's watery eyes, he raised his eyebrows and felt his world roll to a halt the second a very loving, playful memory kissed the back of his brain in the form of cloaking the haze of what was really happening before him. Sugar Rush was filled with sunshine, Novus's huge, floppy tail and wings bound about, Chase and Gideon excitedly stood near the palace wall all colorfully splayed with Gideon's innocent, lovely artwork, it was here did Gideon suck in a breath and feel the world stop as the memory played out for him, rapid-fire.
"Snow," Chase stated without a single form of hesitation. He lulled his bigger eyes closed and reopened them with a twinkle of rising wonder, "I've never experienced weather any colder than seventy degrees, please make it snow."
Gideon lifted an eyebrow and caught eyes with Novus with a cocky little smile of delight, to which he inhaled a deep breath, expanded his broadening chest and took a cautious step back. With a solid, thick exhale through his nose, the peak of his thick, hefty clavicles that rose through his skin, Gideon lulled his eyes closed and allowed his incredible, raw ability so easily sway in his favor. With the rush and surge of a beautiful display of Ralph's and Vanellope's electric purple coding, Gideon managed to allow his, Chase's and Novus's direct surroundings to bend to his liking, to be whisked away into his imagination, and with said fifty-foot radius of an alternate environment, the wind whipped around them with frozen licks of fluffy snow. Gideon flinched a little as flutters of lovely snowflakes began to gather all in his hair, on his long eye lashes, to which Novus's fluffy mane began to frost as well, Chase gaped in unadulterated exhilaration and threw his hands up in a pump of fists.
"Gideon this is the coolest thing EVER!" Chase hollered as all three boys eagerly bound out into the fluffy, lovely snowy scenery that was Gideon's once sunny, grassy backyard.
"Snowball fight!" Gideon urged loudly, and as Chase's easy, snake-like slithering, on all fours, caught Gideon by surprise, Chase dove head first into a nearby snow mound and cutely erupted from the top of it, utilizing his incredible jumping powers. With such an eruption, he easily twirled mid air and pelted Gideon with a rapid-fire pelt of three snow balls, to which Gideon grunted and wobbled on his feet, "Hey! I wasn't ready!"
"Y'snooze y'lose!" Chase hollered, to which Gideon grappled the hugest snowball he could and rocketed it Chase's way, ultimately hitting him mid air and sending him into a nearby, fluffy snow mound.
"Y'should come back in the winter, Chase, it snows for two months straight on palace grounds!" Gideon called excitedly, to which Chase bobbed a nod and hobbled a little on his feet.
"Bet!" Chase urged with a grin, though before Chase bound up into the air, once more, utilizing his incredible jumping powers.
"Jello, jello!" Novus urgently called from across the small stretch, having previously flopped into the snow and rolled all in it, so to truly feel the cold of it all; it was here did Gideon grin in eager delight and watch as Chase reached his maximum height of well over forty feet, midair.
Just as Gideon felt the knee-jerk reaction to cushion Chase's high loft into the air with the mound of jello he had previously deployed as a child, a playful bound of boyish games they had once found themselves in, Gideon's brain swiftly came back to the harsh, cold reality diving right for him. The snow faded, the sunshine dribbled to black, the vision of Chase's grin of full hatred came rocketing at him, and in the swipe to fight for his own life, and then some, Gideon understood jello wasn't the thing to fall back on this time. Due to coming into contact with it not twelve hours prior, Gideon stiffened, sourced every last ounce of his manifestation powers and cued his electric purple coding to pool a bottomless pit of lava for Chase's figure to sag into. Within the split seconds of the sudden pop of light and heat to hit both boy's brains, Gideon choked a startled cry of a noise, scuffled backward and watched in horror as Chase's heavy body collided with the unforgiving pool of lava, a bright show of an eruption of fire, his childhood best friend suddenly obliterated into a hiss of steam and smoke right before his eyes, his very own doing. The last thing heard from Chase's figure was the screams of agony that pierced Gideon straight through, a warbled cry of full, terrified desperation, one of guilt and entire remorse, Chase was immediately deleted into an explosion of bloody pixels that popped upwards from the pool of lava that came from Gideon's being.
