...hi *runs away in shame*
College happened, such as term papers and study abroad applications and general business, and I've been so uninspired to write that it's shameful. But after getting accepted into study abroad program, I remembered how fun it is to be happy and inspired and I sorta sat down and started writing?
Therefore, to be fair to everyone who cares about this story universe and the sequel to Action Replay, I am now going to cut AR 5 "extra" mission chapters shorter; this will technically be the climax of the story, which makes sense from a thematic point. But don't worry; this will not be the end of the Codebusters :)
And another note: I'm going away this summer to work for my study abroad trip fees, so I'll try and finish all of Action Replay by then so you won't have to deal with another hiatus.
So here, have this update and please don't burn my house down T3T
Disclaimer: I don't own many things, why do you keep asking me this?
Choko's POV
Choko giggled as Lottie-san smacked Skrillex-niisan upside the head for being under confident with Elsie-san, and pondered the guests at her table. There were three in total: Lottie-san, from one of the experimental Disney games on the fifth floor; Viridi-chan from Kid Icarus: Uprising; and Classic Sonic-kun from the 3DS version of Sonic Generations.
Their story was one that filled the deep blue well in Choko's soul with endless theory. "Our previous owner," Viridi-chan drawled as she fixed her long blonde hair, "was a self-entitled brat who constantly abused his overly generous parents. Even when they dragged his unworthy behind to Walt Disney World he only complain and wore out the battery on his special edition 3DS."
She crossed her arms and huffed, "He even would steal other people's games if they left them out, and would throw his 3DS across the room in tantrums! Doesn't he know how terrifying that is for a game character?!"
Sonic-kun patted her shoulder in comfort and Viridi-chan bitterly smirked, "That was our downfall, actually. He was playing Lego Star Wars on Spaceship Earth, and when his mother told him to put his game away, he had another fit, flailed his arms...and threw us out of his car!"
Honey-neesan sputtered, "W-What happened to the 3DS?" Honestly, even Choko was shivering in horror because what kind of twisted monster would throw a hand-held game console into a dangerous environment? That little brat could've killed thousands of people!
"We landed somewhere off-limits to guests." Viridi-chan and Sonic-kun looked down at the shimmering glass tabletop, "Broke our screen to bits and ruined his chance of replacing it, but thankfully the computer wasn't too badly torn up...I mean, blue boy and I have been best buds since we first got turned on,and since we weren't being played, we could react. We got our data from the memory card, clipped it to my inventory and bailed to the external port to try and make a jump." She snorted, "As if we could actually jump across a threshold with no electricity, but eh, we were desperate.
"Lots of others escaped, like the people from my game and his game and Nintendogs and others... but yeah, we lost about 85% of the 3DS natives since the memory card broke and wiped their data." Viridi-chan shrugged, "This happened ages ago; the 3DS got picked up by an employee and was plugged in to see if it still worked, so us survivors jumped ship into the building mainframe, and ended up in DQ-Land.
"We all ended up separating to find our new fortunes, but Sonic and I stayed around on the fifth floor since we didn't want to just float around the Interweb; we met up with Lottie here and ever since then we've been crashing in her game."
Lottie-san waved her hand, "It's all good, honey! My game friends and I just couldn' leave youout in the pixel rain!" She turned to Choko and gushed, "You shoulda seen these two, lookin' all lost in the happiest place on earth! But from what Sonny tells me, you three were also all balled up in the processors."
Choko nodded as she blew her bangs out of her face, "We've been having an interesting week." Meeting the heiress of her game company, setting foot in an iTouch, dying but not really, building a roller coaster... Choko wanted her own book deal, or at least a fanfiction account.
Sonic-kun giggled about being overstuffed with Southern cooking until he and Viridi-chan were in a week-long food coma, and Skrillex-niisan rubbed the back of his neck, "So you guys live here now, huh? What's it like, as a not-DisneyQuest born person?"
"Welp, the games are great and varied, the inner architecture puts my old game to shame, there are dozens of satellite arcades we like to go hang out in, and the DQ programs are super nice, especially the ELA girls." Viridi-chan grinned, "The one girl you were dancing with is exceedingly friendly, what's her name again?"
