Reviews :
Snake557 : Holy crap, yeah, a beast like Chester getting into the human world would definitely be a sight to see xD
BanannaSammich : LOL! Poor Oliver, just wants to constantly lay low and stay out of trouble. And yes! Lash does look a lot different :D I'm super excited for these next few chapters.
Lyssdoodle : Thank you so much! Poor Chester, now that he has his eye sight, all he wants to do is give back.
Song Listened To :
Vindicator Waltz by Formantx (last half of this chapter)
*Chapter 247*
With a thick inhale through her nose, Berri unglued her eyes from the back of her skull and came back to the planet. In a weird fit of rushed dejavu, her icy eye pierced Lash's in frozen concern as she woke up from her strangely restful slumber. As if Lash hadn't moved from his spot, as if she merely lulled her eyes closed for fifteen seconds and reopened, Berri furrowed her brow in sleepy confusion and remained still as her mind desperately tried to come back to the situation at hand. In a toss of said sleepy glance, her eyes landed on a nearby alarm clock on the nightstand that stood in between both hotel room beds. Only an honest hour had passed, though her body felt revitalized and ready for anything, as if she had just endured a whole week's worth of amazing nights of sleep, all seven days in a row. Still drowned in hot confusion, she remained still and allowed Lash to exterior swap with her as his hand held hers, it was clear Wren was still asleep. Berri furrowed her eyebrows and dared to let a smile come to her refreshed cheeks, the swathe of silent, sweet conversing, amidst their shared exterior code, finally expanded for Lash's ears, what would seem confusing and sudden, only made sense between the mere seconds of a shared thought stream.
"You REALLY did it," Berri's voice just barely whispered, hushed loveliness she was well aware all three beings couldn't afford to marinate in, though she hoped Lash would buy her the time anyways; he wrinkled a wide smile, what used to be the absolute stuff of her nightmares, the actual image of Lash's much creepier gaze of vertical rectangular pupils amidst a haunting golden glow, somehow immediately brought her a world of comfort.
"Did what," Lash huffed gently, his deep voice croaked in sleepiness, assuring to Berri that he, too, got that punch of condensed sleep he had previously touched on.
"You REALLY convinced the iciest smarty in all of Sugar Rush to swap codes with you," Berri continued to whisper, knowing Wren was still long gone, though Lash beamed the widest, doughiest smile, rolled his eyes and looked down to the matte white tiles his knees were knelt on, next to the bed Berri shared with Wren.
"Yeah, I was flying blind," Lash grumbled, they both shared in a huff of whispery, tender laughter, their little bubble was warm for only such a tender sliver of time, "I don't know, we... We related on so many different things. We both were lonely, and although it was previously something we hated, I think... We came to tolerate our loneliness. It was a hinderance we just had come to cope with. I discovered that about myself, in knowing her, and, well..."
"You both decided it was high time to not be so lonely anymore?" Berri wondered, such tender decibels of easiness, Berri sagged and marinated in Lash's and Mara's lovely coding, she could swear she could hear songbirds, it were as if both beings had been harboring such delicate rays of sunshine, beams of light that only would be shared amongst each other, and it was here did Berri fully understand that their shared love was a sacred, real thing that neither being took lightly. Lash nodded a little, and with this, Berri narrowed her gaze and felt the notion of defeat hit her head on, and with a small nod in return, she lulled her eyes closed in the final swing of relinquished control and concern, "Y'know... If my big brother decides he wants to try and chase you away, I'll go to bat for you."
Lash softened his cheeky smile and gave Berri a now drowned look of concerned disbelief, as if he was absolutely certain fighting for his right to properly court and remain with Mara would be the steepest uphill battle of his entire life, a battle in which he'd have to win and conquer single handedly with the tugs of torches and pitch forks right on his heels. Sagged in their warm exterior swap, Lash felt the conjoin of Berri's and Turbo's coding embrace his in a supportive sweep of familial camaraderie, it was here did Lash feel the upswing of confidence hit him, as if maybe convincing Ace and Libby of his worth, to be with their precious daughter, wasn't so unobtainable after all. With a returned grin, Lash looked down to his lap and bobbed her a more than appreciative nod, humble eye contact that glanced to hers in sweet shyness, emotions and expressions Berri soaked in, knowing these little glimpses into his true energy was like watching the unfurl of a black owl's majestic feathers in the night, a thorny cactus allowing the hard work of its flowers to bloom against stark, cold moonlight, a feeling that raised the hairs on Berri's arms in a crescendo of awestruck goodness.
