AN: The script format for this chapter was longer than some of the real chapters. So that's my explanation for the length. That, and the fact that we're so close to the end and I know exactly what's happening now. Enjoy!

EDIT: Apparently I forgot to go back over this chapter for final proofreading. Thanks for pointing it out, Polydactyly Zodiac!

Nya smacked a snake back, right off the rainbow road that formed a bridge to the game exit. She had no time to take a break to celebrate her excellent shot, however, as two more CySnakes swarmed the place the last one had stood. "There's too many of them! The game's done for!" She yelled to her brother.

Kai nodded sharply, accepting the proclamation of doom, and heightened the urgency of his calls to the Sugar Rush citizens. "Everybody out! Now, now, now! Leave your karts, leave your medals, just go!"

Zane still on his shoulders, Cole came running up the rainbow right past Kai, accidentally pushing the samurai to the round.

"Sorry, Kai," Jay apologized, pausing to help the samurai back to his feet and looking after the two he had been running with before. "Cole and Zane really need to get up there quick, I guess."

As the duo approached the top-of-the-rainbow opening leading toward Game Central Station, Zane grabbed at Cole's hand holding him, insistent on catching the larger character's attention.

"Cole, it will not work," Zane reminded him. "I have attempted escaping too many times, I know how this ends."

"We have to try," Cole said determinedly.

Cole reached the exit and poured on the speed, sprinting through the opening. For a brief, hopeful moment he thought his help had gotten Zane through, but at that instant Zane was ripped from his shoulders. The boy gave a startled squeal as he was pulled mercilessly back into the game.

"No!" Cole yelled. He turned around and picked Zane up, trying to pull the kid through a nearly invisible barrier that rippled and pushed back against Zane's touch.

"Cole, I told you, I can't leave the game, glitches can't leave their games, I can't leave," Zane repeated, almost sobbing.

Cole retreated back into the game and tried to push Zane through from the back, but succeeded only in pressing the boy up against the barrier.

"Come on, get through, it's got to work, it can't stop you," Cole muttered, trying one more time to no effect as the last of the Sugar Rush citizens ran past them and out the exit. "We can't stop now!"

"Stop," Zane said hopelessly, and Cole did so. Zane scrubbed roughly at his face with one hand, wiping away tears that were only just beginning to form. "Just stop. There is no use."

Jay, Nya, and Kai zoomed up on a pair of samurai cruisers to join Cole and Zane at the opening. The trio looked worn and disheveled, having fought back against the CySnakes to buy more time, although Jay seemed much better off than the sibling duo.

"That's everyone. Now we've got to get out and blow up this exit," Nya ordered, and stepped forward with Kai to begin placing explosives in preparation for doing just that.

"Go without me," Zane whispered. He had his arms wrapped around chest, bracing himself bravely for the end he knew was nigh. "You have to escape. Get out of here and leave me."

"No," Cole said decisively. "I'm not leaving you here alone."

Cole and Zane looked out at the destruction filling the game, knowing that soon the destruction would be coming to them.

"But what about this game?" Jay's voice came to them as if from a distance, although he was only a little behind them asking the two samurai.

"There's nothing we can do," Kai said heavily.

Nya grunted in agreement. "The CySnakes are coming up the bridge fast. And without a beacon, there's no way to stop those monsters."

"A beacon?" Cole repeated. An idea struck him. He looked up into the distance at Diet Cola Mountain and then back at Zane. "Stay with Jay."

"With Jay? Why not with you? Wait, where are you going?" Zane asked.

Cole did a running jump and landed on Nya's cruiser. Wobbling briefly, he steadied himself and did a practice turn towards Nya. "Mind if I borrow this?"

Kai looked like he was going to protest on his sister's behalf, but Nya put a hand in front of him. She then shrugged and passed her other hand in a wide sweep in front of herself, saying at the same time, "Have at it."

"Cole, what do you think you're going to do?" Jay asked, stepping up beside Zane and worriedly eyeing the snakes quickly heading up the rainbow.

"What I do best, of course," Cole said, half-joking, and he rose into the air. He raised his arms above his head and did a mocking muscle pose, yelling back as he flew shakily away, "I'm gonna crush it!"