And that led to everyone beating up Skrillex-niisan for being a bashful ninnymuggins, but Choko argued that at least he had the dango dumplings to actually dance with her. A random comment by Honey-neesan about taking Elsie-san on a romantic Ferris wheel run prompted a heated discussion about amusement rides in general; the great "to loop or not to loop" conundrum almost resulted in Honey-neesan kick flipping Lottie-san into the couch.
Thankfully she still had a wealth of cupcakes to soothe out any anger, and dawn rose bright and blue over them watching an archived The Little Mermaid and singing at the top of their lungs. Choko shrieked with laughter when Skrillex-niisan made an impromptu rap about Jamaican crabs and seaweed and Sonic-kun started break dancing to it. Honey-niisan, Viridi-chan and Lottie-san were being sassy back up singers and the morning sky held promises of more fun and Choko just felt truly and completely happy.
So when a gigantic, snarling spider beast crashed through their door and shrieked "ACTION REPLAY!", Choko's reaction of squeaking and shooting it with the random pocky Gatling gun she summoned via cheat code was totally acceptable and fitting in with the general theme of preserving happiness.
Pixel-san sprinted in with a gunblade, yelling at them to "HIDE!" and shooting at the gigantic creature that roared like a rampaging cybug but 10x as worse. They ducked behind the couch and witnesses an anti-virus at work: Pixel-san leaped onto the beast's back and drove her blade into his spine. Two tentaclesspewed in a flood of acidic green code from the stab wound, but she jumped down to swing the blade outwards and shoot the spider's eyes out.
The virus gurgled lowly in its punctured throat and keeled over, smashing the table to bits of glass and the rest of the shattered morning. She didn't let up, eyes glowing purple as she blasted the carcass into just a memory; the tentacles blindly groped around for her until they too went the way of the 8 bit wonders. Pixel-san was singed and bleeding and has a nasty acid burn on her knee, but she turned and smiled cheerfully at the cowering seven, "Good morning!"
Honey-neesan sniffled about the tragedies of ruined cupcakes, and Choko added this to the list of moments she was definitely going to cover on her fanfiction account.
DisneyQuest was home to various specialized programs, such as Elsie and the ELA programs, the MARI that were like super janitors, the JET who coordinated with the security software, the AMIS who ran everything behind the scenes, and the ION medical core.
Choko watched as a devastatingly handsome ION nurse named Ionelo-sama patched up Pixel-san's acid burn. If it wasn't for the fact that her hotel had just been assaulted by a gigantic spider beast and Pixel-san got hurt along with the unfortunate cupcakes, Choko would've been debating who was more かっこいい (kakkoii): Megaman-sama or Ionelo-sama.
"Ok, now stretch out your leg?" Ionelo-sama checked out the healing code patch he had added, and smiled with one dimple when Pixel-san didn't flinch or collapse in agony. "Alright, your leg should be on its way to a natural healing cycle. Try and not injure it again for 24 hours."
"Got it," Pixel-san yawned as she rolled off the examination table, "And thankfully that was the last virus of the night. Go tell the security programs around here to not let unsecured laptops join in the hotel wifis anymore, ok?"
Ionelo-sama shrugged since most of Disney World's resort patrons were kinda...dumb, but it was a good suggestion anyway. Pixel-san stretched out her back and smiled at Choko, "Sorry for breaking your table, I'll treat you all to a marshmallow party or something."
"大丈夫です、(Daijoubu desu)" Choko waved away the worries, "You saved our skins from being eaten by a virus, I think that's a good trade for the table." She turned to see her nakama getting ready to leave, and she hugged Pixel-san, "See you later, Pixel-san! Try and stay out of trouble, ne?"
Later on, Choko wished that she had told everyone in DisneyQuest that, because karma seemed ready to reap an equivalency out of her miracle not-death.
It happened while she was on the Ferris wheel with Honey-neesan, Lottie-san and Viridi-chan—or the Fun Wheel, if the ride's true name was to be used—and cheerfully screaming her head off whenever the gondolas made 360 degree loops on the glittering rails. She looked out the wired window to try and spot Skrillex-niisan laughing at them from below, and instead saw a chunk of lights by DisneyQuest's entrance turn off and black smoke rising from the elevator sockets.