Gideon grimaced and loudly uttered heavy, panting cries out to the traumatizing sight he had just endured. He shook, he clenched his fists and felt his brain go numb at the sudden reality before him. He didn't come to Game Over prepared to kill anyone he knew, his heart raced in the full idea that there truly was no looking back, from this point, and every kill from this standpoint was due to being a total cake walk. Tears and sweat dripped from Gideon's face as his loud, raspy, crying panting continued on, his retinas began to burn as he glared down the pit of lava he had just lost one of his best friends to, and though Gideon knew this was the name of the game, he squeezed his eyes shut in gulping, panting desperation and felt his hardened heart blacken from this final kick he needed. A final kick of realization that this was only the beginning, though simply was the only thing needed to be deemed a murderer. Allowing his emotions to turn off, allowing the override of numbness to carry him through this mess, he stiffened his upper lip, glowered his wet, crazed, golden eyes in a scan of his surroundings for his next victim. Desperate to just get this mess over with, his arms crawled with the permanent kiss of glowing circuitry, as if the adrenaline in his body was adamant about carrying through, no downswings, no stopping this train.
Gideon cued for Nox's invisibility ability and allowed his whole being to vanish. Eager to take a tiny break and allow for at least a moment of a breath he now could afford to catch, he skulked away from the pit of lava and didn't dare look back. He seethed through his nose in panting, riled aggression, tight pupils and eagle-eye determination to continue sourcing any single last thing that moved, the only visible sign of his being was the push his bigger, scarier body made through the veil of fog that wafted behind him. The arena echoed in the crowd's screams, alongside a handful of other opponents he could hear off in the distance. He sourced the noise and quickly began to rush in the direction of any sign of life, though upon stepping through the loose dirt, he wobbled on his feet, collapsed to his knees and took note that the arena was changing. He scoffed a loud noise of confusion as huge beams of maze-like walls began to rise, the dirt spilled from the tops like a hiss of sand that helped aid the fog in the ability to properly see. Alongside the walls that suddenly thud into place, nearly thirty feet high, tightly squeezed together in the form of a never-ending, ever-winding maze, Gideon felt his skin leap clear off of his bones the second he saw a creature suddenly slither from the fog, directly at him, at lightning speed.
Due to the scare, his invisibility powers suddenly ceased, he glitched in a bounce about the walls as another one of his opponents feverishly began to follow him in skillful climbs up these walls. Due to being centipede like, this scary gamer had huge, incredible spines all along it's brown, glossy back, a ten-foot long beast with hundreds of centipede like feet that aided this creature's movement in agility far beyond Gideon's skill. Gideon heavily panted and continued to scramble about in bounces of glitch-hopping, the two wove deeper into the massive maze that became of them, though just as Gideon was about to bounce about a corner, mid-coding, his opponent whipped the last half of its body at Gideon, clipping Gideon at the legs and causing him to spill to the dirt far below where they were, previously climbing about the higher tops of the cascading walls. Slippery with loose dirt and sand, Gideon's crazed, terrified eyes peered up in time to see this creature slithering like a snake at lightning-speed for Gideon, it nearly hovered on the loose dirt, as if to be walking on water. Beady, glowing red eyes and a huge mouth of fangs that opened wider and wider the closer it got, Gideon scrambled in a backwards scoot on his rear and hands before throwing his arm out in a panicked throw of the blistered, molten shards of hardened coding he was eager to use as a last resort in all of these fights. In the split seconds of feeling certain said throw of molten glass would pierce this beast through, with hardly any room to spare, Gideon flinched as this creature dodged his lightning-stab of an attempted and took a leaping dive for Gideon, once more.