"If you don't get anyone's blessing, just know... You have mine," Berri whispered, her loving, sisterly care swathed his mainframe once and for all, she gave him a cheeky, twinkling side eye and allowed herself to try her crown on for size, "Your future Queen."
"You're the end-all, my love," Lash's velvety voice pressed in great honor, he eased her a small bow of a nod and gripped her hand, "Thank you..."
"You're welcome," Berri mumbled, and though the two hung for a second, Berri finally grunted and began to move to sit up, cueing Lash to gather his strength and come to a stand next to their bed. Berri rubbed her forehead and glanced to Wren's sleeping figure next to her, "Alright, so... How much time we got?"
"Well, it's nine in the morning now," Lash mumbled, he quickly pressed around their bed and reached for Wren's arm, and with as much care as he delivered to Berri, he quietly woke Wren up and was glad to meet his tired eyes. Wren furrowed his brow in sleepy confusion, grunted a small noise of acknowledgment and watched as Lash stood to correction, once more, "Litwak's opens at noon, and... I'm assuming any and all staff will probably show up anytime between eleven and opening. We have genuienly two solid hours to nose about the Arcade and figure out just what needs to happen."
"Exactly what DOES need to happen?" Wren grunted as he brought himself to a seat on the edge of his and Berri's bed, covers they didn't get situated under, they knew getting too comfortable was a bad idea; Lash grit his teeth and looked about their dimly lit room.
"I'll explain the whole plan once we're out of Tron," Lash mumbled nervously as Berri and Wren got to a stand and stretched their limbs a little.
"Holy crap, I... I haven't slept THAT well in... In..." Wren staggered to even recall a time, to which Berri blurt a small laugh and shook her head.
"Ever," Berri giggled, to which Wren grinned and shrugged. Berri nervously peered to Lash as he grabbed Zed's pristine, beautiful light disc and held it out before him. With easiness, he cued the holographic main frame of information he had loaded onto his disc, and with such, was the three duplicates of their light flyers, each a single-manned, powerfully little jet of a plane that would get all three beings to Tron's portal. Berri nervously watched as Lash unveiled much longer, heftier black batons, clearly flyers that unraveled similar to Tron cycles. She grit her teeth in nervousness and now understood just how real this all was, "Okay, so... W-we're... Gunna take a flying dive off of this building, you'll teleport us midair to the portal, and then..."
"And then it's a ride to the human world, for us," Lash mumbled, and though he didn't seem phased, it was clear all three beings were about to come unglued with fear and excitement over this ordeal. Lash heaved a shaky breath through his nose and eyed both Berri and Wren, "I-I've done a lot of crazy shit, in my long Arcade life, but... Leaving has never been thought of. This is probably the craziest thing we'll EVER do."
"Is the transfer over going to hurt?" Wren worried as all three beings began to tense into action, to put on shoes, coats and gear, everyone seemed now heightened with raw fear and adrenaline.
"I have no clue, but I doubt it," Lash tried to sound convincing; Berri urgently began to braid her long hair into a tight weave down her back, once more.
"Y'think we'll... I don't know... Look the same?" Berri wondered, Wren cocked an eyebrow and shot Berri a bewildered look, as if he hadn't even thought of that, "Like... We won't have powers in the human world. Will my wrecking and glitching even be a thing?"
"Yeah, will Berri's hands be a smaller size?" Wren staggered, he hobbled on one foot as he struggled to get his shoes on.
"Likely, and grey skin isn't normal in the human world, either," Lash grinned cutely, he looked down to his matte grey colored hands and began to look almost nostalgic, "Who knows what the heck I'll look like."
"... Your skin won't be grey?" Berri giggled with a wide, curious grin as she stood near the gape of the bathroom door with the light switched on, she glanced back at the massive bathroom mirror and tried to continue braiding her hair, "What color will it be?"
"What about us?" Wren urgently strapped his boots and finally stood to correction.
"I have no clue, truly... I just know skin tone ranges, on Earth, are much more limited than here in the Arcade," Lash grunted as he, too, fixed his coat and shoes to correction, he also looked about to see if the three were forgetting anything, "Just browns and tans and creams. I'm assuming I'll fall somewhere in that range."
"And your eyes?" Berri ogled in beaming curiosity, to which Lash grinned and shook his head.
