A/N: Oooh...so turns out the rescue operation did not turn out as good as they planned. What have they done to RJ now?

Read on, my friends. Enjoy! :D

Chapter 15

Ralph

RJ is unrecognizable.

Sure, he still retained his human form. Sure, even when he is lying on his side, I can see a few features that separated him out from everyone else in the game. His hair is still same as mine, complete with the two floppy strands that landed on his forehead; his hands are still blocky shaped, lying limply on the ground; and although his eyes are closed, I can be certain that when they open they'll be a bright and brilliant green, sparkling with wonder.

But the similarities stop there. Even from a distance, I can see RJ is far smaller, and younger, than what he'd looked a few days ago. His clothes, now far too big for his smaller frame, hang loosely on his now-human-sized body. The clothes, particularly his shirt, were ripped open and blacked, as if RJ's been caught in a fire and somehow got burnt. His hands, although blocky, have now become normal sized; in fact, he's lost my 'wrecker arms' as well. His chin and nose has been sharpened off, and a wild burst of freckles has exploded over his face.

RJ lies unmoving, even as Felix and I approach him. Nicelanders whisper furiously as I stoop down and use an oversized finger to gently tap his side, trying to rouse him. But RJ still doesn't stir.

"RJ!" I whisper "Hey! Wake up!"

RJ doesn't move.

I tap his side again, to the point I accidently roll him over a bit. Yet, RJ simply flops over, not resisting my push at all. I jerk back, can't believe what I am seeing, can't believe that my worst fear had come true. I turn away from everyone else, trying not to let anyone see me crying.

RJ…RJ is dead. And I…

"Ralph? I hear buzzing. RJ's still alive."

I snap out of my thoughts, quickly wiping the tears from my eyes, and glance over at Felix. While I've been sulking, Felix has quietly crept down near RJ and checked for a buzzing of electricity running in his code that indicated a person's condition. And now, according to Felix, RJ still has electricity in him, he is still alive…for now. I lean and rest my head on RJ's chest, and sure enough, a faint but definite hum of electricity ran from deep within him, and although he doesn't respond, I can tell that he is still alive.

I breathe out a huge sigh of relief, and then very carefully, I slide my hands under RJ's body and lifted him up, cradling him in my arms. Felix bounds over and taps his hammer against RJ's side, and while I can see the hammer's effect run up quickly through him, RJ is still not moving.

"He seems to be some sort of trance, in some conditions that my hammer can't heal…" Felix mutters.

Just then, RJ jerks in my hands, and I look down instinctively, eager to see him rub his eyes and sit up. But no; for some reason, RJ has not awakened. Another unnatural jerk from him shatters my hopes: RJ is still glitching, and those glitches are causing him to twitch and jerk.

So much for being hopeful.

"He's sorta in a coma, that's why he hasn't woken up." Felix says, observing.

Now I start to panic; I heard that characters with codes broken to a certain degree could enter comas and possibly never wake up again. I shift his body into a more comfortable posture…

And scream.

"RALPH! YOU OKAY, BROTHER?!" Felix runs over to me, concerned. My hand has briefly flared up into red pixels, as if triggered by a random glitch or something…

Wait a minute.

I gently lift up his right overall pant leg, for I'm sure that part rested on my hand earlier when I changed his posture.

And when I see it, I suck in a tight breath.

For his right foot is glowing, and not in a good way. It's a small spark, but green and brilliant, flaring up like flame. And I might have imagined it, but I think it's spreading slowly, inching up his foot and onto his leg.

"We…we gotta do something!" I get out "I don't know what to do with RJ! We need more help!"

Gene, rolling his eyes, steps up to us. "Now I don't really care about RJ." He scoffs "Yeah, I don't think we need any more wreckers in our game, we got one big oaf and that already causes up a lot of unwanted trouble…"

I roll my eyes back at him. Yeah, typical Gene, never truly understanding how important my role is to our game. I could have punched him at that moment, but I held my hand down, waiting for him to finish his sentence.

"But…if I were you, I would go straight downtown to the hospital; RJ needs medical attention. It's not that hard to find, you'll know it when you see it, but since you never actually got hurt before I don't think you can find it straight away…"

"Great, thanks." I reply. I know Gene is taunting me again, but I don't care: RJ is my main concern right now. If there's really is a solution, I'll gladly take it, no matter who suggested it to me.

RJ glitches once again in my hands, and with that I run towards the direction of the said hospital as fast as my legs can take me.

I glance nervously at RJ's stats on the machines, and then back at RJ. For the entire time he's here, RJ never opened his eyes, and I am more and more worried that he may never wake up again.

Since this is the only hospital among our side of the consoles, by the time we arrived the hospital was already packed with characters from here and from nearby games, all waiting for a doctor to come and offer medical attention. We were supposed to be waiting in line with the others, but once Felix and I told the receptionist about RJ's condition, we were immediately escorted to a bed and a doctor in waiting.

"You think he'll be alright?" I ask the doctor in charge of RJ.

The doctor, a young fellow who looked nothing like the Nicelanders in our building: I think he was a survivor of an unplugged game who volunteered to build a hospital with some other characters in our game, looks down at his charts, then turns to us.

