Reviews :
Snake557 : Yeahhh, it's easy to be angry at Callum. He's involved in a lot of messed up stuff. And, thank you! I have enough chapters written that I don't have to write a single chapter until mid-June lol. Not that I won't, I'm just sitting on 35 chapters, it's insane haha
ThoreLB : You shall seeeee :D
Song Listened To :
Dance of the Druids ft. Raya Yarbrough by Bear McCreary
A Dangerous Thing by AURORA
*Chapter 171*
Held with shoulders scrunched, Vye's silent, dark figure hovered through the barren, narrow street she knew well. Hidden behind a black cloak, so the glow of her eyes wasn't present, she shivered in The Block's frigid, unforgiving, sunless weather. Though no souls were on this street, and the street lamps flickered to near dim buzzes of dwindling white light, Vye still moved quickly and took no chances in being seen or even heard. She had this sliver of the city mapped, the only reason it was hers to claim was due to the hidden, sunken away doorstep she thrusted upon, and as she hovered up to her mother's front door, she opened her palm and fell into the secretive way Vye would go about knocking on her door and letting her mother know she had arrived. Less than a knock, so not to make noise, she pushed her palm to her mother's dark front door and swiftly began to slide her arm up and down the whole of it in hissing noises that simply sounded like furniture being moved across a smooth surface. Vye hovered for a moment, she held her breath and securely snuggled the small hard drive into her chest, where Gideon had safely been stored, her ears involuntarily perked the second her mother's front door swiftly swung open.
Due to the signaling sound made on her front door, Elkuorra knew this was Vye and no one else, thus the confident yank of her front door. Vye swiftly stepped inside, and though she hadn't seen her mother in almost a whole year, she grimaced a silent little noise of promised crumpling as Elkuorra firmly sagged her front door shut and began to thrust all the locks closed, ultimately sealing her and Vye inside the safe haven that was her tiny little run down home. Vye yanked her hood off, peered into her mother's eyes in the dim glow of her lovely little living room and grunted as both women urgently grappled themselves into a thrust of an embrace. Vye whimpered on her mother's shoulder and relished in the scent of her person. Although grateful to still have interactions with her own mother, they were so incredibly far and few in between. Elkuorra was a highly restricted point on the grid, although she was the furthest thing from a threat to Flint or the Game Over Arena, she was still massively off limits and any shred of interaction Vye had with her mother was not only incredibly dangerous, but cloaked in every shred of secrecy she could afford.
"Hi, baby, y'okay?" Elkuorra hummed sweetly, her voice shook, though she smiled in wary confidence and did absolutely everything to put her kin first, no matter what. Vye gently sagged out of her mother's grip and was only comfortable truly expressing herself in this tiny, secretive shared space and nowhere else. Vye silently erupted into tears and shook her head as the mixture of grief and excitement hit her between the eyes. Elkuorra narrowed her lovely blue eyes and shook her head in shushing tenderness, the drape of her gorgeous dark grey hair looked freshly combed through. Pristinely kept, doing everything to preserve her mental and physical health, Elkuorra was an elegant beam of sunshine no matter where she was. With this, she lovingly tucked Vye's shoulder-length, same colored hair behind her flattened ear and narrowed her gaze in whispery confusion, "What's going on? What's wrong?"
"Mom, I hardly have any time to explain, you must leave, right this instant," Vye's voice trembled, this unhinged show of terror was uncharacteristic of Vye, and it was here did Elkuorra's gentle facial expressions began to also slope into anxious dread, as well. Vye grimaced a small cry, her incredible, gently glowing blue eyes housed the gape of her now round pupils as her sweet expression of desperation had Elkuorra crumpling with equal terror, "Kepa's alive... Kepa's alive, she's back home, in Litwak's."
"What?" Elkuorra hissed in a swing of bewildered shock, Vye nodded and desperately wished she had time to sit and marinate in her mother's love and beauty for simply two minutes, though knew there was absolutely no time to waste. Vye swiftly yanked the hard drive from the breast of her thick cloak and sagged it into her mother's dainty hands, "What's this, what do you mean she's alive? How do you know this?"