Seeing the speedily advancing CySnakes bee-lining it towards them, Nya and Kai stepped ahead of Jay and Zane, ready to take turns attacking the snakes and protecting the smaller two.

"Fix-it, kid, stay behind us!" Kai ordered, trying to disguise how his voice shook in slight fear. Beside him, Nya was gripping her daggers far tighter than usual.

In unison, Jay and Zane responded, "No way!"

"Then get ready to fight for your life," Nya warned.

Jay nodded eagerly and Zane put up his fists in a fair imitation of a fighting stance.

Then the snakes attacked.

In the air above the sugary game, Cole flew rather ungracefully toward Diet Cola Mountain.

Snake after snake jumped up at him, fangs snapping. Cole punched them out of his way, swayed, and almost fell. He steadied himself and aimed the cruiser higher, out of the reach of even the biggest CySnake.

Reaching the top of the mountain, Cole jumped off the cruiser and thought a quick apology to Nya as her newly riderless and aimless cruiser sputtered off to who-knows-where. Cole landed on the crater in the top of the mountain and nodded to himself; the crater's center was all stuck-together Mentos. Cole punched down at the crater with all of his might.

Beneath his feet, the mountain rumbled. Small pieces of Mentos were breaking off the giant stalactite and landing in the hot cola below. Bright glowing geysers shot up all around, growing as they went.

Cole hit the ground, giving it all he had again and again. The crater cracked all around him. He shook out his hands and clenched them again, preparing for a final, fatal blow.

"One more!" Cole told himself, ignoring the quaver in his voice as he raised both fists. "Just one more and-"

SLAM! Cole was knocked aside from the center of the crater. He slammed hard into the far rim of the mountain, seeing a flash of scales and metal out of the corner of his eye. Groaning, Cole stood, trying to shake it off, but before he could gather himself fully, he heard a familiar and sinister laugh. Cole looked up to see he was face-to-face with an abomination. It was enormous and awful, with a long candy necklace neck and spindly candy antenna limbs, the scaly body and tail as well as the sharp fangs of a CySnake, the pointy crown and gloved hands of King Candy, and the menacing face of Garmadon.

"Uh-oh," Cole said. He gulped, hard.

"Hello there," the King/Candy/Garmadon/CySnake thing purred. "Like what you see? Be honest..."

"No, not really," Cole whimpered, struggling to try to stand.

The mash-up monstrous mutant didn't seem to notice, or if it did notice, it didn't care. "Because of you, I'm now the most powerful virus in the arcade. I can take over any game I want. Really, I should thank you... But it'd be more fun to kill you."

Instantly, the CySnake Garmadon lunged at Cole, cackling, "Have some candy!"

Cole rolled across the mountain top, narrowly avoiding the candy-king freak. Jumping to his feet, Cole made a run for the Mentos crater. The misshaped Garmadon grabbed him with two handy legs and threw him back again. Cole sprung up and dove for the crater again.

"Get back here, little guy," the kingly snake warned, hissing a little with dark amusement as snatched Cole up by the feet. Flapping his twisted kart-wheel wings, the creature brought Cole way up into the air and said cheerfully, "Away we go!"

"No!" Cole yelled, squirming futilely to try and return to the crater.

Back at the rainbow, Nya and Kai struggled to fight off the CySnakes as the snakes swarmed the exit.

Jay and Zane had fought as much and as well as they could, the former with tools from his belt and the latter by glitching around to distract the snakes away from his new friends, but the two had weakened and soon became more of a hindrance than a help. Already huddling behind the samurai siblings himself, Jay pushed Zane behind him and stood protectively in front of the boy.

Unable to do anything, Zane looked up. He spied motion far off in the sky and looked closer, and his jaw dropped. "Cole!"

Nya swung her daggers at another CySnake, slicing into its scales, but the two weapons stayed stuck in it as the snake slithered away. Kai had already lost his sword in a similar fashion. They quickly resorted to swatting away CySnakes with their elbows and feet, but the snakes closed in.

"Fall back!" Nya ordered. She, Kai, and Jay retreated through the exit.

Zane stood before the snakes, alone but strong, facing his death with courage. He lifted his chin, spread his arms wide, and looked into the sky, knowing he was about to be torn apart and accepting his fate.

In the sky, Cole saw it all, especially the snakes closing in on Zane.

"Zane!" Cole cried out.