"How long has he been this way?" He asks in a solemn tone.

"A…while ago, I think?" I recall. "I mean, he was unlocked just now."

"Wait, again?!" The doctor asks, surprised. "So, this particular clone somehow gets rereleased right after its lockage? And somehow manages to survive? I mean…that's a first."

Right after hearing this, both Felix and I are and stunned. "How…how did you know?!" I sputter.

"Please, as the first clone that has been unlocked in recent years, RJ sure spun up a lot of news and gossip among the community. Heck! Everyone has been discussing about it now and then, you just didn't realize it."

I roll my eyes, annoyed that news about RJ had been out. "Just wanted this to be a quiet piece of gossip among those of us in our game…" I mutter.

The doctor turns his attention back to RJ. "He's in a coma, but I believe you know that already. I have given him a number of electric shocks, and he's reacted positively to them. I'll continue to do this to him, and I expect him to heal in the coming days to come."

"But will he make a full recovery?" I ask.

"By full recovery, do you mean that RJ will feel better, or do you mean…will he retain everything in his code?"

"Now here's something interesting." The doctor flips over a page on his clipboard and peers at the writing on it closely. "Right after we ran some tests, we realized that RJ had changed a lot from what we heard about him when he was first unlocked. Well, physically, we can all see he changed a lot, but a test confirmed that he indeed lost most of the original Wrecker coding copied from you, Ralph." He says, addressing me. "He lost his superhuman strength and wrecker fists, but personal opinion; I believe he'll be able to make a hell-lota damage even without them." He smiles a bit, then looks down at his clipboard again.

"We also found changes in him that cannot be seen via appearance alone." The doctor flips another page. "For example, his handedness has switched from right to left; he might have developed a slight accent… Oh! And also this: he has now become a forever and complete glitch."

"WHAT?!" Both Felix and I scream, starling the nearby doctors and patients. I give them an apologetic look, then turn back to the doctor. "A forever glitch? What do you mean by that?"

"Tests indicate a very unstable code within RJ, and apparently this is an irreversible damage. There is severe code loss from his core, and while it could grow back in a matter of weeks, the code will still be unstable, since it is different from the code RJ started with. Interestingly, we found physical traces of abuse on the core, which makes me wonder what happened to RJ before he came in here…"

"I…I tore out his code." I whisper just above my breath. "I…I tried to…remove the glitchy parts of his code…and fix up the broken areas, and then give him a complete reboot, so that…he'll become a normal character…"

"WHERE ON EARTH DID YOU HEAR THAT FROM? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? !" This time it was the doctor shouting. After getting glares from all around the room, the doctor whispers in a hushed voice. "Like, why would you try to remove his glitch by tearing his code out?! You could have potentially killed him!"

"Isn't…isn't that the way to do it?" I peep, slightly taken back by his outburst.

The doctor shakes his head wildly while pacing around the bed "That's a misconception. After the rescue failure many years back I thought you would understand! You're not saving the clone, guys, you're further damaging him! The right way to 'cure' a clone is yes, to remove the glitchy parts of him away, but only when you have found enough replacements to fill up the broken gaps, like fitting pieces into an almost-finished puzzle. And then watch him slowly get used to these new pieces of coding, not give him a reboot."

"But…but that would take ages! Where would we find that much unused coding lying around for RJ to heal?" I ask, holding out my hands for emphasis.

The doctor shakes his head again. "I know, I know. Unused coding really is hard to come by, so hard that in fact it takes at least months, or even years, before we actually start to remove the glitchy parts and piece in the replacements. But at least the clone actually gets 'cured' and becomes a normal character, despite all the different components in his or her code. With RJ here, though…"

The machine next to us beeps, and Felix and I jerk back. The doctor, however, calmly walks over to the machine and puts a cylinder, crackling with electricity, into it. Through the thin tubes connected to RJ, I can see electricity running down them and into RJ, pulsing across in the form of minor glitches. "Just time for another dose of electricity: he reacts really good to them. Oh, where was I…oh yeah."

"As you can see, RJ is still glitching, meaning that he is not quite a 'normal' character. However…the system didn't detect any mistakes in him, which is kinda strange. I mean, the system regarded him as 'normal', but he was glitching the entire time while we ran the tests. Believe me: we ran the tests two more times, but still, no 'abnormally' response in the system. Which…leads us to a conclusion."

The doctor breathes in sharply, then lets it out very slowly, and finishes his sentence.

"RJ has now become an unstoppable glitch, trapped between 'normal' and 'flawed', damaged beyond repair, undetected by the system. The game will no longer see him as one, though, which means he could leave anytime he liked. But the system no longer regards him as a glitch, and will not stop him. His code will simply continue to become unstable, as the game no longer recognizes him as a mistake and find a way to cure it."

"So he's will be a glitch forever, yet still be able to leave our game. That's not too bad, actually." I say, trying to lift my spirits. I have a feeling that by the tone the doctor described RJ's current condition, being a complete, unstoppable glitch is not a good thing. I smile, masking my worry over the whole situation.