Gideon uttered a hard, heaving yell of terror and felt somehow surprised he was able to keep his adrenaline up for as long as he was. He glitch-hopped in a messy bounce underneath the mass of fangs, spines and legs that came rocketing at him, though in the toss, this creature's tail flipped in a swipe of keeping heat-sourced crosshairs on Gideon, and in the throw around, Gideon was swiped by the foot-long spines, thus tearing up his upper arms. Gideon cried in agony and fell to the ground, a healthy amount of blood began to spill out of his right arm and immediately cake with the mess of dirt and sand he had crashed down into, and though Gideon felt his coding roll back and forth in a toss of searing pain, he bugged his eyes and felt realization hit him. His coding morphed in a blob of many glitch cubes as he suddenly was kissed with new gamer abilities. Due to his coding in a roll of fight-or-flight, as well as how readily accessible it all was, his manifestation coding did everything it could to grapple to new information, to urge Gideon to work smarter and not harder, it was here did Gideon scramble to his feet and understand just how he was going to win this battle of wits. In a high-speed fight of having zero time to contemplate and gather gumption of just which objects to manifest, Gideon glared down this creature in a hit of understanding that the answer was right within his sights. Whatever his opponent wielded was equally their strength and weakness, every single last life lesson of having to constantly dissect people for their intentions now boiled to this one instance of gained abilities he was well versed in. Gideon sucked in a breath and allowed the roll of his heightened manifestation coding to continue on, unabated, no rests, no time to even blink.
Gideon inhaled a few heavy deep breaths, quick heaves of his sculpted chest, he stood with the shake and clench of his fists and arms. This gamer slithered about in a turn-around of snarling desperation to end Gideon's life for good, though as it came near, Gideon allowed it's coding to overtake his own being, adding to his own stream of powers. With ease, Gideon huffed a hot breath through his nose and manifested this creature's same exact spines to delicately line the backsides of his arms, down his own spine, jut from his elbow bones and unfurled in foot-long, black, razor-sharp weapons. Gideon grit his teeth through a raspy war cry, reeled both arms back and swung with every single last ounce of wrecking power to his name. With the hit of said spines, along his wrists and arms, to this creature's face, Gideon collided said spines directly through the side of this beasts's temples and thrashed it down to the ground with the pin of it's skull fully wrecked into the crumbling earth below. It's body aggressively thud to the ground, and as Gideon grunted to pull his new spines from this gamer's now totally crunched skull, Gideon scoffed a trembling noise that bordered a cackle. Gideon scuffled his feet backwards and heavily panted in loud rasps and gasps for air. Without missing a beat, Gideon cheekily manifested himself a water bottle, tossed his head back, chugged the entirety of it and caught eyes with a few of the hovering drone cameras that filmed the whole thing. The crowd went entirely nuts as the walls slowly began to lower back into the ground, Gideon knew loitering and allowing the crowd to fuel him wasn't wise, though he allowed himself a moment of fame he knew he deserved all along.
Gideon gasped in menacing, smiling panting as he held the empty water bottle up and disintegrated it with the kiss of heat he knew how to deliver from his fingertips. He eyed the crowd in a swing of full, rolling, cocky delight and understood he was now well on his way to winning with the kind of knowledge he had just obtained. He allowed the black spines to sag back into his figure, his coding sung with the seemingly-permanent adrenaline rush he was sapped in, as if his manifestation coding was built for this kind of high-risk, high-rush situations. He cockily sagged back on his feet, looked about and strangely felt a swing of camaraderie in this arena, as if he was well aware this was his new home and he was due to enjoying the perks of it all, shortly. He muttered a notion about how he was due to winning, how everyone here was entirely doomed, at his hand. He quickly began to source the next challenge, eager to see just what kind of power they were dealing with so he could copy-paste it to his coding and turn their own strength into their weaknesses. Gideon knew this tournament was a one-and-done kind of thing, no stopping was to come until he was crowned, he grit his teeth and pressed on with almost playful annoyance, as if this was a simple morning task he had to get out of the way before he could relax and bask in what he knew was rightfully his.
