Fandom (Glitch Techs Xpanded Universe) GTX: Gnu Fork

[Sir loin of beef]

Zoe tanked several of the hits from his incomplete counter. Which did manage to tear up her clothes a bit and leave some dents in her body. However she only seemed to move with even more agression in response. “Crack this!” She shouted, before bringing the bat down on the head of her now earthbound opponent.

After sufficiently brutalizing her opponent, she seemed to calm down just a little. Even though there was a certain level of exhilaration from the built in electrochemical stimulation that a vr suit would provide for her real body back home.

She examined the menu and activated system restore on herself momentarily while she was out of combat.

Recognizing her heat sinks were at their periodic limit, she lifted up her skirt, from which a large cloud of exhaust emerged. Blowing out onto the floor. She went over to pick the S. Star back up and then make her way deeper in after gadg8eer, aiming to provide any needed support.

Getting hit in the head with the baseball bat was the final blow for boomerang beetle, who as Zoe was checking the menu and system restore exploded like a typical Atom Girl Z boss in a series of Explosions with his body disappearing in the final explosion

 

[Gadg8eer]

Getting hit in the head with the baseball bat was the final blow for boomerang beetle, who as Zoe was checking the menu and system restore exploded like a typical Atom Girl Z boss in a series of Explosions with his body disappearing in the final explosion

Boomerang Beetle burst into pixelated explosion sprites and was immediately derezzed automatically by Zoe's gauntlet, which displayed a quick "+90000 XP" and "Completion Rank: SSS++" for notification and for effect respectively. Though to her likely annoyance, it was listed that she had only reached the penultimate completion rank and not reached the ultimate ranking, which was "SSS+++" and required a kill time that would have required a One-Hit-Kill fighting move or a headshot with a Hinobi Zapper or Hinobi Light Scope.

( Gadg8eer Yes)

Gadg8eer did see someone enter, to be accurate he saw Three Someones enter, first he saw what looked like an elderly and frail Humanoid robot who's head was a Cog for some reason enter, then he saw what looked like a cybernetic Gorilla with a futuristic Visor like what that one guy wore on Space Trek and he saw someone who looked like a male version of Atom girl in all black and a helmet that somehow had a widows peak and on the sides was Yellow with stripes, these were Cog Man, RoboGoreilla, and Snare respectively.

Gadg8eer silently used his goggles' interface to see if there was anything available to him that wasn't his own personal equipment, his default weapon yo-yos, or the most basic of a Tech's diagnostic and containment tools, and found that (though he didn't know it) the one thing that had changed since the late New 10s when Hector and Miko were new to the job was that the Profiler from such games as Smart_watch had been standard for all new technicians since the botched initial release of Cybershock 2020 had needed to be cleaned up.

Using the software tool with his SpyWear XR goggles, he could detect devices nearby that were hidden from him by the same cloth he was himself hidden by without risking being discovered, much like the aforementioned Cybershock 2020's upgraded simulated version of the Profiler. He took control of a nearby security camera, panning it to silently observe the three Machine Overlords...

 

[Sir loin of beef]

Boomerang Beetle burst into pixelated explosion sprites and was immediately derezzed automatically by Zoe's gauntlet, which displayed a quick "+90000 XP" and "Completion Rank: SSS++" for notification and for effect respectively. Though to her likely annoyance, it was listed that she had only reached the penultimate completion rank and not reached the ultimate ranking, which was "SSS+++" and required a kill time that would have required a One-Hit-Kill fighting move or a headshot with a Hinobi Zapper or Hinobi Light Scope.


Gadg8eer silently used his goggles' interface to see if there was anything available to him that wasn't his own personal equipment, his default weapon yo-yos, or the most basic of a Tech's diagnostic and containment tools, and found that (though he didn't know it) the one thing that had changed since the late New 10s when Hector and Miko were new to the job was that the Profiler from such games as <I>Smart_watch</I> had been standard for all new technicians since the botched initial release of <I>Cybershock 2020</I> had needed to be cleaned up.

Using the software tool with his SpyWear XR goggles, he could detect devices nearby that were hidden from him by the same cloth he was himself hidden by without risking being discovered, much like the aforementioned <I>Cybershock 2020</I>'s upgraded simulated version of the Profiler. He took control of a nearby security camera, panning it to silently observe the three Machine Overlords...