A surge of ELA and MARI programs in blue and white ran to the elevators, and Choko could only gasp as more and more of those horrific spider beasts materialize. Suddenly the ride came to a stop and an alarm went off as a warning in a thousand languages directed, "Alert, alert, this is not a drill, evacuate immediately!"
They left the ride with the rest of the crowd, Choko clinging to her neesan's arm for all it's worth. There was too much screaming, too much fear, they were all going to be attacked and not everyone was an anti-virus or had a weapon—
Honey-neesan rose up and yelled, "Follow the girls in blue, they know what to do!"And her voice was filled with cerulean power, making the people stop in awe before following her order like it was their prime directive. Choko shivered before her Action Replay pulsed in her soul, and she too began to direct with Honey-neesan and Skrillex-niisan. Follow the blue, it knew what to do, even in the darkness of the Void it would illuminate the way...
Elsie-san suddenly appeared and pulled them out of the crowd, "You, my dears, need to come with me."
They were taken to one of the Skyway ports, and Elsie-san opened a "Maintenance Only" shed door that revealed a stark white hallway. Down the narrow hall they entered a central hub, and Choko's breath was taken away. Thousands of various programs filtered between control screens, controlling every part of DisneyQuest's environment. Several satellite arcades were reporting viral outbreaks from their guest entrances as well, millions upon millions of lights flooding into safe zones and Choko began to see the magnitude of this potential disaster.
Elsie-san then directed them to the glowing rainbow-coded throne in the middle of the chaos, "Miss Amelia, you wished to see these three guests?"
The throne swiveled around to reveal a dignified older woman, white eyes calm with more experience than all of the Codebusters had together. "Welcome to the Hub, Ms. Pockystix, Ms. Cat, Mr. Moore." Amelia-san leaned forward, "Let's get down to business: earlier this morning, our Zielinska Antivirus Security Programs detected a large amount of viral entities just outside our firewall entrance. Normally this is no cause for alarm; this is DisneyQuest, many forms of malware would love to sink their teeth into our internet connections and guests.
"However, one slipped by, and focused upon a specific source of power: an Action Replay, or specifically, three Action Replays tied to three guests." Amelia-san folded her hands together, "While an off duty anti-virus guest managed to eliminate the threat, the virus sent out a signal to its cohorts and now an army is breaking into DisdnwyQuest and its satellite arcades. Their goal is to infect and kill as many guests and games as possible, as well as gut you three like a fishing game and steal your Action Replays."
Choko flinched and hid behind Skrillex-niisan, and Amelia-san sighed, "Now, obviously this is not your fault in any way; no one can be blamed for the insanity of malware. But as it stands, our entire network is under attack, and I was wondering if you three would like to volunteer to help purge the viral army." Amelia-san half smiled, "In the earliest days of DisneyQuest, I saw a young woman use a Game Genie to eliminate an anarchist uprising; she gave her life to save our fledgling network, and while I won't dare to ask you to do the same...some help would be appreciated."
The Codebusters looked at each other with wide eyes, then met Amelia-san's gaze in unified blue. "We are the Codebusters," Skrillex-niisan grinned, "We couldn't not help even if we tried."
Honey's POV
The JET programs reported that the outbreaks in the satellite arcades were being contained, but the JET and Zielinska requested with increasing urgency for backup in DisneyQuest. The Codebusters changed into their jumpsuits, Honey tying her twintails extra tight, and they descended back into the chaos.
Even with the evacuation, millions of guests were trapped. The viral smoke had the wonderful effect of shorting out simple code sequences like "Open this door", or "Allow in people", so even the arcade game consoles were blocked off from the escaping guests. Honey narrowed her blue-violet eyes as a spider virus screeched and descended upon a group of crying Pikmin. "Oh hell no," she hissed as she catapulted herself forward, "Leave the babies alone, you monster!"
The virus was thrown against a wall, and the Pikim scattered as Honey dodged bursts of acids and grabby tentacles. One of the other viruses, a giant Trojan warrior with soulless eyes, swung at her head with a wickedly distorted sword and Honey knew that there was little hope of regenerating from that beast of a weapon. Summoning a bunch of rings, she flew into the air and kicked at their faces, slamming rings down to increase her attack power and obscure their vision. They roared in dismal minor chords and she growled right back in harmony, forcing them into a power line and punching a hole through the on switch.