"Gideon was this season's winner, Gideon is from Sugar Rush inside Litwak's, remember Sugar Rush?" Vye's whispery voice trembled as the room began to drown in urgency, it was here did Elkuorra nervously look about her dim, cozy makeshift of a home and understand that Vye never got this animated or urgent over nothing. Vye crumpled into tears as her and Elkuorra now haphazardly moved into the space where her little closet was, and with a cautious lay of the hard drive to a nearby counter, Elkuorra flattened her beautiful ears in the rush and swiftly began to change her clothes in the preparation to take Vye's word seriously and do just as she was told, for the sake of family to be found. Vye paced in full, anxious agitation as her mother swiftly changed into sleek, darker clothes, lightning quick, as if she had been prepared for an excuse to leave at the drop of a hat. Vye's trembling voice continued on, "Gideon just tried to ask Albar about escaping, so Flint and Callum stripped him of his powers... I-I was supposed to take him to a red room for torture and questioning, but... Somehow his coding got ahold of mine and he showed me mental images, mom, h-he showed me images of Kepa as an adult, sh-she's so adorable, she's alive-!"
"Okay, shh, Kindra, it's okay," Elkuorra hushed lovingly as she gently flipped her long, dark grey hair out of the folds of her clothes and rushed Vye with the gently cup of her hands to her eldest daughters beautiful face. Vye crumpled into gentle sobbing as Elkuorra's wise, motherly demeanor took the reigns in this mess, "You're telling me all of this as fact, you have substantial proof that this boy is telling the truth..."
"They're lovers, the sheer WALL of love I was hit with was no joke," Vye whimpered as she gestured her fingers into her sternum and peered down to the hard drive, a small white glowing light, on the side of it, remained proof that Gideon was successfully loaded to it. She gestured to it and hiccuped a small gasp of more tears to come, "I-I put him, and what's left of his coding, on this hard drive, I-I have NO idea how, but mom, you HAVE to take Gideon and go back. Find dad, find Kepa..."
"What about you?" Elkuorra staggered nervously as she picked up the hard drive, secured it into the tighter folds into her breast and nervously peered hard into Vye's eyes, "You can't fly, you can't escape with me Vye, y-you... You could get killed if they found out you aided me in this, this is... This is treason, helping a Game Over winner escape?"
"It's the ONLY fighting chance we have, mom, it's the only way," Vye whimpered in terror as she gripped her mother's upper arms with trembling hands, "Just promise me you and Gideon will put your heads together and come back to save me... To save us. None of those winners deserve to be cooped up in that box of hell, it's all a facade."
"How am I going to escape the dome?" Elkuorra whispered as she, too, began to shake with the oncoming dread now right upon her doorstep. She shook her head and fervently peered into Vye's eyes, "I-I can't leave you, Kindra, I can't just..."
"Go, please go," Vye's hoarse whispering demanded through her tears, "I-I'll be okay... You make clear to Gideon that he owes me BIG time, for this."
"Wh-what if I get lost?" Elkuorra did what she could to not come unglued, her and Vye held in tight grips to each other's arms in frozen terror to move forward with this plan, "Litwak's feels like it was ten lifetimes ago."
"You'll be okay... I know you'll find it, mom, once you're out of the dome, you're home free," Vye begged quietly, "Take Gideon STRAIGHT to Sugar Rush... He's no longer coded for The Block, so I couldn't reset him. He's mangled pretty bad, part of it is my fault, but... He needs Sugar Rush's sanctuary, take him straight there and do not stop to look back."
"I will," Elkuorra whimpered, though with the same fervor, both women tightly grappled into a huge, final hug of despairing departure. Vye quietly cried into her mother's chest and gripped her as if this would be the last instance she'd be in her mother's arms. Elkuorra huffed a trembling little noise of grief over her daughter's hair and gripped the back of her head in a squeeze of tenderness, "I love you, sweet girl... We'll be back for you, I promise."
"Please don't forget about me," Vye whimpered, the true fragility of her loving nature was something she only ever reserved for her mother, and with one final squeeze, Elkuorra firmly kissed the side of her daughter's head and squeezed her eyes shut.
"NEVER, never," Elkuorra demanded, and though it was the last thing Vye wanted to do, both women released in the silent departure of Elkuorra's dimly lit home.
Elkuorra flattened her ears and firmly watched Vye's figure drift away, down the stretch of street that eventually lead back to the massive Arena walls, eclipsed by the city light. Both women refused to say any form of a goodbye, though as Vye's figure vanished, Elkuorra exhaled a shaky breath and allowed her senses to expand, the notion of just what needed to be done was something she now had to immediately come to terms with. Dressed in tight clothes, to make maneuvering easy, she perked her ears high and got a good sense for her next step. As her beautiful blue eyes scanned up to the skies, The Block's incredible black dome could faintly be seen through the light pollution. A dome that hung high above the city, Elkuorra panted through her nose in amped readiness and knew she couldn't simply waltz out of the city. She had to penetrate the dome, some how, and although she knew just the stakes and the task at hand, she knew the risk of getting caught and likely being killed on sight, or worse, tortured until the end of her days, she stiffened in the snug of the hard drive tight to her breast, unfurled her gorgeous wings and sucked in a readied breath.