As the tournament went on, as kills got easier and easier, Gideon found that a lot of the times, he didn't need to resort to using any one gamer's abilities against them, often times just the few abilities he garnered along the way were enough to do the trick. The easy swipes of his wrecking abilities, the bounce of glitching agility his coding continued to gift him on full-speed adrenaline, all topped with the pleas for mercy from his victims, upon Gideon's ruthless, final blows, he felt maniacal with the way his grin only continued to broaden. Though having a disturbing amount of fun, Gideon understood that the narrower the competition got, the higher the difficulty setting even the whole arena understood. Often times, Gideon would move on from one kill to the next feeling as if he was the one progressing the fastest, as if the game was now operating around him due to just how quickly he was able to take down these beasts of opponents of all shapes and sizes. Although no easy task, Gideon was eternally grateful to be paired with lightning-quick wit and tact, it was something he now understood not everyone came into this game with. As if Gideon was the only one to strictly leave his morals at the door, whilst everyone else allowed process of elimination and leveled judgement to be left in the way of allowing panic and anxiety to override it, it left Gideon feeling already victorious. The announcers continued to present the idea of certain bunkers being opened and closed, different opponents were thrown into the mix whilst others were called back, though not once did Gideon ever hear his name cued for said call-backs due to the progression of tier-style fighting. Nowhere in his mind did he feel a shred of doubt, he recalled the judges eyes all alive with surprise when he threatened that he'd be winning this thing. He knew no other option, he knew no other notion besides future sleeps to come.
Though not knowing where the end of this all was, likely until he was face to face with the last, final other individual in this mess, whoever that would shake out to be, he could sense it nearing due to the lack of noise in the foggy arena. The only thing that was constant was the roar of the crowd, the buzz of more and more drones that collected to wherever the lasting action was, the heart-thumping idea that he was actually enduring was the only thing keeping Gideon going, in this. Shirt torn off, pants ripped at the ankles, blood splayed his chest and right arm, his whole body was battered with nasty bruises, his nose bled in a drip down his strong jaw and clavicles, though he looked to be unfazed by it all. His incredible, vivid circuitry remained glued to the whole of his hands and arms in a readied state for whatever was due to being thrown his way, though the second he felt as if he was, indeed, ready, another opponent lunged out of the fog, seemingly out of nowhere. Although he dodged said advance with the blip of his coding, he felt his veins wiggle at the sound of a big-cat scream, the whip of a long, black, feline tail that he only barely caught in his peripheral as he bounced away, he whirled around and nervously peered to his opponent in heart-thumping dread.
This feline looked very similar to Kepa, in stature. She had nearly vanta-black fur and equally as sharp, scary grey eyes. She skid on her two pawed feet, laid a nasty, terrifying snarl into Gideon's skin and was prepared to take another dive for Gideon's figure, though before Gideon had time to think, she angrily hissed a scary, snarling cat hiss paired with a spill of nasty grey fog that spilled from her figure. Such a sting of fog that had Gideon wildly flinching in stunned terror, the idea that whatever she just emit into the air had temporarily blinded him. Now panicking, Gideon understood that whatever power she was using wasn't something Gideon could grapple onto unless he got ahold of her physical being, and on top of all of this, he was now blind and wasn't able to source her fast enough. In a swipe of panic, he sent his coding down to the soles of his feet and did everything he could to allow his coding to act as a secondary pair of eyes, though as he collected sighted information of the grid about him, he realized his new feline friend wasn't on the grid. In the split second idea that she was likely mid-lunge in a dive for Gideon's jugular, Gideon uttered a cry of terror and was en-route to diving out of the way, whatever direction he deemed necessary, though in the action of both beings, they collided into one another, and Gideon lost coded connection with the grid.
The two scuffled, Gideon grit his teeth and kicked both legs to now get his opponent off of him. Successful, due to his wrecking force, she screamed in agony as it was clear he had likely broken her ribs, obvious alongside the sound of the crunch. Gideon urgently scrambled to his hands and knees and allowed his coding to grip the ground. He could feel some form of liquid leaving his eyes, he was praying it wasn't blood, though he had an inkling that it was just tears, his body's desperate attempt to rid his eyes of the nasty chemical she had sprayed into the air, as if said spray was filled with microscopic barbs that hooked into the tender flesh of his eyes. His purple coding sourced where she landed, she urgently screamed a world of crying obscenities to Gideon as she managed to get to her feet, though it was here did Gideon urgently source every last ounce of cat-knowledge he had. Not wanting to think of Kepa, or anything related to her in this time, he grit his teeth and knew that this cat's strength was clearly eyesight in the dark and agility, thus her ability to blind her opponent and use a strength against others. Gideon felt the weight of this tournament, all his injuries, everything in between began to catch up to him, once and for all, and though he had the overwhelming urge to vomit and lay defeated in it, he grunted a noise of anguish and allowed his coding to suddenly glow brighter than ever before, engulfing him in the white-haze of electric purple.
