Bitkin Tales

Patch felt her way through the darkness of the Nerve Center, moving cautiously and relying on her Data Frame to show her the way to go. It was easy enough to switch between the three modes corresponding to each of the vast territory’s owners, but none of them were particularly helpful. Continue reading →

It had been a while since Patch had felt this alive. The world around her was bright and colorful, the neon lights contrasting with the dark sky and the sparking circuitry engaging both her brain and her body as she found ways to dodge around some obstacles and rewire others to let her through.

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“That should about do it for my garden,” said Fala, overlooking the work she’d occupied herself with for the past few hours. Without access to the seeds she normally would’ve ordered from Frigid, she couldn’t replant any of the flowers in the garden outside her house, and with the whole System in disrepair, she couldn’t order any soil or fertilizer, either. Still, she noted, at least she knew there was more to the System than she’d ever seen. Continue reading →

(Note: Again, this came out longer than a half-episode should be, so I’m just calling this one a 2/3 episode, concluding the events of the previous post.)

“You’ve always liked being early,” said Glitch. “And now you’re the first one in the audience! Congratulations.” She smirked, pacing back and forth on the top of her pedestal. “You’re in for quite a show, you know. It’s the end of everything. The final victory of right over wrong!”
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(Note: sorry about the huge delay; writer’s block is a nasty thing. But now I know how to get where I want the story to go…)
The sky was a permanent shade of red-orange, the sun unmoving from its fixed spot low in the western sky. Patch walked alongside the black asphalt ribbon that marked the only way across the desert, unsure of just how long she’d been walking. The road’s surface was too hot to stand on for even a short time, so she’d stepped off to the side, leaving small indentations that quickly filled with loose sand. All four of her soles ached, and the silence was almost unbearable; she’d seen no signs of life in the hours she’d spent trudging along the straight road. Behind her, somewhere out of view, was the gate to Crimson Canyon, embedded in the side of a mesa. In front of her, on the horizon, she could see the road bend upward and form exotic curving and looping shapes of unknown purpose. They never seemed to get any closer, though, no matter how far she walked.
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“Some people,” complained Ruby, “just like to see th’ world broken, I guess. At least you found a light we can use.”

Peridot sat hunched over in one corner of the room, the green error-indicator light at the tip of his tail glowing. It wasn’t very bright, but it was enough to see by once their eyes had adjusted. Their first idea, to use Ruby’s laser-emitter, hadn’t worked at all; all she could do was illuminate a tiny spot of red. “1t’5 n0t much,” he admitted, “but 1t’77 d0. 4ny 1d345, M1c4?”

“Such woe!”, said Mica. “The captive princess and her faithful knights knew not when or how they would be rescued!”

“I’ll take that as a no,” grinned Ruby. “Not that we can do much of anything with our input cut off like this. I don’t mind hangin’ out with you two, but the boredom’s really gettin’ to me.”

“And that,” said Fade as she materialized in a corner of the room, “is where I come in. Are you three ready to go?”

“A rescuer appeared just then,” Mica narrated, shrinking back as her voice grew increasingly nervous. “B-but not the rescuer any of them had anticipated. It was Death herself, come to claim the lives of the p-princess and her knights.”

Fade leveled a glare at Mica. “Can the melodrama. I came here with a question, and I want an answer.”

Peridot sat up. “Y0u 4ctua77y w4nt 2 kn0w 1f w3 w4nt 2 g0? W3 h4v3 4 ch01c3?”

“Not everyone gets one,” said Fade, “but you three are my neighbors, not that you ever came to visit. The Phantom Chamber is just below us here. The Inner System is where all of the most crucial operations take place, and that includes you three. You’ve been shut down…” She sighed. “Even I recognize that this isn’t how things are supposed to go. The whole Outer System is gone.”

“W-wait,” stammered Ruby. “Gone? But that’s where all our input comes from! Our raw materials! No wonder it’s been so boring. All the messages we’ve gotten have been from Pearl or Onyx. And you know what those two are like. Time for another restart, I guess, but what’s taking it so long?”

“The System isn’t restarting this time. This is the end for all of us.”

“‘No!’, shouted the princess”, shouted Mica. “‘There must be another way!’, she pleaded!”

Fade shook her head sadly. “If you can think of one, good luck.”

“4t l345t g3t u5 0ut 0f h3r3 s0 w3 h4v3 a ch4nc3,” mumbled Peridot.

“…what’d he say?”, asked Fade, looking at Ruby.

“He’s got a point. If this really is unstoppable, does it matter where we are when the end hits? At least let us out of here so we can, I dunno, go find Patch. Pearl and Onyx wanted us to go stop her, y’know. But we haven’t seen her in so long! But if they want her stopped, she must be the only one who can fix any o’ this. An’ you must know where she is. You know where everyone is.”

“True…”, nodded Fade. “But do you honestly believe she has a chance of stopping the end from coming? She’s one of us, part of the Inner System. Myself, you three, Pearl, Onyx, Glitch, and Patch. We run the show from the inside. If Patch has the power to fix things, any of us should.”

“The princess looked up,” narrated Mica, looking up, “and explained that Patch must be able to fix things because her job is to fix things. ‘She’s better at it than any of us,’ she said. ‘It’s what she’s meant to do.’”

“…All right,” said Fade. “We’ll have to take the long way there, but she’s heading across the desert to Cosmic Circuit. I think she’s trying to get to the gateway on the other side.”

“Wait, that gateway leads to my section of the Nerve Center,” said Ruby, ears tilting. “It’s the boundary between Inner and Upper. This should be easy – it’s my territory! She must be tryin’ to get here!”

“Not so fast,” said Fade. “Without power, it’ll be dark and none of your platforms will be working. You won’t be able to use your Data Frames, any of you. It’ll be a long trip to get up there. Besides, I don’t know where she’s trying to go, just where she is.”

“‘Let’s do this,’ said Princess Mica, taking charge of the situation,” said Mica. “‘We’ve got to try to find her, and help her any way we can! The fate of the entire world depends on it!’”

“4 0nc3,” said Peridot, “1 agr33 w1th M1c4 100%. L3t’5 g0.”

“Here we are!”, grinned Frigid, arms spread wide. “The Village. Our old home. We used to have so much fun here, even before I learned how to cook.”

“I still don’t remember any of this,” said Fala.
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There were two doors there, one black and one white, at the top of a tall silvery stairway. Once, they had led to the Noise Corridor and Crystal Archive – Onyx and Pearl’s territories – and they were the only way in or out. Now, they were shut for good, and their owners sat at the base of the stairs, watching a Terminal installed into a nearby pedestal.

“A tie!?“, shouted Onyx. “They can’t just call it a tie!” Continue reading →