Gadg8eer saw that The Machine Overlords seemed to be Guarding the Portal device and the men that had been tied up after cog man whooped their butts, and they also seem to be on the lookout for any intruders...

 

[Gadg8eer]

Gadg8eer saw that The Machine Overlords seemed to be Guarding the Portal device and the men that had been tied up after cog man whooped their butts, and they also seem to be on the lookout for any intruders...

Gadg8eer reached into the right pocket of his RumblePack and pulled out a small plastic rounded rectangle... I MEAN WIRELESS MOUSE!

Okay, yeah, not that impressive. Still, slipping the power switch on the mouse to the on position, it linked up to Gadg8eer's PAN (Personal Area Network) hosted by his RumblePack, and he quickly tapped the rims of his goggles once with both hands, activating Incognito Mode. He'd never actually used the mode for the typical reasons people did so, both for obvious reasons and because Incognito Mode only prevented cookies and visited websites from being in your browser history, but in AugReal mode it did also prevent your interfaces from being visible to anyone but the user as well. So when a translucent AugWindow labelled as a "HidWindow" appeared to him, none of the glitches (at least, in theory) would be able to see it.

Which meant he had more intuitive access to the wireless security cameras installed throughout the building as long as he could get line of sight for his Profiler.

He panned the camera he'd commandeered and found that in spite of his instincts, this wasn't necessarily like a mission in Smart_watch where various electronic devices were strewn throughout the room for player convenience. Instead, the few devices that were usable as bootstrapped weapons in such a game - like vehicles or wifi-enabled landmines - were either absent or labelled as "ERROR 404: SmartNode not found" as Gadg8eer realized why he'd been told the smartgrid wasn't coming on until midnight... It meant he couldn't just turn this into a game of Smart_watch: Anonymous or Cybershock 2020 because, with the exception of the cameras that had to remain active 24/7, none of it was designed to function without relying on the grid. The smartgrid was distributed, but in maintenance or setup mode as it prepared to activate at midnight for the first time ever, so even though it would perpetually remain on once activated, for now he was restricted to the security desk feeds that were integrated into the Profiler via AgentBVR, a third-party application that allowed for property owners and authorized officials to remotely access security feeds, but had been bought outright by Hinobi and - having served its purpose for several years now - was due to be discontinued as a piece of software at the end of the next month in favor of the global adoption of the ubOS smartgrid standard pioneered by Hinobi in Chicago, San Francisco and London.

Of course, even in the face of the world's most powerful tech giant, Grand Forks' previous cabal of repeatedly-elected city council members had kept the company out to such a degree that even when the contract was forced through by the Federal government of Canada, the municipal leaders purposefully impeded the actual launch of ubOS³ in Grand Forks from occurring... until it had cost the city the very "quaint pacific northwest town" feel they were trying to maintain and the changing of the guard was forced.

The result was that instead of getting the proper resources to host the system, the city was saddled with a used supercomputer they bought second-hand from the University of BC, the Krei Z-XP. Made in the early 90s by the now-defunct Krei Tech Industries, the system barely met the requirements for the software it was meant to run, but having spent a lot of money on a pretty museum piece, the city wasn't going to budge on getting the machine to do what was wanted even if the technology in question shouldn't be able to handle it. Fortunately for GNU Forks, PLixel-based adaptors such as the Flashcast Omnidaptor Puck - a small Hinobi Digital Media Integration (HDMI) cable dongle designed to use Hinobi's NobiCast wireless protocol - and the standard Glitch Tech diagnostic cable had allowed even the oldest systems to be retrofitted to work indefinitely as whatever purpose the devices were able to meet. In addition, NobiCast protocol wireless became a standard built-in feature on all new WiFi-enabled and 5G cellular devices after 2020. The advancements were able to come to the rescue, making the installation a lot easier than it otherwise would be for Zeke and the other experienced Techs.

As for the location of the old system, it was behind the "Server Room" door he'd unlocked, in a locked and very chilled room - the machine had to stay liquid-cooled via the city's water supply even in emergency situations - at the south end of the building. It was powered by solar panels on, and a few turbine kites attached to, the roof of the City Works Yard, along with several water turbines added to the riverbed downstream of the confluence of the Kettle and Granby rivers to the east of the Works Yard. The exact locations of all that, however, was a mystery until the smartGrid was first activated, and obviously Zoe and Gadg8eer wouldn't have time to wait for that to happen.

