Otacon should have seen it coming. He should have known it was possible. He was a computer hacker, for god's sake, and he had experimented to Glitch City and back with his Blue cartridge
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"I-i-it's like this." He spoke quickly, trying to minimize the technobabble as much as possible.
"This place is a world that's a game everywhere else. But if it's not...if it's actually the game itself somehow, then it's all computerized. And computer programs, th-they're not perfect. They can have mistakes in them. Glitches."
Otacon paused for breath, clearly panicked and shaken.
"That...that thing out there was a glitch in the original game. People called it 'Missingno.', short for 'missing number'. It's leftover data, except it was left in the finished game and encountered when it n-never should have been. It was difficult to defeat, and if you caught it, all sorts of data could be corrupted and destroyed."
Corrupted data. it was all around them, and Otacon sank to his knees with a horrified look at his next thoughts.
"The only way I know of that could fix it...was deleting the game file completely and starting over." All the color drained from Otacon's face.
"...We're dead. It's over. It...it's just over. If this really is the inside of a game...we'll just be corrupted or deleted."
Liquid really didn't follow. He didn't know much about computer systems, and, quite frankly, had little desire to learn them; so long as there were people like Otacon in the world, Liquid could focus on things like killing people, and the engineer could take care of the pesky little things.
All that he got out of this conversation was that the zombiedactyl was bad and was fucking things up, which was the basic assumption that he'd gone into it with.
"Hal."
He cupped the engineer's pale cheek in one hand, tilted it toward him, and kissed him.
"We are not dead. We're still here, and we're not... corrupted, or whatever it was. There's a way out of this, and I'm going to find it."
"...I don't know what we're going to do." Though he sounded calmer, there was a blank and hopeless look on Otacon's face.
"I don't...I don't know how to fix all this. If I had access to the system and its programming, maybe I could do something, but...this isn't a straightforward program. I can't fix it from here."
"Liquid, it's not..." Sigh. "It's not that simple. Think about it. If this is actually a computer game and everything around us is data--then we might be too. And if we're the same as this--" he knocked his hand against the pixelated wall-- "then Missingno can do the same thing to both of us. To anyone here. You, me, Heather, Snake...we could all be in huge trouble."
At first, Otacon didn't answer. He stood there deathly pale and shaking, surrounded by a world of blocky pixels and corrupted code.
And Liquid was all he had. All he could consistently rely on to stay by his side.
After a pause that felt like hours, Otacon wrapped his arms around Liquid's neck and kissed him with an odd sort of desperation. Breaking it off a moment later, he spoke in a soft and trembling voice.
"...I...love you. Please...I can't lose you like everyone else."
Hal's lips were warm and soft against his own, and he could taste the fear and worry on them.
"Hal..."
Love wasn't something that he knew he could return. He liked the engineer and cared for him, but he didn't think that he had it in him for anything more.
"You won't lose me. It will take more than this to get rid of me."
How the hell was he supposed to help Hal figure this out? He didn't know a thing about computer programming or codes. This was something that was entirely out of Liquid's area of expertise; he was out of his league.
"This place is a world that's a game everywhere else. But if it's not...if it's actually the game itself somehow, then it's all computerized. And computer programs, th-they're not perfect. They can have mistakes in them. Glitches."
Otacon paused for breath, clearly panicked and shaken.
"That...that thing out there was a glitch in the original game. People called it 'Missingno.', short for 'missing number'. It's leftover data, except it was left in the finished game and encountered when it n-never should have been. It was difficult to defeat, and if you caught it, all sorts of data could be corrupted and destroyed."
Corrupted data. it was all around them, and Otacon sank to his knees with a horrified look at his next thoughts.
"The only way I know of that could fix it...was deleting the game file completely and starting over." All the color drained from Otacon's face.
"...We're dead. It's over. It...it's just over. If this really is the inside of a game...we'll just be corrupted or deleted."
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All that he got out of this conversation was that the zombiedactyl was bad and was fucking things up, which was the basic assumption that he'd gone into it with.
"Hal."
He cupped the engineer's pale cheek in one hand, tilted it toward him, and kissed him.
"We are not dead. We're still here, and we're not... corrupted, or whatever it was. There's a way out of this, and I'm going to find it."
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"I don't...I don't know how to fix all this. If I had access to the system and its programming, maybe I could do something, but...this isn't a straightforward program. I can't fix it from here."
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It was time for Liquid to do what he did best-- kill things.
"If we destroy those, then things won't get worse. We can figure out what else to do from there."
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He didn't want to wait around until he was turned into some kind of pixellated nightmare.
"If we get rid of this Missingno of yours, then it can't keep corrupting things."
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He cracked his knuckles. It had been far too long since he'd gotten a good fight.
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Otacon wrapped a hand around Liquid's wrist, looking worried.
"...don't. Please."
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He'd rather risk data corruption or whatever the hell Hal was so worried about than just passive wait for a fate worse than death.
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And Liquid was all he had. All he could consistently rely on to stay by his side.
After a pause that felt like hours, Otacon wrapped his arms around Liquid's neck and kissed him with an odd sort of desperation. Breaking it off a moment later, he spoke in a soft and trembling voice.
"...I...love you. Please...I can't lose you like everyone else."
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"Hal..."
Love wasn't something that he knew he could return. He liked the engineer and cared for him, but he didn't think that he had it in him for anything more.
"You won't lose me. It will take more than this to get rid of me."
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If it was the end of the world, then he was damn well going to fight against it in whatever way he could.
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"I don't know how I could help you with this."
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