Sourcing every last ounce of last resorts inside of him, he could feel himself reaching for his deepest, inner core, the one canine-like being that was held tight to his name, the one imaginary soul that never, without a single doubt, would ever abandon him. The two locked hands in a coded union, and before Gideon could question anything, he allowed his being to erupt into a growing, heightened, terrifying visual of Finch's blackened, void-like form. Stood towering over his cute though previously scary feline opponent, Gideon's fox representative coding his soul was made of opened in a harrowing bellow of a roar, huge fangs that dripped in black, toxic goo, all it took was one lunge of his opponent and one wrecking-swipe to simply end it. With a swipe to the ground and a dive into the dirt, fangs and mouth first, Gideon's temporary fox-figure chomped down into his opponent's center, thus ending her for good. Due to the dive into the ground, like foxes do, Gideon's long tail and void-like figure collapsed into the dirt on his hands and knees as his opponent immediately blipped into a bloody deletion of pixels, once and for all. Gideon released himself from Finch's fervor and popped back into his normal existence, he collapsed on his hands and knees and urgently began to cough in heavy, gasping pants of dry heaves as his whole body shook from the imploding trauma. He squinted as an overflow of tears escaped him. Desperately dehydrated, he shook and now outwardly begged for the end, he begged for his final opponent, his bloody hands shook as his ears prickled to the tune of his own wish being granted.
"Ladies and gentleman, we have ourselves the final two," The arena echoed with the announcer's fervor, the crowd went absolutely wild, though as Gideon gasped for air and lifted his head to see just who he'd be dealing with, he clumsily got to his feet and watched as the arena's fog skillfully and dutifully lifted, revealing the sheer, colossal girth of it all.
"A Mr. Gideon Fox Von Schweetz," The announcer thematically droned, the crowd went absolutely bonkers.
Gideon clumsily got to his feet, he felt as if his spine was about to materialize to goo, his arms were a bloodied mess, his bare, sweaty chest heaved as he desperately did what he could to continue to catch his breath, though as his now blurry eyesight drew across the illuminated span of gameplay grid, he felt his pupils tighten at the raw sight his mildly damaged retinas regretfully graced his brain with. The announcer cackled as the crowd screamed and cheered, hisses of steam canons went off in the celebration of narrowing down just who would win this beast, though as the words rolled in a bouncing echo off of the cold, hundred-foot high arena walls, Gideon gently shook his head and felt his insides squeeze into a permanent clench.
"Wreck-It Ralph!" The announcer concluded, and as Gideon peered headlong into the perfect, duplicated, visual representation of his father, Gideon scoffed a sarcastic laugh and felt more tears sting his burning eyes, as if this final boss wasn't even close to what he imagined he'd be faced with; with this hit of dreaded realization, Gideon whirled around and felt the veins in his temples bulge.
"Is THIS why I was accepted?" Gideon hoarsely shouted as he clenched his trembling fists, "To TAUNT me by defeating my own father?!"
"Defeat me?" Ralph barked with a sarcastic laugh, Gideon felt his heart sting with each thud, he whirled around and peered to this other-arcade Ralph. Although this wasn't the Ralph he knew and loved, it was scary that there were unnumbered duplicates of him about the world, traipsing the internet, near-exact copies. The only difference Gideon's father had was the swapped code, the swathe of children, the unique life cultivated that set every other gamer apart. Gideon grit his teeth and glowered Ralph down, he looked entirely unscathed, as if getting to this point was a cake walk, where as Gideon, on the other hand, was a bloodied mess. Ralph got within a dozen feet of Gideon and put his hands on his hips, even his overalls looked to be just the right amount of tattered, no more and no less, "Interesting to know some Ralph, out there, is out there having a world of code-swapping, baby-having, domestic bliss of a life. Only to have his own son turn on it all."