They disintegrated in the flow of electricity, and Honey diverted the steam into the electric slide. The viruses trying to climb to higher levels through the slide met an unhappy death, and Honey was too busy looking at the spoils of her plan to see the size-shifting virus plow into her back.
She hollered, she kicked and spat but she was trapped under an over-muscled arm. Gasping for air, she subconsciously picked a cheat code to transform into her glitching mirror, and the virus froze in place along with her. Hissing under her broken breaths, Honey changed back to normal and grinned as she kicked off the virus's head, "Glitch power, mother—"
Honey squeaked when a large group of viruses spotted her, and marked both her Action Replay and her electricity happy fighting strategy. "ELIMINATE!"
A large crimson Loftwing suddenly landed on the group of viruses, crushing the puny viruses under its glorious wings. The Loftwing carried three Links—one Skyward Sword, One Ocarina and one Wind Waker—and the SS!Link blushed and apologized for nearly killing Honey with his super awesome flying bird of endless glory.
"Not at all," Honey yelled as she and WW!Link teamed up against one of the viruses, "I appreciate the help!" And she really wanted to ride the Loftwing into the swarm of viruses piling up over the Fun Wheel, but she figured that could wait later. She threw her diminutive partner up so he could pogo stick on the viruses with his Master Sword, and Honey kicked her way through the ribcage of a Hulk-like beast.
The Loftwing pecked out the eyes of a virus that wanted to kill its owner, and Honey asked, "So, are you three here for business or pleasure?" Pleasure; they were all from the same Wii U from New York City, intending on having a nice vacation while their owner was going to summer camp. Honey grinned as all three synched together and filled a couple of viruses with arrows, "Certainly beats sleeping in all day!"
WW!Link giggled and saved her from a Trojan sword swing, and Honey briefly wondered what he would look like in a jumpsuit before going to go save a group of civilians from a bloodthirsty bastard. Apparently, that proved Honey's worth to the Loftwing, because when the viral swarm overtook the Fun Wheel and spilled into the World of Color Palette bay, it offered its wing to her.
Honey squealed, and with the rest of her blonde friends flew into the violence-changed air like the world's happiest harbinger of chaos.
There were quite a few warriors battling against the viruses. Nymphs in blue and pink robes glided through the fighting with the grace that all Zielinksa Sugar Alice/Crystal Jane Antivirus Software were programmed with, contrasting against the chunky glamor that video game characters fought with. Yes, Honey was back to back with WW!Link and Bayonetta, and she could see Skrillex in the company of Captain Falcon and Choko teaming up with a few other magical girls. And were it not for the real threat poses by the viruses—Honey had to stop and carry too many dying civilians to the ION core for her tastes—this would've been awesome.
But then again, this was also war.
Choko ducked as a virus was blown over her head, raising her hands to akido flip a charging virus into a growing fire pit. That was awesome and made Honey cheer, and Choko turned to smile and wave at her older sister. Her brown-blue eyes were filled with cheer...and they slow widened as as a gigantic black worm with a horrific glitching face twisted out of the virus's body. "...eh?"
The worm grinned at her before opening a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth, and Honey only had a second to scream before her little sister's head was bitten off.
Everything froze as the clamor became background static and the world was thrown off its axis. Honey rushed forward, catching Choko's body before it could fall, and she was missing a head, her head was no longer present and who knew such a tiny body could hold so much chocolate syrup? Honey couldn't scream, because that would make it real, and summoned duct tape from her inventory to try and stop the bleeding.
It didn't stick because duct tape was not a good bandaid and Honey remembered that oh yeah, what was the point of band aids when someone's head got bitten off? The head had to go on first! She looked to her left to see Skrillex systemically blasting the virus worm to kingdom come. Not even the Void would be able to contain the scattered viral coding, nor the unending fury in his infinite blue eyes, and Honey shook Choko's body, "Wake up baby doll, before your niisan gets himself killed."