"Look at that," the candied creation stated mock-sympathetically. "The little glitch is doomed, even after everything you've done to protect it."

"Stop. Calling. Zane. It!" Cole fumed through gritted teeth.

The former king and racer laughed. "Why should I listen to you, bad guy? Oh, I've got a great idea! Let's watch it die together, shall we?"

"No!" Cole protested.

The snakish, candied character formerly known as Garmadon tossed Cole in the air with a little spin and caught him by his collar, grabbing his head and forcing him to stare directly at the doomed glitch. "Guess it's game over for both of you!"

Cole looked at Zane, then looked to his goal, the crater now so very far below him. Solemnly, he said, "No. Just for me."

With a great spin, Cole broke Garmadon's grasp and did a nosedive, beginning to fall.

Still watching his friend, Zane saw Cole falling from such a great height and screamed, "Cole!"

Finally reaching him, a snake snapped its jaws down on Zane's arm, or rather where his arm would have been. Zane glitched and landed on top of the CySnake. Glitching again determinedly, he bounced off the top of another snake, and glitched again off another, and again on another, heading towards the mountain.

Already fallen too far for Garmadon to reach, Cole began to say the Bad Guy Affirmation. His voice choked with emotion, he recited, "I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad."

Zane's medal slipped out from beneath his shirt collar. He wrapped one hand around it and hugged it to his chest. His other hand formed a fist pointed at the very center of the crater.

"There's no one I'd rather be than me," Cole whispered. His fist met the Mentos top of the volcano and the whole thing broke down.

The stalactite fell toward the boiling hot diet cola. Cole fell with it toward his doom.

Suddenly, Zane rode up the side ramp in a stolen kart. He glitched right off the big jump and caught Cole on the hood of the kart.

Surprised by death feeling like a sheet of cold hard candy under his cheek, Cole raised his head and opened his eyes. He gasped, "Kid?"

"Don't worry, I got it under control!" Zane crowed proudly. He bounced the kart off the stalactite, and glitched himself and Cole through the other side of the mountain, just as the mountain erupted in a bright candy-soda geyser.

The CySnakes instinctively stopped all over the game; one even paused right before the exit as it loomed over Jay, Kai, and Nya. They turned as a swarm and flew towards the geyser's bright light. Zap! Zap! ZAP! One right after another, they fizzed, burned, and died.

Up in the air, Garmadon looked around at the other snakes with confusion and anger.

"You fools!" He roared. "Why are you going into the light-"

While glancing around furiously, Garmadon's eyes happened to flicker across the glowing geyser. His gaze locked onto it and his eyes suddenly bulged in a trance. "The light!"

Shakily, he began fluttering back and forth toward the mountain top, two flaps forward, one flap back, haltingly making his way to his own destruction. "The light, not the light, yes the light. No, I can't! I have to! I shouldn't! I must, I mustn't, I must go into the light!"

With a gleeful laugh and a terrified scream, he flewirectly into the geyser and was zapped.

Just outside the mountain, Cole and Zane flew from the rock out into the air on the power of glitching, momentum from Cole's fall, and a kart. They crash-landed in the chocolate river, safe.

Cole came up first, gasping for air and reassurance that he and Zane were both safe. Once he got both of those, he finally looked where he had ended and laughed in relief. "Chocolate? Man, I love chocolate!"

Zane raised both arms in victory, leaving him vulnerable to Cole splashing him with chocolate. The boy giggled and splashed back.

On the rainbow, Jay, Kai, and Nya peered down on the scene. Once the CySnakes had gone, they had run out to survey the scene and saw Garmadon literally turn tail as well as seeing Cole and Zane's safe landing.

"You did it, Cole!" Jay cheered, punching the air in celebration. "You did it, brother! Woo hoo!"

Overcome with emotion, Jay jumped up and gave Nya a kiss on the cheek. He realized how what he did could be seen as wrong immediately and began to apologize. "Sorry, I should've known you wouldn't want that, I just-"

Nya leaned down, murder in her eyes, but when her face got to Jay's level, she softened. Grabbing his collar, Nya pulled Jay up and slammed her lips against his, much to both of their delight.

In the background, Kai made a disgusted noise and covered his eyes with one hand, but as he gave them a thumbs-up with the other hand, he was smiling.