"Let's go find out, no sense waiting here and talking about it when we're LITERALLY minutes away from finding out for ourselves," Lash gestured to his chest, to which Berri and Wren nodded in finalized eagerness, and with a press, the three silently slipped out of their room for good.
As fast and as silently as the three could afford, they took the hotel's elevator as high as it could go, and although it took a bit of sneaking around maintenance levels and floors, they finally found the escape route to the roof of said massive, towering hotel, a sky scraper of a beast that, although had a few much taller contenders, still hovered at least thirty floors above Tron City's gorgeous, dark scape of illuminated goodness. With the whip of cold wind to their faces, the pitch black sky, up above, read obviously anything but nine in the morning. A strange phenomenon to be merely inside of a hub, and not a part of a sky box, Berri nervously looked about Tron's beautiful, haunting atmosphere and finally drew her eyes to their prize tight on the horizon. Far beyond the Sea of Simulation, Berri knew that if the three were to solo fly all the way to the portal, it'd likely take hours. With the race of her heart, she finally drew her eyes to Lash and bobbed a wary nod.
"This is it," Berri huffed shakily, and though Lash dart his golden eyes about the roof in wariness, he began to usher the two instructions in Teltokuan, a notion which had Berri quickly wrangling Wren into an exterior swap so he could understand.
"Alright, guys... I want you two to take off in flight first, we'll have Berri go first and Wren quickly to follow," Lash instructed over the rush of loud wind, his voice hovered a few decibels over the whipping nonsense as he pointed off the leap of the sky scraper, something Berri and Wren avoided looking at due to the sheer drop into illuminated city below. Lash pressed on in fluent Teltokuan, "Once we get to the portal, there will likely be a landing strip, in which I'm hoping... If not, just follow me and I'll find a place suitable for us to land, but it HAS to be hasty because the portal is heavily guarded..."
"So once we teleport to the atmosphere near the portal, we'll be discovered?" Berri worried in a spike of apprehension, to which Wren peered to Berri and dart his nervous eyes tight to Lash's.
"Yeah, that's... That's why we have to haul ass," Lash peered to them in fervent apprehension, though he desperately tried to convey that this wasn't something they could chicken out of, so deep into the game, "Leaving won't be an issue... Coming back is going to be the hard part. You two take off of this building first, and I'll follow. Once teleported, you follow my EVERY move, you hear me? Do NOT branch off and allow time for dawdling. We're to RUSH the portal and get the hell outta here before we're caught. Understood?"
Both Berri and Wren nodded with fervor, the glisten of now very obvious fear and adrenaline in their eyes, they stole glances to each other as if to wonder just what the hell they had gotten themselves into. Lash exhaled a shaky breath and nodded alongside them.
"We're gunna be fine... We're able to leave the portal due to Zed's disc, I'll explain why later... Once in the portal stream, hang on to me," Lash gestured to his chest and nodded as Berri and Wren urgently nodded in return, "I'M your guys' tickets out. It's detrimental you have a hold of me, lest you'll be left behind."
"Follow you, don't deviate, rush the portal, hold on tight," Wren urgently listed on his fingers as him and Berri peered to Lash for a final assurance, "Right?"
"Right," Lash nodded as he handed both Berri and Wren their own long, black baton of a raveled light jet, something they would be due to unfolding for themselves off of the rooftop they hovered on. Lash exhaled a shaky breath and did whatever he could to at least try to smile, though it more came across as apprehensive anticipation, "Let's fly."
Berri nodded and gripped the handles of her baton, and with the continuous pump of adrenaline into her code stream, she stepped out between both boys and pressed closer to the edge of the sky scraper they were stood atop. With the whip of her loose bangs and hair near her ears, her icy eyes fixated on the glowing portal on the horizon, a beacon of hope, she grappled the baton in her hands and silently wished the universe to remind her loved ones that this fight was for them, this battle was to be won, no matter what. With a sharp inhale through her nose, she cued her coding into the baton, grunted with a tug, took a faithful dive off of the edge of the dark sky scraper and was very quickly surrounded by the illumination of gorgeous blue lights, the unravel of her light flyer that whirred to correction and easily hugged her body into the cockpit of said flyer. Saddled similar to how she would on a light cycle, she choked a startled noise as the jets of her little flyer suddenly coughed in the purr of power, and like the rocket she was, the craft punched forward with a stab of shocking speed.