What was interesting was that in spite of all this, the portal in the center of the room wasn't just a glitch - though it was indeed a Mapper Glitch - but a glitch that, apparently, seemed to be derived from Hinobi Telecommunications Transfer Protocol; Secure (a.k.a the "https://" in urls) rather than any traditional video game glitch. Specifically, it seemed the portal was, quite literally, a physical manifestation of a port in a computer's software.

It was then that a large moving entity began to emerge from the portal, as Gadg8eer noticed the glitches guarding the portal stepping well clear of its entry ramp.

"About dang time dagnabbit!" Cog Man responded, apparently frustrated.

It quickly became apparent what he was referring to, as a large armored vehicle moved out of the portal and onto the concrete floor, its sheer weight cracking the cement that was formerly as smooth as a glider as it settled onto the workshop floor. Atop the large nuclear-powered (well, in-lore, anyway) gigatank, protected by a plexiglass jar and a few force fields, was the final arrival to the party, so to speak.

From a futuristic-looking luxury car nearby, a mysterious figure emerged. One that was mysterious not because of who it was, but what he was.

"Vell, then you have vinally arrived to join our takeover... Mecha-Clone-Hitler-Stalin." Dr. X said to the giant battle tank containing the preserved brain of a WWII genetic hybrid-clone that sourced 50% of its evilness DNA from the two infamous dictators... in the Hinobi 3D shooter game Wolfenvania which was set in one of those sci-fi retro WWII AUs where the bad guys won WWII.

Like his other commands, Gadg8eer had one that auto-saved the last 30 seconds of video from cache even if he wasn't actually recording. He activated it and sent it directly to Dave, with the words You said glitches aren't supposed to be allowed to think at a human's level. How the shell do you explain this? as a text message.

---

Dave, Skipper and Zeke were already across the repaired bridge, running as fast as they could on foot to try and reach the "ground zero" of the City Works Yard, but the paved road and the heat of the long days in the late June sun made the already long distance through the rural outskirts to the industrial park all the more excruciating.

"Motherhacking- I need to... get back to... the gym.. or something... this run is killing my lungs!" Dave huffed, bending over to hold his knees while he caught his breath standing up.

Zeke wasn't fairing much better. "I... think... I... need..." he said, and took a big puff from his inhaler. "...to start going to the gym..."

Skipper, while not limited in stamina, was partly solar-powered and would need to drain her batteries when the sun set. Indeed, the sun was already behind the mountains in the distance that bordered the west edge of the valley Grand Forks was situated in, its glow only just barely still lighting up the sky as twilight set in. Despite this, it was the robot service dog that was the one to suddenly bark twice and display a "TxT" on her outdated low-res faceplate.

"You got a pager text?" Zeke pointed out.

"I did? That's odd. I haven't been paged for business in over 10 years. You young guys made me switch to BuzzApp because your relatives use it, and all our clients switched to vRoom meetings back during the co.vid malware outbreak."

"Wasn't that the entire two years where we had to go without computers, TVs, phones and video games because of an evil laughing skull that was shown on the news?"

"I thought you were 19 when that happened?" Dave asked, confused.

"...there was a fire." Zeke said both nervously and vaguely.

"Skipper, who sent the text?" Dave asked his companion.

"You have... ONE.... new messages." Skipper told him. "To play your messages, tap my nose!"

"Boop." Dave said, tapping her nose affectionately.

"New message. Sent by..."

"Gadg8eer!"

"...on... Wens-day... June... Twenty-Eighth... of... Invalid Year... at... Two Hundred... Fifteen... Beets..."

Spoiler: You said glitches aren't supposed to be allowed to think at a human's level. How the shell do you explain this?

"Vell, then you have vinally arrived to join our takeover... Mecha-Clone-Hitler-Stalin." Dr. X said to the giant battle tank containing the preserved brain of a WWII genetic hybrid-clone that sourced 50% of its evilness DNA from the two infamous dictators... in the Hinobi 3D shooter game Wolfenvania which was set in one of those sci-fi retro WWII AUs where the bad guys won WWII.