The body glitched, and suddenly disappeared, leading only Choko's Action Replay in Honey's hands. The little cheat cartridge filled the chocolate saturated air with blue and pink sparkles, before Choko regenerated with her body not missing vital components like her head. She blinked and looked down at her hands, before blurting out to Honey, "I think I just learned how to fly?"
Honey crushed Choko to her chest, never again doubting the potential of the reality warper in her inventory. Skrillex got his ass beat into a pancake and was thrown into a wall above their heads, and Honey grinned with sharp white teeth, "Up and at 'em, Sonny boy; if Little Miss over here can walk off a decapitation," Choko giggled and ran off to help Sailor Jupiter and Mami Tomoe conquer a group of viruses antagonizing a Toad squad, "then we can keep our heads firmly on our shoulders."
Skrillex jumped down into her arms, patched up his once-again broken nose, and led her over to Captain Falcon who really wanted to see what would happen if they punched a Hulk virus at the same time. It turns out that the wireframe of the Hulk, while stronger than that of the spider virus, couldn't handle their dual attack, and Honey reminded herself that yeah, war was hell but battles were up a fighting game character's alley.
Honey thrashed her way into Cyberspace Mountain, helping Bill Nye the Coaster Guy firmly eject viruses out of his domain into the unfeeling death of a black hole. Jumping into a booth, Honey opened up a new coaster building project and Bill said, "Just a strange time to be building a coaster, don't you think?"
"It's always coaster time, Mr. Nye," Honey looked out the booth to see the viruses attack plugged in games, and she asked, "Can I mod your game a teensy bit?"
"What kind of mod?"
"Adding bazookas, flamethrowers, unlimited speed boosters, that sort of thing."
A virus crashed through the roof, a war painted Animal Crossing villager girl roaring for blood, and Bill Nye shrugged, "It wouldn't be the most shocking thing I've seen today."
The villager girl helped Honey build the Jolly Trolley, a sweet pink coaster that was equipped with more firepower than a Call of Duty expansion pack. Considering how a COD soldier and Captain America dropped in to help create a good coaster flight path with consideration of the weapons' ranges, Honey figured that wasn't entirely untrue.
They rolled out the Jolly Trolley into the air above DisneyQuest, and Captain America took the reigns. "Sargeant Davies, man the bazookas. Miss Villager, fire away at the swarm of viruses pressed against the racing games every time we make a circuit. Codebuster, I think you're needed down below."
Honey nodded, but decided to stick around for at least the first circuit; the image of the viruses screaming and retreating away from the bow-covered Jolly Trolley was too good to pass up. She jumped out into a ten story bounce house filled with 80s punch out and ninja type characters using the jumping leverage to defeat spider viruses, and cartwheel kicked a virus into a pool below.
Alas, the virus had a lance and speared her through the gut before yanking out the stuff she needed to be inside her stomach. She collapsed into the pool, regretted not swimming it earlier, and died.
When someone died, and their game was an Action Replay, they fell into blue stars. Honey tumbled through knowledge that tasted like the future and yeah, she thought she knew how to fly now too, how neat. And she was pulled out of the stars with her regeneration, eyes focusing on a crying Toadette beating viruses away from Honey's body with a stolen Trojan sword.
Honey smiled, fixed her headband, and helped the little Toadette kill at the nasty bastards. So many people seemed suited for jumpsuits and their own Action Replays, and Honey wanted to share. But before she could share, she needed to save DisneyQuest, and show the viruses what kind of trouble they were in for daring to come and steal away Honey's precious cartridge.
Skrillex's POV
Skrillex died a painful death after getting eaten by a spider virus. He had to choose between himself or a group of crying child racers, and they didn't know how to end one's life before a viral infection could take hold. He came back with an idea of turning the WoCP Display into something a bit more awesome and got the girls into a safe zone. One of them, a delicate gray skinned boy who looked nothing at all like the Turbo boogeyman of Liwatka's Arcade, decided to go with him and join the cause.
The boy—his name was Junior, he came from a TurboTime: Nytro City arcade console in Berlin—plowed through the viruses in his souped up cart as if they were minor speed bumps, and Skrillex smashed hardier viruses across the face with a guitar he borrowed from a Guitar Hero character. He probably looked ridiculous, his hair getting all tangled and his glasses cracked from getting punched in the face yet again, but it gave some of the fighters something to rally behind.
