Reviews :
twistee the dark : ohh no bb what is you doin. LOL
Burgie : Unfortunately, yep... Gunner has eons more outward confidence. SWOOP.
Jay Sketchin : trouble is definitely an understatement, for sure!
Snake557 : You're definitely not wrong to feel that way...
TheDoctorDusty : HEY! Congrats for catching up! Seriously, that's a huge feat. and anyone who does it is super dedicated. Thanks for tagging along! :D And no, she is in no relation to Selka, it was just a coincidence xD Selka doesn't make a reappearance.
Song Listened To :
Mines (Star Lumpy) by ConcernedApe (first half, until action picks up)
Colossus by Droptek
*GORE WARNING*
This chapter is pretty gory and violent!
It contains a lot of messy descriptions about bodily fluids and severed appendages. If you are sensitive to gore, I'd suggest skipping this chapter. If you PM me, I can give you a clean, gore-free TL;DR version of this chapter, so you can stay updated! I've changed the rating of my story here, just to be safe... All of my other stories had their ratings changed due to a code swap scene, but alas, I'm dipping my toes into some gore, right off the bat. Swapping comes a little later, in which I will also give fair warnings for. Thanks guys!
For those of you here for the gore and blood... Enjoy! ;)
*Chapter 71*
In the buzz of the sterile, bright blue lights that illuminated the Arcade's train cab, Berri heaved a sigh of relief, allowed her bare feet to sag to the very end of the car and, in a huff of a motion, Berri slumped down to the heavily used train seat nearby. As well as being in the last train cab, on this bullet train, and sat at the very back of said cab, she smiled and looked forward to gazing out the massive window behind her. She knew she always enjoyed seeing Arcade's dark train tunnels vanish behind her, and with the train car all to herself, she was excited to just sit and ogle the spectacle. She crossed her arms and smiled, her mind whirred with the incredible thoughts that raced about, the fact that she was now due to becoming a celebrity, on top of now dating one, she shook her head and beamed nearly ear to ear as her eyes eased down the empty train cab, easily thirty feet long.
Although the train cars were very old, and only refurbished a few times over the years, it was still cleaned and properly taken care of. The outdated seats showed their wear and tear with fraying threads and worn nearly-to-the-metal cushions, though still somehow, she found comfort in the very idea that these train carts probably had a lot of stories to tell, if they could talk. As Berri's mind just easily got lost in every little thought flitting about her brain, her lazy, sleepy and comfortable stare was so tenderly disrupted by the jostle of the train doors sliding shut. She wrinkled her nose and now nervously peered out the large, bay train windows; she could see Gunner's security team hovering in nervous wait, as if they weren't going to leave the station until Sugar Rush's precious princess was no longer in their sights. Berri looked off and tried to avoid eye contact, though a few seconds after the train cart came to a still settlement, her singular train cart gingerly jostled, simply as if extra weight was added inside.
Berri furrowed her brow, she knew the train well, knowing that the jolt and sudden clank of a jostle, that the train usually made, was only present once they had lift off and were prepared to move forward. A typical lurch forward, followed by every other cart in succession, Berri felt her insides do a nervous dance at the raw facts before her, the simple motion of the train cart tilting to once side, releasing pressure and settling, once more. Berri froze, and before she could really assess what said motion could've been, the train now did its typical lurch forward, the electric hum of the train's power now coursing through its rails. In a matter of seconds, the train easily lifted from the train station's dock and was well on its way to sailing straight to Game Central Station. Although the cart flew forward in a tug of succession, and everything was going smoothly, Berri now nervously sagged in her seat and began to feel her heart race, simply as if her body was in tuned with something that her eyes were not.