"You don't fucking know me," Gideon growled, the tendons in his neck stiffened, every single last sorrow and billow of rage inside of him now felt as if this twisted, tasty reality of telling off his own father, was the thing to finally take him down. He glowered Ralph down and was well aware he was running into all sorts of weaknesses, throughout this whole thing, nearly all of which were emotional. Ralph gave Gideon a mean smile, this Ralph was hardened, glowering, cold, a Ralph that Gideon had no connection to, and though Gideon was well aware this would be the hardest thing he'd ever done, he was at least grateful the Ralph before him wasn't a bumbling ball of warm bear hugs and easy, honey-brown eye contact. Gideon shook his head and continued to heavily pant, he glowered Ralph down and grit his teeth, "None of you guys know me... No one does."
"After tonight, no one will even remember you," Ralph's menacing eye contact, though as he lifted his fists and prepared to take Gideon down, wrecking skills Gideon was now sure he was outmatched by, Gideon knew he had to fight dirty. Ralph inhaled a deep breath and looked to be ready to utter a yell of words, words Gideon skillfully interrupted.
"Wait, lemme guess, you're gunna wreck it?" Gideon called through a mean chuckle, he put his hands on his hips and cockily shifted on his feet. He only finally caught his breath and glowered Ralph down through the mess of blood on his face, "It's the only power you have, yeah? Is that all your good for? Just destroying the Niceland building and being dumped into the mud?"
Ralph lowered his fists, though not in a sign of defeat. He stewed in Gideon's hateful words, he glared Gideon down and made clear the anger was only building, though Gideon bobbed a nod and looked off in cheeky taunt.
"Yeah, no comeback, I get it," Gideon shrugged, he allowed his coding to sprawl his hands, "You've come this far with nothing but your brute strength... Look, I get it, trust me... Wrecking's in my code."
"You're only half the man your father is," Ralph's deep voice pressed, a threatening display of puffed chests and clenched fists, Gideon gently allowed his coding to map a huge square of the grid from behind him in preparation, something Ralph only barely glanced at, "My wrecking power is far greater than yours..."
"Yeah, but you can thank my mother for the rest," Gideon mocked cutely, though all at once, Gideon sourced every single last ounce of his ability and did everything inside of him to remember just the sheer, colossal size of the Niceland building, every detail his eyes had taken in, during his childhood, every window frame, every lay of brick, it all suddenly jut from the arena's flooring in an upward eruption Gideon stayed atop of.
Ralph gasped with a back step and now cranked his neck to peer up the sheer face of the infamous Niceland building, although it was a cute and pristine building, standing upon the beast was a different story. Gideon gently knelt down and grappled the concrete on the very tippy-top of the Niceland building, he peered down to the mere-speck Ralph was, on the ground, and grinned in menacing delight. He knew just what any average Ralph's weaknesses were, and though Gideon was certain he couldn't out-wreck Ralph, couldn't escape the explosive, earth-quake equivalent wrecking power Ralph harbored, he knew he could beat him at his own game, in every single sense of the word. Gideon grinned and glossed his eyes around, though he quickly realized he was eye-level with the gape of the audience stands that cascaded upwards into the blackened dark web sky. Alive with the hiss of fog and the beam of arena lights, Gideon cockily looked about and relished in the maniacal cheers and screams from the crowd. He inhaled a deep breath and called down to Ralph with a grin.
"What was that you were gunna to do the building again, big guy?" Gideon goad.
"Alright, y'little prick," Ralph grunted as he latched onto the building and began to climb, like every game day he had ever endured, he knew without the help of Felix's hammer, he'd make it all the way to the top with no issue, whatsoever. Ralph began to climb faster and higher, to which Gideon cheekily awaited him at the very top, "I'm not the one that's gunna be dumped in the mud, at the end of this, so smile while you still can, I guess."
"I can't hear you," Gideon muttered nonchalantly, he knelt down and peered down the sheer drop of the Niceland building, and though Ralph was definitely rapidly approaching, Gideon held out his bigger hand and manifested a single brick, "What was the one thing that caused you to game over again? It was bricks, right?"
"Felix dies from bricks," Ralph scoffed, and though a dropped brick came his way and daintily toppled atop Ralph's head in a clunky, cascading topple off of his broad shoulder, Ralph dusted his shoulder a little and continued to climb, "How did you manage to get this far... You're the hugest idiot on the face of the internet."