The doctor shoots me a funny look. "Need to have your code checked, mister? 'Being a complete glitch' is not a bad thing?! Are you serious?! Yep, I heard what happened with Vanellope after her game got a reset; she was able to glitch and leave her game. But I'm afraid the situation for RJ here is much, much more critical. Having such an unstable code will have dangerous and unexpected effects on the character himself. Oh, and that's actually the second thing I want to address to you guys. And it's quite important."

The doctor lifts the blanket up slightly from the end of the bed, and we can see RJ's right foot is now completely glowing, flaring up like a million flickering pixels. The brilliant green flame is spreading up fast up his leg, reaching far past his ankle already. And from what I can see, I get a very bad feeling in my gut that the flame does no good to RJ, at all.

"The green flame, as you can see here, indicates dead code. Because of its fiery appearance on our patients, we call it, informally, 'The Flare', which is caused by a sudden abnormality in the code. Wherever the Flare touches, that part of the body flares up and is no longer able to function. It is a spreading disease, and can be fatal if not checked properly; meaning that the Flare can easily kill a character if it manages to spread to every part of the body…"

"Get to the point, what are you saying?" I snap, impatient.

"Basically, what I'm saying is that RJ's right foot is completely dead. Even if we manage to kill the Flare, RJ will never be able to walk normally on both legs again: he may need a cane or something. Also, even though he has not awakened yet, the Flare in him still hasn't stopped, and it will spread quickly. It was good of you to come directly to the hospital in its early stages, so that we are actually able to do something to stop it. However…it involves the removal of the areas it has already killed, so as to isolate the Flare for once and for all."

"So how are you able to…Oh." I say flatly, understanding what the doctor is attempting to do to RJ…and it ain't pretty.

"We have to remove RJ's right leg from the knee down." The doctor finishes. He catches sight of my gaping mouth then explains. "I know, it might be a bit too sudden for me to say this, but we really don't have much choice. The Flare is a fast-spreading disease: if we don't act anything in the next few hours, his leg just might not be the only affected part in him. And yes, even with characters that are unconscious, the Flare will still spread, at a quicker rate, even!"

The doctor now walks forward and looks at me in the eye "I know, I know, this might not seem pretty, especially when he's still not awake, but it really is the best way to save him. Please, try to understand. This really is the best for him, but we can't do anything without your permission."

After hearing this, I look away from the doctor, Felix and RJ, and sit down on one of the nearby chairs. I put my head in my hand, unable to believe everything that is happening. RJ now unconscious, I don't even know if he will ever wake up again, and now I have to decide if I have to chop his leg off!

And it is my entire fault.

The doctor comes and sits down next to me, and at that time I realize the name tag on his coat: R. Dey. I spent so much time worrying about RJ that I don't even notice the doctor had a name.

Dey sighs. "I know this is difficult, and I know you're probably thinking that you shouldn't have done that to RJ, that you shouldn't just tear out his code and rebooted him. But everything has happened: we can't change the past anymore. But what we can do, is to change the future. Change what we can change."

I sigh and turn back to the bed. "I don't know, why did I do this? I ruined him, all because of my selfishness…"

"Tsk, don't blame it all on yourself." Dey says, patting me on the shoulder. "We all make mistakes. We're all just trying to find our way out of the mess we created-"

"Yeah, but my mistake caused RJ to be in this condition; I should take the blame, not him. I know it doesn't make sense, but I feel I'm the one who deserves to become a total glitch, to become half-lame."

"Yeah, sometimes fate just decides to walk that way. Quill crashed our circuits back then, we all had to leave and I had to learn a new profession…which happens to be a doctor. It was all his fault, but we never blamed Quill for wrecking our game. We just learnt to live with it. If I can do it with an unplugged game, I believe you can do the same with RJ here."

I bury my head in my hands again. It is such a difficult decision, but I know time is running out. With every doubt I had, I lose precious time to save RJ from the Flare. While he couldn't make the choice of whether or not to enter the operation, I know he would silently approve my decision. I know he trusts me, even though I had made him broken beyond repair. This choice would be my ultimate apology to him. I just have to make the right choice…

I look back to the bed, where Felix is glancing nervously at RJ's stats, and I look back to the doctor, determined.

"Do it." I say. "Cut it off, remove it. Do what is best for him. Just don't let him die."

Dey nods. "Reckon you'd say that. We'll carry out the operation about two hours later. However, the procedure might take a long time, hours even. The Flare is not something we can take lightly; we'd rather spend more time focusing on every step in case something really does go wrong." He signals an assistant in waiting, who passes an oversized pen and clip pad to me. A form with information regarding the operation is clipped onto it. Dey shoots me a knowing look, and I got a feeling he somehow knows my each and every move, even when I don't notice it…

I pass the clip pad and the pen back, all documents signed. As Felix and I turn to leave, I sigh again. "I just hope I'd made the right choice…"

"I know you did, I know. I just know it." The doctor reassures me from behind, and with that Felix and I are escorted out of the room, leaving RJ behind on the bed.

A/N: Yeah, I tossed in a bit of Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 into here, it's not that obvious though, considering I've never watched the movie. I really wish I can watch it one day...

Till then, I'm out! :D