Berri held her breath and allowed her now eagle-eye like glare to glower down the whole entirety of the train cab. She felt a weird sensation come over her, though now with the raw fact that she was alone, she wondered if maybe she was just hyping herself up. As if the security of Gunner's guards simply just brought her company, and now that she was inside deafening aloneness in totality, she bit her lip and was well aware this was all just her mind playing games with her. Berri shook her head but didn't dare blink. She wondered if her eyes would stay wet enough to remain unblinking for the entirety of the train ride. Although the train sped through Litwak's walls, she felt as if the train was simply going in circles, and Game Central Station was entirely light years away from her point on the grid. Typically a fifteen minute train ride, Berri could swear that this particular ride was in slow motion. As she patiently counted the seconds, she finally reached eight minutes and began to feel her muscles desperately want to un-tense, but to no avail.
Berri finally huffed an agitated sigh and jolted to a stand, as if something had come over her, some other force of gravity was now demanding her to stand her ground and protect herself. She huffed a shaky breath and stared ahead, and although there was absolutely nothing, she could swear she was looking through something, or someone. In the jolt of a stand, the silver circuits on her arms flared, but just faintly. She could see, in her peripheral, that little circuit marks on her temples, eye lids and the bridge of her nose began to so dimly glow, almost as if she was a wild animal backed into a corner, and making herself look intimidating and scary was the only reaction her coding knew to resort to, in this strange instance. She panted through her nose, shook her head and was at least relieved to see that the train cart was remaining empty, like it typically would in this situation. She finally shut her eyes, shook her head and held her temples. She knew she was hyping herself, and as she opened her eyes, she was continuously relieved to see that her nightmares were simply just all in her head.
Through a shaky exhale, she finally turned her back on the entirety of the train cart and allowed her eyes to gloss out the big, bay window at the very back of the cart, where she was stationed. Like she had previously wanted, she gazed out the window, and being the last cart in this long train, she got to enjoy watching the tunnel vanish into the darkness. A few blue lights lined the ceilings of the dark tunnel they rocketed down, and other than being able to just barely see the rails underneath, the tunnel was too dark to see much else. Although her eyes got lost in the darkness, she quickly came to the realization that she was peering through her own reflection, and once she peered deep into her own eyes, she noticed that the little circuit marks, all over her face, were becoming brighter and more vivid, as if now her coding was simply warning her of danger, like it was a sentient being outside of her own skin praying that she seek a safe spot immediately. With literally no options available to her, she shook her head at herself, in her reflection, and now glared herself down.
"Stop, STOP! You're getting worked up for no reason, my User, just stop," Berri stabbed to herself, though it was in this raw instance of hearing her voice did she feel the weight of the lack of an echo, and a reverberation of her voice, down the train cart's long, metal walls and barriers; as if there was a hovering presence behind her.
Berri now felt her fingers and hands begin to shake, against her will. She desperately tried to inhale a faltered breath but failed to do so. The hairs on the back of her neck now began to raise alongside the pixelated goosebumps that snaked up her skin, and it was in this cold, horrific instance did she truly believe and understand that she wasn't alone in this train cart. As if every single day dream of playing her favorite guitar on stage, every fantasy of kissing the cutest lead singer boy, every idea of touring with her best friends, had so cleanly covered the molten hot fact that she was not in a safe zone, and crawling about the Arcade were invisible entities that were ready to delete faux-codes, she only just now realized how careless she had been. Although she wasn't taking in air into her lungs, her heart continued to just pump blood to different parts of her body, as if it was trying its hardest to now operate on no oxygen, no matter what. She narrowed her gaze in the reflection and felt a huff of a hot breath now coat her entire backside, and outside of a true night terror, a mirage of a creature, from directly behind her, very slowly came into view, once and for all.