Junior braked about 5 inches away from the edge of the WOCP bay, and Skrillex pointed, "You see those three racers doing wheelies across that horde of spider viruses?"
"Ja?"
"They said that they're from the greater Berlin area, and I'm pretty sure you could show them a thing or two in your cart."
Junior grinned before racing off to join his comrades, and Skrillex dove into the water. Below the dark blue waves were scattered virus fragments, dead JET programs and the machinery needed to do the nighttime water show. Cheating in order to not need air, he swam down and started altering the machinery's purpose; why not iridescent fire instead of water, why not release viral alert codes to lure in enemies, why not have it explode through the Fun Wheel instead of just in front of it?
A Trojan crashed into the water, having been gored in the chest by a pissed off Rainbow Dash, and Skrillex neatly stole the codes needed to make a convincing virus beacon. Down in the deep, it was surprising how it managed to be both eerily still and deeply chaotic; Skrillex could hear the music of battle thrum bass lines through the water, and his inner musician desired to make a brostep remix of power.
Choko fell into the water, a spider virus strangling her with evil tentacles, and Skrillex swam up to gouge out the virus's eyes. It hissed and choked in the water, and Choko stabbed Pixel's gunblade into its cranium. It sputtered and died in the water, and they swam to the surface, gulping in air. "She let you borrow that?!"
"I told her that I'd go take a scary dangerous bazooka from the Jolly Trolley unless she gave me a weapon she trusted."
"Nice." They looked up to see the Jolly Trolley fire away at a viral swarm, and Skrillex directed, "Tell the ELA girls to not send people this way; I'm going to make a lot of fun things happen."
"Like what?"
They turned to see Elsie in her tunic dress and a lazer-edged sword, covered in sweat and scratched and virus ooze and utterly radiant. She helped them out of the water, hands callous free despite the sword, and she tilted her head, "Are you going to cause an international incident, Mr. Skrillex?"
"N-Nothing worse than what's already happening, Ms. Elsie." Choko let out a mighty warrior princess cry and tackled a pint sized virus, and Skrillex dredged up the confidence he got blessed with last night. "Seriously though, I'm going to turn the World of Color Palette into a virus beacon—it worked at my arcade the last time there was an infestation, so it could work now."
Elsie smiled and it filled Skrillex with a deep sense of serenity, "I understand. Just...stay safe, ok?"
He squeezed her hands before letting her turn and cut a charging Hulk down to size, "As you wish."
It took a while to get Executive Plan Brostep in motion, because there was just a lot of viruses to beat down. They multiplied and spread like the plague, overwhelming even the seasoned anti-viruses. Skrillex carried a Crystal Jane to that Ionelo guy, seeing milky white code leak from her torn off leg, and shuddered at the viruses' game plan.
If they got an Action Replay, it was game over. There was literally no telling of the possibilities that malware could reach with something that could cheat around deletion and death.
He turned to the pavilion in front of the Fun Wheel and WoCP bay, and was struck by the world clock in the sky. It was 5 pm; the human gamers had been playing in DisneyQuest without a hitch despite the disaster blooming under the electronic surface, characters playing their parts despite the viral flames licking at the sockets. That's what his home arcade was doing, playing onwards despite losing three people, and wasn't that the most wonderful thing?
Skrillex wiped his eyes and cleaned his glasses; if she wanted the gamers to keep on gaming and for him to go home at the end of the week, he needed to get his act together. He could see Honey leading a large group of characters against a viral swarm, and Choko guiding ION medics to centers of hurt. They were working, they were fighting, they were his loved ones and Skrillex refused to let them down.
A Trojan dashed towards him but a blue blur knocked him back, and floral magic ripped through the air as Viridi and Sonic teamed together for yet another battle. Skrillex watched them go aid a Rosalina and her Lumas, happy that
He pushed his way through a crowd of civilians to an ELA girl, whose white hair was stained with virus goop and claymore dripping with malware. He called out, "I am in need of assistance!"
"One moment!" The ELA teamed with with a squadron of other ELAs, Elsie tying a patch of gauze to her thigh with duct tape, and killed the viruses that were mad-dogging towards Skrillex. Surrounding him, the ELA chirped, "I'm Helsette; how may I be of assistance?"