Dave and Zeke looked in each other's direction without turning their heads, worried expressions on their face.

"I think we might need to borrow some transportation. How good were you at Highway Robbery Online, again?"

Zeke glanced over at a nearby driveway, where a nice-looking 2025 convertible with a combustion engine was parked. The normally feeble and unassuming nerd pushed up his square-rimmed glasses, triggering the hidden LED lights that gave the SCARY SHINY GLASSES effect of your average dramatic anime scene. "Very."

"I'll leave a note for the owner that it was an emergency, then." Dave responded, and took out a Stick-Em Note and his executive ballpoint pen.

---

As Gadg8eer secretly watched the two glitches laugh a stereotypical 8-bit villain laugh, he was about to see if he could at least trigger the activation of the smartGird by using the camera in the server room, when he heard an unmistakable large crashing noise from the door he'd entered through. Something was happening with Zoe.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Zoe had bashed an entry into the portal room with her bat. She tossed it up and then caught it, pointing it forwards at her new opponents. "HEY, ROBOT ASSHOLES! YOU'VE GOT A LOT OF NERVE COMING INTO THIS TOWN AND MAKING YOURSELVES A THREAT TO THE POPULACE! I'M THE ALPHA AND OMEGA OF KICKING YOUR ASS, SO CONSIDER ME ASIMOV'S LAWBRINGER!" She hopes this will at least draw their attention

She internally sweats '4 on 1... I'm not super used to that, but I've carried the occasional team in Oversight Squadrons. So I reason that it can't be too hard... Gadg8 is probably figuring out how to shut down that portal... All I need is to give him enough time to figure something out... Trust is an important part of work relationships... Now... Let's see... Robo Gorerilla... He looks like a brute-y type, I bet I can bait him to figure out how he fights. And Cogman is inherently a glass cannon, so maybe I can utilize his lack of coordination against the bastard...' She dashes immediately towards Robo Gorerilla, trying to get a feel for the weight of his movements by juking him to attack her.

"Come and get me ya' big monkey!" She shouts out, baiting a punch to see if the top-heavy design is just for show or not. For once she sounds like she's having fun with this, although her movements are still as deliberate and minimalistic as ever, presenting no obvious weakpoints in her stance that could be abused by an onlooker.

 

[Sir loin of beef]

Zoe had bashed an entry into the portal room with her bat. She tossed it up and then caught it, pointing it forwards at her new opponents. "HEY, ROBOT ASSHOLES! YOU'VE GOT A LOT OF NERVE COMING INTO THIS TOWN AND MAKING YOURSELVES A THREAT TO THE POPULACE! I'M THE ALPHA AND OMEGA OF KICKING YOUR ASS, SO CONSIDER ME ASIMOV'S LAWBRINGER!" She hopes this will at least draw their attention

She internally sweats '4 on 1... I'm not super used to that, but I've carried the occasional team in Oversight Squadrons. So I reason that it can't be too hard... Gadg8 is probably figuring out how to shut down that portal... All I need is to give him enough time to figure something out... Trust is an important part of work relationships... Now... Let's see... Robo Gorerilla... He looks like a brute-y type, I bet I can bait him to figure out how he fights. And Cogman is inherently a glass cannon, so maybe I can utilize his lack of coordination against the bastard...' She dashes immediately towards Robo Gorerilla, trying to get a feel for the weight of his movements by juking him to attack her.

"Come and get me ya' big monkey!" She shouts out, baiting a punch to see if the top-heavy design is just for show or not. For once she sounds like she's having fun with this, although her movements are still as deliberate and minimalistic as ever, presenting no obvious weakpoints in her stance that could be abused by an onlooker.

And it did get their attention, all three of the robots turned their heads towards who they thought was a girl with a TV for a head. Her proclamation caused Robo-Goreilla to chuckle

"Heh-heh, she sounds a lot like you Snare."

"Oh shut up she sounds nothing like me." Snare retorted before Zoe Called ISO and Robo-Goreilla responded by trying to slam her in the face with a fistful of brute strength. Snare and Cog man looked at each other knowing that She had baited the giant Ape into a fight.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Her response was swift and smooth-flowing, she artfully used the oversized nature of Goreilla's attack to launch herself back through blocking with her bat, one hand on the end of the implement and one on the handle, strengthening the resistance enough to parry it, and using the knockback to her advantage to gain distance. Her feet skid, sliding as she moved backwards.