Through the scratchy, hazy gleam of the reflection, all perfect in it's grungy glory, illuminated train cab lights that glinted down onto the now two beings in this train cart, Berri watched as said creature slowly came into view via gentle flips of small, mirror-like hexagonal discs that covered it's black, slick skin. A creature easily the size of Chester, it simply looked like a goblin creature that came straight from the darkest reaches of the internet, a mash up of every dark, disgusting type of baddy all crammed into one bizarre, nightmare creature. With a hunched figure, long, black gangly arms and a long face and snout, it looked like a mighty creature, full of endless energy, a nearly athletic build that helped it fight and get around, to do it's business without tiring. In a shell shocked stupor, Berri's innocent, naive eyes landed on the creature's long face and strange gaze, vertical, narrow red eyes with equally as vertical, rectangular dark red pupils, it easily gave her a smile, black fangs that looked clean and ready for absolutely anything, as if it was so kindly reassuring her that all it wanted to do here was simply play with its food before it devoured, knowing full well Berri was trapped in this train cart with it.
As if every single muscle in Berri's body was now tightened with purpose, she remained frozen as her brain did everything to simply disregard firing synapses, desperate warning signals sent to her legs and arms and glitching abilities to quite simply get the hell out of there, though before either being could waste anymore time, Berri noticed the creature gently reel in preparation to lunge, and it was here did Berri understand she'd have to channel every single last ounce of not only Tessa's, but Vanellope's incredible glitching powers, so easily gifted to her through the power of their relation, lightning quick powers that all came down to this one raw moment of survival. As the creature inhaled a garbled noise through it's snout, it grunted a noise of release as it easily dove for Berri's back, and although Berri was absolutely certain she was entirely, one hundred percent doomed here, her being nearly evaporated into thin air as she became nothing but hot, liquid, silver-coded energy, and in a sudden jolt of a bounce to her right, she was gone.
With a hard bang, said large creature slammed face first into the back end of the train cart, causing the cab to jolt and lose its lighting for a second. As Berri eagerly glitch-hopped along the wall, allowed her silver coding to kiss the tops of the train's rusty seating, she came back down to the middle of the train cart, came back to her body and whirled around in terror. Although certain a blow like that surely sent said heavy, large creature rocketing out the window and dead onto the tracks below, the train's window only sustained a hefty shattered held together by the sturdy plexiglass. The creature suddenly wailed a haunting sound, a disgruntled howl of a garbled honk, as if it had never had to deal with a situation like such before, as if it most certainly underestimated it's prey, here, and although Berri was now confident in her ability to outrun this creature, she knew she only had this tiny box to bounce around in until, by some miracle of User, the train came to Game Central Station.
In a firm swipe to correction, this creature's long, heavy tail thrashed around as it did everything to get a grip of itself on the slippery train's floor, and in the process of now loudly yelling a defiant battle cry and clawing its way to its feet, its long, heavy tail largely took out a few nearby train seats, causing jagged metal to now protrude upwards from where the seats used to lay. In a lunge of a dive, Berri uttered a call of terror and dove right back into the thick of it all, a bouncing bolt of silver lightning, uncontrolled, untamed and unleashed inside this now hot box of death. As Berri eagerly bounded up the side of the wall, the creature angrily clawed after her, nearly matching her speed. It viciously snapped at the raw bits of her coding, and as she nearly played ping-pong with this creature, all along the train cab, the entirety of it wobbled in a light-flickering, derailing mess of loud scrapes of metal hitting the sides of the tunnel.
As sparks angrily coat the sides of the train cab, the whole place lost its lighting due to Berri accidentally jolting herself straight into the ceiling and bursting the main bulb. In the absolute tearing and destruction of seats, hand rails, windows and nearby barriers and poles, the black goblin beast urgently yelled a defiant noise of now whole frustration as Berri continued to bounce around, like a bolt of lightning. Although doing well for herself, in a single bound of uneducated, messy and exhausted footwork, she accidentally came out of her glitch-hop and sagged her bare heel into the edge of now torn, jagged metal jutting out of the ground. With a hard scream of unadulterated pain, she suddenly tore to the ground, rolled once or twice and scrambled to try and regain composure. Amidst all this chaos, the train cab's emergency lights hesitantly flickered on seconds before Berri could see said creature now in mid-jump, right for her, arms outstretched and mouth agape, its haunting battle cry now seemingly echoing into Berri's ears for the rest of eternity.