"Yeah, you're not wrong," Gideon mumbled, he cupped his bloody cheek and manifested another normal-sized brick. He tossed it down at Ralph, and though this time it managed to hit Ralph atop the head harder and do a tiny bit of damage, he still swooned and played dumb, "Golly, I thought these bricks would do the trick... Look, I'm just trying to give you a taste of your own medicine."
"Trying to put yourself into shoes that don't even fit?" Ralph grunted as he heaved a menacing breath and grappled the building in brick-crunching fervor, "You're even more delusional than you look..."
Ralph began to climb faster and was now three-fourths of the way to Gideon, though as Gideon stood to full height and held his hands out in a proper show of his glorious coding, a swarm of perfect circuitry, ready to end the entirety of this thing, began to crawl a few feet above Gideon's head, to make history at the hands of killing his own father, Gideon glared Ralph down and was floored to catch eyes with him. Such a menacing catch of eyes had Ralph slowing his climbing in dreaded realization, it wasn't until the haunting clip of arena lights atop Gideon's head was now eclipsed by the sheer legwork of Gideon's manifestation, the perfect crawl of a brick the size of Novus easily hovered high above Gideon's head. A single brick to end the whole of this, Gideon's menacing, bloodied grin was coupled with a maniacal cackle of true victory, and with the way Ralph began to nervously sag back down the building in full regret had Gideon raising his hands above his head, in true wrecking form, and allowing the swing of his purple coding to maneuver this massive, game-ending brick to hover directly above Ralph's now terrified figure.
"Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Gideon muttered darkly through a chuckle, and as he swung his whole effort downward, the five-ton brick rocketed to the planet like a comet from outer space.
Easily clipping Ralph in the nonsense, the brick collided with the ground with the ear-shattering explosion of earth underneath, and as Gideon allowed his coding to ravel his body into a beam of purple lightning in a free-fall down the face of the Niceland building, he came out of it with a pop of burnt glitch lines and finalized the collision with the sheer force of his own wrecking abilities, thus cracking the brick into a crumpled mess amidst the dust, an equally as earth-shaking explosion that Gideon was sure would make any single Ralph from around the world proud. Gideon's fists rested inside the impact of the rubble, he coughed a hard few noises and knew breathing in this much dust and debris was eventually going to be his detriment, though as he gently sagged to a proud, upright stand on the destroyed brick amidst the crater of obliterated earth about him, proudly before the Niceland building, he glossed his eyes about the arena and felt the chill of the crowd's screams, the whole place was alive with the dozens of canon-fire signifying true victory. Gideon long-blinked and felt dizzy, he scoffed a shaky breath and watched as the dust finally settled and the arena lights beamed on a full, on and brightened display of finalized completion. Gideon looked about in incredulous disbelief for the reality he was now stood in.
"Ladies and gentleman! Gamers from around the world," The announcer's voice shook, the noise in the arena was otherworldly, the entire dark web sung with the sheer victory made, it had Gideon panting with the height of a different kind of adrenaline rush as the announcer finalized Gideon's destiny, "We have our FIFTH winner, Gideon Fox Von Schweetz!"
Gideon scoffed a trembling noise of elated relief and heavily panted, he sagged his shoulders and now understood the detriment of everything before him, the sheer weight of what this whole thing entailed, and with that idea, he could finally feel his adrenaline rush want to slip away from him. He felt his knees buckle, he desperately did what he could to stand upright, he felt fear plague him over the idea that if he collapsed and died right now, due to sheer dehydration, exhaustion, blood-loss, all of this turmoil would've been for nothing. He jolted in hot surprise the second a beam of a three-by-three foot square illuminated underneath him, it glowed hot white for a second before turning the color of his coding, and in a blip of correction, Gideon felt his coding surge with a proper, healthy dose of a reset. Not only that, but Gideon could feel his coding collectively read the grid in a proper fashion, one that assured him that he was now coded for this branch of the dark web, a different leaflet of an achievement he almost felt was a higher win over anything, the fact that he had a square on the grid of the internet that he was coded for. Gideon sucked in a deep, refreshed breath, once and for all, and was shocked to feel his own inner workings as they were prior to this whole mess, a brand new, reset being to the grid, quite possibly one of the hugest wins he could grapple with, currently.