"I need to trigger the World of Color Palette show right now, and wipe out the swarm before things get even worse!"
Helsette and Elsie pushed him down so he wouldn't get killed; he saw a JET boy riddle a virus with bolts, nearly getting himself killed with his single-minded determination to help. But he was fine, all of them were fine, and Elsie grabbed onto Skrillex's hand, "Follow me!"
The ELAs escorted him like a guest of honor, hacking their way to the control booth hidden beneath the Fun Wheel's base. As the Fun Wheel had been overtaken by viruses, rainbow chrome tarnished and rotting, Skrillex and Elsie had to break away to allow the ELAs to evacuate the weakening safety zones. Elsie kicked in the hub door, and the two fell down to a silent room where alert lights illuminated the dead viruses and dead AMIS programs.
Elsie gasped and Skrillex draped a tattered jacket over the AMIS's face. He worried that she might freeze up, as the damage was rather gory, but her blue eyes hardened and she held her head high. "I'm no AMIS, but I do know what buttons to press." She kicked a virus out of the control panel's chair and logged in her credentials, the screens coming to life. "So you just want it to play as usual?"
"Are there other options?" He leaned over her shoulder, seeing where the explosions would erupt from the water. "Like, are there bigger productions that can be played?"
"Let's see...ah, there's the Summer Solstice Celebration show set; it's a little early for that, but all of these pipes," Elsie showed how everywhere in DisneyQuest there would be glorious flames, "would go off. Why?"
"Excellent." Skrillex turned Elsie so he could speak to her directly, "I need everyone out. Civilians, fighters, DisneyQuest programs, everyone that won't regenerate. Once you do that, tell me so I can set everything off."
She nodded, but then hesitated, "What will you do? Take shelter in here?"
Skrillex grimaced, "I might have to be in the middle of it to make sure that everything goes off as planned."
"No!" She stood up and even though she was taller than him, she seemed so very fragile. "You're going to get yourself killed! I-If you're planning on making explosions or fire or whatever else, you—"
He hugged her, forehead against her shoulder, and felt her collapsed into his embrace. "You're not scared are you?"
She laughed and the bell toned cracked, "My home has been invaded, my friends are hurt and dying, I don't know what will happen to the guests and I'm afraid that you're going to die. Please don't die, I don't..." Elsie murmured against his hair, "I like you, you seem like the type who doesn't go around breaking girls' hearts."
Skrillex exhaled, before pulling back to smile, "Tell that to my ex." Elsie's bell laughter soothed his own lingering fears and it gave him the strength needed to say, "Once everyone is safe, meet me back here and I'll show you why it won't be so easy to get rid of me."
She smiled and squeezed his shoulders before running off, and Skrillex sank into the blue stars staining his peripheral, absorbing every code necessary for the upcoming show.
Elsie came back an hour later, covered in blood but grinning that the Jolly Trolley had finished her final circuit and that everyone was accounted for. Honey passed on her regards, specifically that "If you get us kicked out I'm going to shove a blue shell up your ass."
Skrillex mumbled that no one was going to kick them out as long as Honey wasn't lazy and didn't want to clean up afterward, then brought Elsie to the audience stage in front of the WoCP bay. With the absence of fighters, the viruses were now swarming out of control, topping the inner structures of DisneyQuest and threatening to break into the quarantined games.
The air vibrated of death, and Skrillex held onto Elsie's hand, "Let's drop the base then."
He snapped his free fingers, and the show started up. The viruses were attracted to the viral alert signals embedded seamlessly into the music, and pretty water fountains splayed the rainbow across the twisted Fun Wheel. The fountains swiveled to the beat of increasingly frenetic music, the colors distorting, and the viruses swarmed into the water.
The music dipped low into sinister chords, and Elsie looked ready to run, but as the music began to crescendo with the levels of water, Skrillex grabbed her close, pulled up a shield, and yelled, "Here's the bass drop!"
And everything exploded.
Fire in a thousand spectrums of color gushed over all of DisneyQuest, modified by the sneaky little codes hidden in Skrillex's Action Replay. They were keyed to everything with more than thirteen directives, sparing immobile structures and simple things such as the WoCP itself. And with data stolen from Pixel's gunblade and the Crystal Jane's antiviral blood, the fire scorched and purged the viruses without pause.