Out of sheer fight or flight, Berri's body did everything it could to return back to it's glitch-hopping state, though with the searing pain in her foot, as well as the now loss of blood, her whole body flickered in and out of a tangible state. Although she successfully bounced away from this creature's grippy claws and hands, it still skid to a halt, clawed itself to correction and took another eager, endless bound at her, once more. In the now rushing swipe of desperation, Berri clumsily spilled to her knees, threw her arms out and grappled a nearby, uprooted, haphazard train seat into her incredible silver coding, and with a hard yell and a firm thrust of every last bit of her upper body strength, her coding sent the train seat shooting straight into this creature's midsection. With a hard scream, it soared across the shattered train cab, hit the massive, sliding door of the train and sagged straight onto nearby, torn and jagged metal spokes that now seemingly were everywhere. It howled in whole entire pain, though still, somehow messily began to get back to its feet.
As the very dim, emergency lights lit the place, Berri could easily see that not only was the place now littered in torn apart train seats and rails, but the glossy train tiles were now splayed with both of their blood. The train cab now loudly complained with the commotion, pieces of metal now stuck out of the train window as the train continued forward, full speed, sending a very healthy splay of sparks into the back end of the train cab. Berri heavily panted with her mouth agape, her lovely blue hair sagged to the tiles and easily picked up blood along the way, her esophagus was as dry as a cactus, and although she knew she simply wasn't done here, she began to feel light headed due to the loss of blood, from the gash on her foot. Although she was grateful for the mere split second to assess the situation and desperately attempt to regain composure, she jumped back to her feet, bloody gash and all, and did everything in her coded power to keep her glitching abilities well alive, lest she be deleted. In a last ditch effort, the train's cab doors desperately tried to open amidst the mess of jagged metal, as if it were now trying to go into whole emergency mode, and its duty now was to let passengers out.
Flying like a bullet train down Arcade's wires, Berri felt an idea finally hit her brain. She grit her teeth and merely glanced at the door, as it desperately tried to slide open. She knew it only needed a boost of power to open fully, something she was unsure if her coding could handle, or not. As she finally inhaled a loud rasp of a breath, she cued her coding and eagerly dodged yet another lunge from this creature. Grateful that she was only now getting the hang of successfully dodging this rather bumbling, yet incredibly fast being, she bounced to the opposite side of the train car, from its sliding door. As said creature loudly whooped and growled in now unadulterated frustration, it swiped for correction, took another dive at Berri, opposite the train's door, and lunged to merely rebound off of the wall in which Berri rebounded off of, as well. As Berri came out of her glitching state, she grit her teeth, tucked and rolled towards the door, cued every last ounce of power her coding could offer, straight to her right hand; with a firm slap onto the struggling, sliding door, the whole entirety of it came alive with Berri's powerful coding, and in a lightning quick swipe, the whole of it opened to the tunnel wall they glided merely two feet from.
Moving at well over eighty miles an hour, the tunnel wall, emergency exit corridors and hand rails merely blew by in a whiz of a blur, though as Berri whirled around in a bolt of terror, the creature easily launched itself right for Berri. With a grunt of terror, Berri urgently dove underneath the path of the creature's now mid-air flight, and with the feeling of sheer success came the sound of morbid, daunting realization. As Berri skid to her knees, hugged one of the only railings that was tall enough not to cut her on it's jagged edge, she flinched, whirled around, and watched as said creature now plummeted face first into the open train tunnel. In bone crunching, rigor-mortis-like deformity, said creature was easily swallowed into the stationary wall, alongside the lightning fast exterior of the train cab. Like a pop of a balloon, and one last final cry of defiance, said creature's bones, rib cage, innards and every single last noodle of a tendon was decimated into the wall in a matter of split seconds. The crunch, squish and squeeze of it all, in rapid succession, was something she knew she'd never be able to unsee.
