Chapter 9: Struggle In The Code Room
Ten minutes later, the Sugar Rush racers, Cinndon, Ralph, Tamora, and Turbo had arrived at the castle, and they were now holed up in the throne room in the castle. After arriving at the castle, they had met up with Timothy, Candace, Captain Kaiser, and Felix were. Felix used his hammer to heal the Sugar Rush racers, Cinndon, Ralph, Tamora, and Turbo's injuries, and then they barricaded themselves in the throne room because the Cy-Bugs had broken into the castle and were trying to devour them.
Everyone started to wonder if they were going to die as they were holed up in the throne room. A large bang hit the castle wall, reminding them of the swarm of Cy-Bugs that were trying to break in. But suddenly, something clicked in Ralph's mind, and a look of sudden clarity appeared across the giant's face. He turned to face Tamora.
"I've got it! Tamora, what was it that you said about a beacon?" Ralph asked.
"That's the only thing that will stop them, but I don't see how..." Tamora started to reply.
Before Tamora could finish speaking, Ralph ran over to her.
"Give me your hover board. I've got some wrecking to do!" Ralph said.
Before anyone could utter a word of protest, Ralph got on the hover board and started heading straight to Diet Cola Mountain. However, he broke a giant hole in the wall in order to get there.
"Hey, there's a door!" Vanellope shouted angrily to him.
Hundreds if not thousands of Cy-Bugs looked right at the new entrance and came pouring in like a plague. Tamora immediately opened up on them with her machine gun, and the Sugar Rush racers, Cinndon, and Turbo used their powers to also take on the Cy-Bugs. As she, the Sugar Rush racers, Cinndon, and Turbo battled the Cy-Bugs, Tamora told Timothy, Candace, Captain Kaiser, and Felix to stay where they would be safe. But her order wasn't heard by Timothy, who suddenly felt a fire roaring inside him at the sight of all the Cy-Bugs. Knowing that his daughter was somewhere out there being hijacked by a maniac made rage boil in his veins, and no amount of Cy-Bugs, bullets, powers, or psychotic viruses were going to get between him and Candi. The Confederate king wasted no time in running straight to the Code Room and tying a licorice rope around himself.
When he was sure that the licorice rope was secured to the wall, Timothy opened the door and dove straight into the tangle of wires and boxes. He quickly found Candi's code box and grabbed it. The name on it was glitching and flashing rapidly between 'Princess Candi DiCaramello Owens' and 'Anton.'. Swiftly, Timothy double tapped the code box and it opened up, revealing a nightmarish tangle of blue and red coding, fighting itself and struggling for control over the box. Timothy reached for the coding, but just when he was about to start untangling the mess, the whole code box freaked out, blinding him for a moment with a bright green light. As his senses slowly returned, Timothy heard a horrified scream of "Oh my land!" and a very dark giggling laugh. When his vision returned back to normal, he saw a viral stain of green code mixed in with the red and blue, now pulsating in a violent conniption of electricity. Three codes from three games, and only one of them was his daughter's. The red was obviously Anton's, so where did the green come from?
"Oh no." Timothy muttered in realization.
"Oh yes." a dark voice said.
Timothy turned around and froze in shock, mouth agape. Standing at the entrance to the Code Room was a Cy-Bug hybrid. It had the body of a Cy-Bug, with it's rapidly flapping wings, and the underbelly was a light green mass of twitching appendages. But that wasn't the horrible part. It's face was that of Anton... and then it was Candi's... and then it was Anton's again. Spastically, the creature's features jolted between twisted mockeries of the two characters, but the dominant personality was Anton's. No matter which face it landed on, Anton was the one talking, albeit sometimes in his voice and sometimes in Candi's voice.
"Well, look at me, king, or should I say..." Anton started to say. The face flashed briefly to Candi's face, and it blinked childishly, holding it's hands up to it's chin, and said "Daaadyyy!".
Timothy scowled, the creature's taunting having jolted him out of his shock. The face flashed back to Anton's face.
"I'm the most powerful VIRUS in the arcade! I can take over any game I want." Anton shouted. His face then flashed back to Candi's face and he asked "But what's this? Daddy, why are you messing with my cooooode?". His face then flashed back to his normal face and he shouted "That's not very NICE OF YOU!".
Anton lunged at Timothy, diving straight for him. Reacting quickly, Timothy pushed himself upward and floated higher into the Code Room. The viral abomination gave chase, grinning ear to ear with horrific sadism.
"Come back here! I'm still trying to kill you!" Anton yelled.
The brawl went on for a little longer, with a flurry of insectoid limbs whirring their way around and after Timothy, who barely managed to outmaneuver the Cy-Bug. It was still a bug, however, so it didn't really think things through. It didn't think of how dangerous it was to go hovering around the game's code and slash all of the pointy appendages around, for instance. It also didn't think of how dangerous it was to be a giant bug in a mess of wires and electricity. However, Timothy had thought of that. Soon, Anton was tangled in the cords, being painfully shocked and zapped by the electricity as it shot down the lines, buying Timothy just enough time.
Timothy shot down to Candi's code box and re-opened it. Frantically, he identified every scrap of blue that he could and untangled it from the others, delicately placing each piece in his pocket. When it was all done, all that was left was Anton's code and the Cy-Bug's code.
"STOP THAT! STOP MESSING WITH MY CODE!" Anton ordered angrily.
Timothy looked up above him. Anton's face was contorted into an image of pure unfiltered rage.
"OWENS, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Anton yelled angrily.
Anton frantically cut apart random wires and busted his way out. Timothy pulled himself up the licorice rope like a spider climbing it's web, scared and nervous. Within an instant, Anton was free and Timothy was running down the hall into the throne room.
The Sugar Rush racers, Cinndon, Candace, Captain Kaiser, Ralph, Felix, Tamora, and Turbo were still dealing with the Cy-Bugs. The castle was gone completely, and the ground had become a writhing mass of Cy-Bugs. Timothy ducked down and covered his head as Anton flung himself over his head. Quickly spinning around and regaining traction, Anton dived right back to Timothy, picking him up by the throat.
"GAME OVER, TIMOTHY OWENS!" Anton yelled.
Anton leaned a sharp talon back in order to finish Timothy off. But before he could, a bright explosion caught his attention. Hypnotically, every single Cy-Bug in the land stopped and looked at the beacon of light that was exploding from Diet Cola Mountain. Faintly, Ralph's figure could be seen leaping off of it and falling down it's side as the Cy-Bugs all drifted their way towards the beam of exploding soda. Even Anton wasn't immune to his Cy-Bug hybrid's weakness, and he found himself dropping Timothy onto the ground and heading on a straight course to his demise.
A few seconds later, everything was silent.