Berri huffed a shaky noise of a giggle and grinned with riled, fiery excitement, and although she wanted to really take time to ogle the controls of her flyer, to really test this little craft out and partake in fun air tricks, she grappled the handles of said craft and continued her rocket forward, leagues above Tron City's haunting, gorgeous glow. Keeping the gape of the portal tight in the back of her retinas, she held her breath and simply awaited Lash's teleportation trick to consume her. Knowing Lash would risk allowing his coding to come into Tron's grid, if it meant saving either her's or Wren's life, she held her breath and nervously held her eyes tight to the blinding portal in anticipation of it suddenly shooting a million miles closer to her in the blink of an eye. Uncertain of how to even begin handling this whole mess, she felt the urge to look over her shoulder to see just where Wren and Lash were, in the sky behind her, though before her core could even flex to fall into that motion, every last vertebrae in her spine came alive with the punch of Lash's incredible User coding, a familiar stab of power she only ever experienced through exterior swapping with Ace. Just like anticipated, her craft swarmed with Lash's eager, coral-colored coding and allowed the three to jump points on the grid, midair, light speed.
Berri choked a noise of riled terror as her pupils shrank to mere specks, the beam of the portal blasted in her face and grew leagues closer in split seconds, just like what she had anticipated, though in the act of living it out, she felt every inch of the circuits and honeycombs, under her skin, raise in the awestruck, knee-jerk reaction to come entirely unglued. Berri panted and was thrilled to suddenly see Wren's and Lash's single-manned light flyers tight in her line of sight, and as if she had to rapidly remind herself of their very fragile, time sensitive plan, she kept tight to their flanks as Lash began to route the two to a proper landing strip, just ahead. With the bow and bevel down to the universe, the pitch black sea all about them, Berri took a second to urgently look about. Hidden and tucked into a stagger of jagged black cliffs, that simply couldn't contain the beam of light, was the infamous portal that had only been the stuff of stories, until now. Grateful Lash's knowledge on these flyers came rushing her mainframe, she urgently clicked a few different knobs, inside of her little craft, and lowered tight to the glowing runway with both Lash and Wren tight in her line of sight.
With a cough of a jolt, Berri grit her teeth and allowed her little craft to glide along the illuminated runway, clearly not meant for rogue flyers, though as her craft came to a stop, she immediately raveled it back into its baton form and was thrilled to see Lash and Wren do the same. Without words, all three beings began to make an urgent run for the portal which was tucked away at the end stretch of said runway. With dire, sprinting footsteps from all three beings, they nearly flew through the whipping, unforgiving rush of ocean wind. Flits of lighted information, that the portal gave off, whipped through the atmosphere as the sheer power of it all nearly overwhelmed the area and warned anyone, who was not worthy, to proceed with extreme caution; nonetheless, the three pumped their arms, no questions asked, heavy boots that thud to the glossy, glowing white runway under their feet, they knew it was legitimately now or never. With a spike of assured terror, all three beings could hear a few guards, manned in a lookout point just to their left, urgently begin to call warning to the others via a loud speaker, and with this came a sudden wail of an alarm sound, ear-splitting noise that could nearly deafen them, the three continued to press on through the chaos.
Berri uttered a noise of terror as stabs of hot laser beams began to obliterate the white runway about her, and though she was falling behind Lash's and Wren's faster running pace, Berri was entirely relieved to see Lash whip around, throw his hands out, grapple Berri and Wren into his magnificent User coding and zip the three the two hundred foot stretch of grid they had left to traverse. Knowing they couldn't dream of outrunning the guns of unlimited lasers on their heels, he took the risk of said teleportation and was thrilled to align the three to the gape of the whipping portal landing. In a swipe, Lash yanked Zed's disc off of his back, grappled it with both hands, skid to a scuffing stop into the gorgeous white glow of the portal's exit and held the gape of Zed's disc towards the heavens. With a grunt and the grit of his teeth, he was entirely relieved to feel Berri's and Wren's hands and arms do whatever they could to hold on to Lash's midsection and chest. Lash heavily panted amidst their unwavering grapple and looked up to the pulsing show of light high above them, and with one final glance out to Tron's glowing atmosphere about them, he grit his teeth and could see a swathe of armed, armored individuals just plowing for their beings; with no time to truly digest just what they'd be up against, upon returning to Tron, the air began to crackle and sear about them. The smell of burning, searing electricity was abundant, their bodies climbed with the differential, and like the flick of a light switch, they were slammed to their new dimension with the kiss of pure, deafening, confusing silence.