Like a rocket from the ground, Elkuorra firmly lifted in a shoot up into the sky and felt the rush of cold wind lick her face. With flattened ears, sprawled tail sails and the hefty, vicious flap of her incredible wings, she very quickly rocketed from the reach of the highest sky scraper this city had to offer, though knew she couldn't slow. As she pressed upwards and onwards into the black, she felt her stomach turn at just how close and menacing these huge, hexagonal plates were becoming. From far away, they looked so tiny, though as she approached in the straight shot she took in the climb upwards, she huffed a trembling breath of terror through the whip of the wind and came to realize that each plate was easily the size of two city blocks. She glowered down the perfect little gaps that these hexagonal plates shown, in between each snug was perfectly aligned artificial stars, though as Elkuorra grew closer and closer, she was floored to discover that her findings were correct. These weren't lights, they were tiny gaps in the structure that spilled light in from the outside world, the internet beyond this hull of dark web, and with this knowledge, Elkuorra sucked in one final breath and prayed every last ounce of her cat-like abilities and anomalies would work in her favor.
Reaching thirty, twenty and finally ten feet in the lightning-fast rocket upwards, she held her breath, squeezed her eyes shut, allowed her wings to swiftly vanish and flattened herself into the thinnest, most narrow point she had ever maneuvered into, and just as she jut her arms and hands out before her in the literal dive she was due to taking through the pinhole that was merely just her size, she turned to stone and allowed the sudden weight of her figure to rocket through the hole like a bullet out of the barrel of a gun. Smooth as butter, a satisfactory, unscathed glide through and through, Elkuorra reanimated with life and hugely unfurled her wings as her eyes were suddenly kissed with light outside of the dome. She sucked in a gasp, covered her face, furiously flapped her wings and allowed herself a second to hover, though as she removed her trembling hands from her face, to look down upon The Block, she felt a whole swathe of emotion flood her system. Terror reigned supreme as she peered down upon the incredible, world-like dome underneath her, and though she knew the majority of The Block's security was down on the ground, near the walls, she shook her head in reanimated fear and quickly began to fly as far away from this place as she could.
Tears streamed her cheeks, she hugged her arms to her chest as her wings fervently carried her up and up, out of the depths of where the the dome lay, inside the dark web, the higher altitude she gained, the brighter her surroundings got. She silently wept as the cold, dreaded realizations crawled over her. She was free, though at the detriment of her first born. The prospects of seeing Kepa and Sezeke again held tight to her skin, she desperately continued to flap as she hugged the hard drive tight to her chest, secured with Gideon's fragile coding, she knew she now could stop at absolutely nothing until this job was seen through to the very end, every last shred of the hope of the people she loved now rested in her hands, the baton dutifully passed from Vye, herself. In the upward climb through the massive city-like structures that gripped this vertical climb, she could see all sorts of life continuing on, so far removed from the blackened dome, so much was simply carrying on without a care, and as sunlight glinted into Elkuorra's eyes for the first time, she eventually breeched the final cusp of the vertical climb she was urgently scaling and came into the breath of the massive, spanning view of the internet, once and for all.
Elkuorra allowed her wings to hold her in a gentle glide as her eyes were kissed with the world of color, the bustling of gamers and individuals, she uttered a cry and crumpled at the sheer beauty of it, the warm kiss of the internet's permanent sunshine that glowed down on the whole of it, she shook her head and felt as if she had lost so much time to fear and Flint's control. It was here did her heart begin to surge with a rush of protective rage over her babies, the potential for broadened family inside of Gideon, she flattened her ears and allowed the roll of fervent demand for justice to fuel her, and with such, she wiped her tears and banked in the directions that all swiftly came rushing back to her. She knew just how to get to Litwak's, she knew just how to maneuver this space she was certain was forever lost on her. She knew there was absolutely zero time to waste, and with Gideon's coding tightly secured to her person, she flew faster than her wings have ever afforded her and followed the skyways in the direction of avenues that eventually would lead to Litwak's Arcade.