The music playing was as loud and chaotic as he could mix from DisneyQuest's soundtrack, and maybe he was stepping on a lot of copyrights, but everything was fair in love and brostep. The viruses scrambled and writhed and were exterminated like vermin, and rainbows glittered in Elsie's hair and earrings as she watched with wide eyes.
Skrillex watched her, aching to do something as dramatic as the flames blowing around their shield, but then she whispered, "It's beautiful."
She turned to face him, face filled with the same wonder that Skrillex held when he first walked into DisneyQuest, "You do stuff like this all the time?" His tongue was stuck and he could only nod, and Elsie shook her head, "This is amazing...you are amazing."
And he could smell the lingering notes of her apple perfume, and her hands trailed up his arms past the scars and the shakes up to his neck, and kissing Elsie was like being reborn again.
Skrillex surveyed the group assembled in front of them. They were in front of the rebuilt WoCP audience stage, freshly patched up by the ION core and decidedly not burnt to death. The minor fire damage had been worth the entire viral army being eradicated, and the JET/antivirus assault teams had purged the rest of the enemies. The gamers were blissfully unaware of the chaos waged from the pother side of the screen, and Amelia herself had thanked the Codebusters for their help.
Most of the guests were in their hotel rooms, sleeping off the day's horror, except for the assembled character who were looking at Skrillex, Honey and Choko with eyes filled with awe. After all, who else but these three had the Action Replays the viral attack so desperately craved, along with the skills needed to wield those magic cartridges for great code manipulating justice? They were practically gods to the ground, and Skrillex saw Choko blush at all of her well-earned admiration.
He recognized a few faces in the crowd, like Viridi and Sonic, Junior and the German racers, Mami Tomoe and the Sailor Scouts, the three Links and their Loftwing, Captain America, Captain Falcon, Rosalina and a slew of Toadettes and Lumas, and dozens upon dozens of more. The pairings in the group weren't equal, with some in pairs or quartets or even alone, but all of them were linked together in having saved DisneyQuest. All of them were brave and foolish and crafty and just plain ballsy, and he shared a final deciding nod between Honey and Choko.
"I've called you all here at this lovely 3am hour because all of you helped save this arcade complex from the viral invasion despite not being either anti-viruses, DisneyQuest programs, or anything but what you are: game characters who decided to take a stand and help out. Thankfully no one died otherwise this would be a very different speech, but since you all battled and lived to tell about it, we're going to let you in on our little secret.
"I'm sure you're all wondering about this?" He held up his Action Replay, and the group's breath hitched together. "My companions and I have been in possession of these for almost a year now, and we've been using them to fix glitches and programming errors back in our arcade. And apparently, even a viral apocalypse can be stopped with a bit of sneaky cheating.
"You've seen all the wonderfully fun things we can do with this...and that's why," Skrillex smiled as the deep blue well in his soul pulsed, "I'm offering you all the chance to join our group, the Codebusters."
Everyone rose to their feet in excitement, yelling out their assent, and the original Red Core could already pick out the different cores between them, stretching all over the video game world to save the day. Pixel and a few other anti-viruses whistled in the back, and Elsie gave Skrillex a smile that made his heart sing. This was going to change everything, and Skrillex couldn't wait to see it begin.
"Since you're all interested," the Codebusters spoke to their new juniors, eyes in unison glowing blue, "The first thing you have to know about being a Codebuster is understanding the concept of a cheat console..."
かっこいい (kakkoii): cool, handsome, basically every little girl's dream of the ultimate guy
大丈夫です(Daijoubu desu): "It's ok", "It's alright", "No worries", etc.
I FINALLY UPDATED HNNNNNNNNNNNNNG
AND THE CODEBUSTERS ARE FINALLY EXPANDING OUTSIDE THEIR ARCADE HNNNNNNNNNNNNNG
AND SKRILLEX AND ELSIE KISSED, HNNNNNNNNNNNNNG
*HNNNNNNNNNNNNNG INTENSIFIES*
But ya...I hope this was worth the long wait!