"Congratulations to our fifth winner," The main announcer called, Gideon sharply flinched as the Niceland suddenly blipped out of existence, the brick Gideon was on top of went with it, the arena's loose, dirt flooring sagged back to normality, Gideon scuffled on his feet and looked about in concern as a huge, golden platform rose out from the dirt, with him at the dead center of it. With a splay of coding lines that appeared next to Gideon, the announcer made himself present on the bigger platform with Gideon. Blistered with whole excitement, the arena went absolutely nuts as the announcer grappled Gideon's bigger hand and thrusted it into the air, "The Arena's VERY first human, a man that fought tooth and nail to defeat the sheer beasts he was up against, a man the world should FEAR, the black void fox... Gideon!"
Gideon finally dared to smile, his heart raced and raced, the platform raised as huge explosions of golden confetti rained down on the colosseum-like arena, the crowd stood and flailed in screaming, cheering stun, somehow the bloodied, traumatic hardships he had just endured didn't feel real, how far away it immediately felt, Gideon scoffed a shaky laugh and now understood, from here on out, the royal treatment he was desperate for was right around the corner. He smiled as him and the announcer caught eyes, his mic was temporarily muted so he could converse with Gideon and Gideon only.
"Can you believe it?!" He cheesed, Gideon scoffed a trembling laugh and rubbed his upper arms in the recoil of nervous stimming he was previously desperate to hide, though he shrugged and shook his head.
"I went into this confident I'd win, but somehow I'm still shocked that I did," Gideon's deep voice trembled, he rubbed his bare chest and felt entirely invincible with the way the whole world cheered for him and his victory. He squinted and peered about the still-screaming, adoring fans, he shook his head and was eternally excited to fall into a new, lavish lifestyle, one he was eager to share with his fellow winners, "I don't even know what to do with myself."
"Well, you're needed in the winner's circle, the other four are eager to meet their new housemate," He mumbled with a nod and a welcoming smile, he gestured his hand off across the arena, to which Gideon's eyes followed. There was a massive spire of a tower that was attached to the outside of the arena, coupled with a few smaller towers snug tight to it. Blackened metal that looked incredibly uninviting to any normal individual, though somehow the beacons of lights, the foggy, darkened atmosphere, it all felt like a villains lair Gideon was excited to simply melt into, a gang of villain-like friends he was well-versed in experiencing. Although this only previously included three other individuals who weren't technically villains, Gideon wondered if it was simply the side of him that always would prevail, as if that lifestyle was something he sought for a reason. He bobbed a nod in eager understanding as the announcer kindly continued to Gideon, alone on their golden, lifted platform amidst the echoes of excitement the arena was still sapped in, "You fought for your right to live another day, in your brand new residency... Welcome home!"
"Feels good," Gideon sighed with a nod, he eyed the huge, gorgeous spire where he'd fall into.
With his past, and everything it entailed, now permanently bricked with the weight of Gideon's final, game-winning kill, he was happy to lock it all away and throw away the key. The spire glowed with neon red lights along the architecture, little details of darkened beauty he had never seen before. Huge arena flags whipped about in the rushing, cold, foggy winds of the dark web, Gideon was thrilled to finally be away from the cheery, saturated kiss of blatant colors Sugar Rush and even Turbotime consisted of, he lulled his eyes closed in a long blink and felt his veins wiggle in scheming, wallowing, comfortable delight. Happy to finally call this darkened place home, a place where he could marinate in every last void of his hurt and allow any traits of villainous anger and hatred to seep forth with comfortability, he wondered what the other four winners had to offer him in the vein of do-or-die friendship. Alongside this thought, his pupils tightened at the one, daunting, harrowing notion that upon meeting the winners, Vye Ketton was the one individual at the very tippy top of that mix. The sheer idea that he was about to be graced by her presence was enough for Gideon to wipe his brain in a hard-reset and understand that, moving forward, new memories would be made, new friendships would be forged, all in the name of finally feeling accepted, finally feeling as if he truly belonged, all topped with the endless cries of his adoring fans. A winner through and through, Gideon glowered down the spire and proverbially warned it that the dark web would never be the same, moving forward.