She taunted him again, attempting to lead him closer. "Is that all you've got, monkey? Dance for me! Dance more!" She shouted. Baiting another attack, expecting either a charge, leap, or another punch, and preparing something in her head for each.

 

[Sir loin of beef]

Her response was swift and smooth-flowing, she artfully used the oversized nature of Goreilla's attack to launch herself back through blocking with her bat, one hand on the end of the implement and one on the handle, feet skidding as she moved backwards. She taunted him again, attempting to lead him closer. "Is that all you've got, monkey? Dance for me! Dance more!" She shouted. Baiting another attack, expecting either a charge, leap, or another punch, and preparing something in her head for each.

"IS THAT ALL YOU ARE?? JUST TALK???" Robo-Goreilla barked angrily before he Yelled, Charged, Leaped, and prepared to slam Zoe in the face again with another fistful of brute strength, In that order.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Yelled, Charged, Leaped, and prepared to slam Zoe in the face again with another fistful of brute strength, In that order.

Zoe moved to the side, deftly strafing out of the way of the attack, and revealing the fact that she had used the leverage of being thrown back moments ago to position herself in front of Cogman, knowing his durability wouldn't hold up if Robo-Goreilla flung himself full force at her, missed, and went tumbling into his own ally, as he just did.

She did have to wonder though, was the points system intelligent enough to consider an unwitting assist for her point count. It didn't really matter though. She was immediately back to thinking about what her next move would be, and how she could plan her own movements accordingly.

 

[Sir loin of beef]

Zoe moved to the side, deftly strafing out of the way of the attack, and revealing the fact that she had used the leverage of being thrown back moments ago to position herself in front of Cogman, knowing his durability wouldn't hold up if Robo-Goreilla flung himself full force at her, missed, and went tumbling into his own ally, as he just did.

She did have to wonder though, was the points system intelligent enough to consider an unwitting assist for her point count. It didn't really matter though. She was immediately back to thinking about what her next move would be, and how she could plan her own movements accordingly.

"Well, he's dead." Snare commented nonchalantly as Robo-Goreilla quite literally blew cog man up by running into him.

"It would be funnier if I had a running bet on how long it would take Robo goreilla to realize something was up. My money's on somewhere between same time next year and 2 weeks from now." Snare thought

Robo Gorilla meanwhile had no idea that he was being bated. What he knew was that there was an explosion chain going on like when a machine overlord was beaten in classic Atom girl and that Zoe was still standing much to his rage, so he changed up his strategy, instead of charging with one fist, he charged with both of his hands balled up.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

She moved her hands up to the sides of her head, and frazzled out her fingers into open palms. Her face flashing up the symbol "笑" in an alternating white and black with the background. "Aww! That's too bad, you wanna try again?" She asks, Before immediately turning tail and running towards Mecha-Clone-Hitler-Stalin, in an attempt to bait Goreilla again, knowing her bat probably couldn't break through the armor said opponent with repeated hits, but that Goreilla's pure raw power probably could.

 

[Sir loin of beef]

She moved her hands up to the sides of her head, and frazzled out her fingers into open palms. Her face flashing up the symbol "笑" in an alternating white and black with the background. "Aww! That's too bad, you wanna try again?" She asks, Before immediately turning tail and running towards Mecha-Clone-Hitler-Stalin, in an attempt to bait Goreilla again, knowing her bat probably couldn't break through the armor said opponent with repeated hits, but that Goreilla's pure raw power probably could.

"I'LL DO MORE THAN TRY! I'LL DO AND SUCCEED YOU LITTLE WIMP!" Robo goreilla shouted as if "loud" was his only volume which it kinda was when he was ticked off. And he of course charged after Zoe because he did not realize blindly charging at her wasn't going to work. Mecha-Clone-hitler-stalin upon looking at Robo-Goreilla and where he was going decided maybe his current position wasn't the best and tried to move out of the way. Doctor X made a note to bring back Cogman later, right now Robo Goreilla's strategy of 'