I HOLD TRUTH LIKE A TORCH-- SHADOWS FLICKER BEFORE ME.

[foolishwren]

Who: Heather Mason and ANYONE IN GOLDENROD CITY. Anyone.
Where: Goldenrod City
When: In the thick of the Missingo glitching.
Summary: "And this glitch? Basically, the end of the world."
So, weird shit happens in Johto. That much has come to be expected. But everything else at least had an explanation Heather could buy. The Unown and their crystal

Comments

[philanthrotaku]

"Why does everyone try to fight it?!" Otacon complained, catching up to Heather.

"You wouldn't hit Nyarlathotep with a steel pipe, so why hit that thing?!"

[foolishwren]

"It's a fuckin' MONSTER, it's what you DO with MONSTERS!" Heather snapped a little irritably. She'd stopped behind a wall that had, at one point, actually been a little copse of trees outside the bank, but in Magical Glitch Land it had just turned into a vaguely tree-shaped wall. She leaned over to peer out around it to see where the thing that had been pursuing her had gone.

"And what the fuck is Nylothop?"

[philanthrotaku]

"F-forget it, it's not important right now." he stammered, stopping to catch his breath.

"But we can't beat it hand-to-hand, and I wouldn't risk using our Pokemon in case the glitch affected them even worse."

[foolishwren]

"Who says we can't beat it hand-to-hand?" Heather snorted. LALALLAA I AM TOO STUBBORN FOR YOUR SCIENCE OTACON. "It's how I've beaten everything like that before."

Then, turning to look over her shoulder, she frowned a little at the general cityscape. She'd used to be able to see the hotel above everything else, with what a huge building it was, but now all the buildings just sort of looked... the same.

"I don't even have my Pokemon here. They're back in my room. ... S'better that way."

[boldandresolute]

Liquid was not a man known for his patience or knowledge of computers. So when he started getting attacked by giant flying skeletons, he started breaking shit. They were just skeletons, after all, and Liquid knew plenty of ways to break bones. Glitches, code, corrupted data... that was all for people like Otacon to figure out. Liquid was just the muscle of the operation, and he was going to do what he did best. Break shit.

And when he found one of those skeletal things chasing after Heather, well, there was only one thing for him to do.

Zombiedactyl was met with a punch that had enough force behind it to snap its head to one side with a loud CRNCH. Even on its pixellated skull, there were fractures spread out like spiderwebs from where he'd struck.

[foolishwren]

Heather could run like the wind. It was one thing that had kept her alive on many occasions. Needless to say, it wasn't until the CRNCH that she even realized that anyone had intervened.

She skidded to a halt (hard on a smooth surface) and turned around, shoulders heaving slightly.

"HEY! I was taking care of that!"

... Nice to see you too Heather.

[boldandresolute]

"Were you? I hadn't noticed."

Smirk.

"Maybe I'll leave you a little something once I'm done breaking this thing."

He cracked his knuckles with a sound like splitting wood.

[foolishwren]

"Back off! It's mine!"

TERRITORIAL DISPUTE, GO.

Meanwhile, the creature was picking itself up again. There was just... a hole in its face now. Deleted coding.

[usedgigadrain]

Kisame had been testing out the seemingly shortened travel times when he heard a familiar voice yelling. He'd come across, and avoided, some of the monsters before so he had an idea of what he was up against. If it was one of the ones that was just an area of color, he had no idea how to deal with it, but if it was bone, well, he liked Heather enough to interfere.

Like any good ninja he sought a high position, and the pixels both made it easier and harder to climb up. His not-quite healed hand slowed him down but there were Heather and a bone thing coming down the street. "Let's see how you move when you're neck is broken, eh?"

He waited patiently and when it was close enough, leaped down in a vicious kick, using his hefty weight to add more force to the blow. They'd taken his chakra, but not his training, and the kick was on the mark--the delicate vertebrae right behind the massive skull.

[foolishwren]

Heather was used to hard concrete under her feet when she ran-- not this weird, almost plasticy-smooth stuff. Whatever it was. But it almost seemed to let her go faster, so she didn't mind. These things were quick but she could outrun them till the cows came home, for all she cared. That said, she wasn't too sure just how to go about beating them. After all, it wasn't like she could--

ka-CRAK

.... do that.

The beast's pixelated neck snapped under the impact of the kick, sending the skull and quite a bit of its front half (these things were pretty flimsily held together...) tumbling to the ground.

Heather skidded to a halt, twisting around with a surprised (and wary) expression.

WAT HAPPEN?

[usedgigadrain]

Kisame stood up and grinned at Heather as he stepped away from the broken bones. He wasn't sure if it was dead, but he didn't want to find out while he was in the middle of the bones.

"Heather-san. It's good to see you in person." He was acting like this was just another day, and in some ways it was, pixels aside.

[foolishwren]

Could glitches really die?

Who knew?

It sort of looked like it was... decaying... though. Pixels were disappearing into the ground and crumbling away.

"I-- ... uh. Hey, Kisame. Thanks."

Well this was a little awkward.

Letting the pipe-holding hand fall to her side, Heather rubbed the back of her neck.

"I totally had that, by the way."

[bakaitoukid]

He had said it once already, and he'd probably say it a thousand times. When Kaito had wished, as a kid, that he could live in a video game, he most certainly didn't mean this. Oh sure, it was a video game (more now than it had ever been before) but it didn't have to be all pixely and creepy, did it?

Kaito was sitting on the dotted ground in front of the Pokemon Center, fiddling with his gear in an attempt to communicate with others on the network and figure out how to fix this (if it was possible) when Heather streaked passed. He glanced up just in time to see the giant skeleton monster hot on her heels, and suddenly the Pokegear became less important than it had been ten seconds ago.

"Heather--! Shit--!Kaito was agile and swift, so it took mere seconds for him to leap to his feet and dart after her, gear clutched in his hand. It was a good thing he had his Pokemon attached to his belt still, though he was (understandably) reluctant to use them. It was far too weird seeing his friends, usually so colorful and filled with life, act

[foolishwren]

What a world, man.

One day it's perfectly normal, then the next, it's all 8-bit and your friends are getting chased around by giant monstrosities that would have been described as Lovecraftian, if Lovecraft had been around to be influenced by the internet.

At the sound of Kaito's voice (she hadn't spotted him when she passed, having been a little more concerned with regulating her speed than taking in the sights), she looked over her shoulder. KAITO. Now there was a sight for sore eyes. Not in that she hadn't seen him recently, but in that she was glad he hadn't turned into a goomba or something.

"NOTHING! ... I just hit it with a pipe!"

Heather that is not 'nothing'.

The beast was gliding above the rooftops, but it was obvious in the same way that a hawk is obvious when it's homing in on a rabbit that it was following her-- but when Kaito joined the equation, its skull swiveled on the neckbones and locked onto him as well.

Uh oh.

[bakaitoukid]

"You hit it with a pipe?!" was Kaito's incredulous reply as he continued to run next to her, completely unaware that the ominous skeletal creature had targeted him in conjugation with his friend, "The hell were you thinking?!"

To be fair, Kaito wasn't really one to talk. If he had been faced with the same situation as her, he probably would have tried hitting the skeleton pterodactyl with a pipe, too.

[foolishwren]

"HEY, it was that or turn into a scooby snack, all right?!" She waved the pixelated pipe agitatedly as she ran. But she was relieved to see he was all right, at least. She'd just have to tell him that later, since now wasn't the time.

Above them, the Missingno angled its wings for a swoop-- though how its wings even carried it was a mystery, considering they were just bones, the air whistling around them hollowly, but hey, in Magical Glitch Land who both of them-- it intended to snag at LEAST one!

Heather chose this moment to look over her shoulder, because after so much energy put into running away from monsters, after awhile you started to just know things.

"LOOK OUT!"

[imthe_shit]

If Snake had an RPG with him, he'd be using it. But no, instead, he's got a bunch of pixelated Pokemon. And some rocks. Still, better than nothing for now. He could see Heather making a break for it, and he forced himself to run after her, grunting harshly with almost each breath.

"Heather!"

His voice is harsher than he meant for it to be; but it could be the fact that he's running and in a bad mood. The giant skeleton didn't go unnoticed to him, not at all.

Snake was starting to feel reminded of REX all over again... Those bare bones really reminding him of cold metal. This thing better not launch nukes and shoot lasers.

[foolishwren]

The smooth ground felt like the moon after awhile. It was like running, but-- ... smoother. Wasn't much of a comfort when you were being chased by a screaming, skeletal specter, though.

The teen darted out into a clearer space, one that had probably once been a little mini-town-center (but had been transformed by the glitch into pretty much nothing more than a flat space) and spun on a heel, hefting the pipe.

Snake's rough voice caught her ear and she looked over her shoulder, brows shooting up.

"Snake? ... SNAKE, be CAREFUL!"

She knew he was a badass, but he was also... well, he was also OLD. She didn't want him to have a HEART ATTACK or something... or become skeleton food.

Speaking of the skeleton...

The bony beast-- one of the many she'd alternately been chased by and fought off over the past few hours, came rushing downwards, landing with an 8-bit clatter in the open space, wings flared. If it had been flesh and blood, it would have been blowing air aggressively through its nostrils and curling its lips up over its many

[imthe_shit]

He ran up beside her, coming to an almost flailed halt as he saw the beast land nearby. Grabbing one of the balls from his belt, he got into a defensive stance, brows furrowed.

"Don't worry about me. How are you holding up?" Goldenrod had been good to him; he'd managed to make his own ration packs... at least before the place became pixelated. They should recover any lost stamina and LIFE. At least in his case, but he couldn't help but worry about Heather. She hadn't understood him when he talked about that stuff, so maybe things were different where she came from.

Seeing the monster flare its bony wings at them, Snake tensed further, half expecting to hear it bellow out REX's roar, or perhaps even RAY's. He'd heard them both so long ago, but they were both still so fresh in his mind. He'd had nightmares of REX ever since he'd witnessed Gray Fox's death in Shadow Moses.

But he wasn't about to let that get to him now.

[foolishwren]

Heather had no Pokeballs-- just the weird pixelated pipe in her hand. She was tensed as well, ready to spring away should the beast make a swipe at her-- it was still lumbering forward, distinctly more jittery and clumsy on the ground than it was when it hovered eerily in the air.

"Fine. Just peachy."

Well, if she was healthy enough to be sarcastic, she was probably telling the truth.

"Don't get too close to it, these fuckers are mean."

Which was sort of why she'd led it to an open space-- somewhere easier to FIGHT it.