With one hind and one forelimb easily severed and messily chucked into the entrance of the train cab, blood spewed everywhere in a pop of an outward explosion. Much to Berri's whole misfortune, due to how dim the train cab was, blood easily splayed her front, chest and face, spilling into her mouth and over her eyes. Berri choked a startled noise of defiance, urgently hunched over and wildly wrinkled her nose in entire dismay, and before she could even begin to think about what had just taken place, the intense taste of metallic blood coat every single last one of her senses in an oversaturated fit of further fight or flight. Entirely out of her control, she hunched forward even farther, grappled her knees and urgently vomited onto the train's glossy, bloody tiles. She heaved a few raspy, choking retches of entire projection, her body lurched as if it was easily fed poison, though as her fit finally came to a stop, her chest cavity heaved in whole desperation for air, for sanity, for anything but this.
In the mess of her own vomit and the saturation of blood, both in taste, smell and sight, Berri clumsily sat back and loudly panted in pleading whines of terror. As tears streamed her cheeks, she wondered for just how long she had been crying through this ordeal. She heavily panted, her chest rose and fell harder and deeper than she had ever experienced in her whole life, and although the train ride was now silent, dim and still, outside of the occasional clank of loose metal pieces, something near the still gaping train doors caught her eye. Angry, dim red coding flickered all about, on the ground, and in her whole surprise, she noticed that this creature's forearm was still laid on the tiles, the bone messily jut from where its wrist met its forearm. Although the creature had easily been deleted and decimated, Berri was surprised to see that its arm was only slowly being deleted, as if it were simply confused as to where the rest of the body went. In a knee-jerk decision, Berri jolted her body to a clumsy upright, crawled on her hands and knees to get over to said severed arm and, once she reached it, her now shivering glitch abilities encased it in a bubble of her silver coding. She was absolutely floored to see that said encasement had stopped the deletion process, freezing this being's coded DNA in time.
Berri shook her head in disbelief, and although she continued to heavily pant and whine noises of both terror and relief, her trembling, bloody hand grappled for her materializer deep in her back pocket. A quaking mess, she hardly could cue her materializer to work properly, though after a few minutes of grit teeth and struggling, panting noises of urgency, she was able to suck away the encased, silver-coded bubbled limb into her materializer, evidence of something greater she could bring back to the higher ups, in Sugar Rush, that would certainly appreciate the lovely souvenir. As she now was without purpose, once more, she urgently scoot backwards to her safe spot, disregarding the blood or vomit. She sagged into the wall, tucked herself in between a few torn apart seats and continued to heavily pant out of terror. Said heavy pants soon turned into soft, wailing sobs of whole fear, her little, trembling voice begged for the train to arrive in Game Central Station any day now. She hugged her arms tight around her knees and urgently began to sing her's and Turbo's sweet song out to the violently destroyed train cart, strictly to comfort herself; she was entirely off tune, her mumbling voice trembled in the now draining sag of lost adrenaline, she was certain she was due to fainting soon.
As if a gift from User, the train gently began to come to a crawling sag, and as familiar, bright station lights came into view, Berri's trembling gaze met with Game Central Station's glorious, welcoming, golden station. In a clumsy stand of shaking knees, she fumbled on her wounded foot and urgently began to stumble off the destroyed, bloodied train cab. She was entirely grateful no one was around to witness all of this, though with every single last ounce of her power, she set her sights for Sugar Rush's outlet, cued her incredible silver coding one last time, and took off like a bolt of lightning for her one and only safe spot. It was here and now did she understand just why Turbo never wanted to leave the safety of Sugar Rush's sweet, luscious embrace, she knew she was now due to giving herself away, to rat herself out for leaving Sugar Rush, though she was well aware that the evidence she had to bring home would only further their progress, whether that meant she was entirely grid-locked for life or not.
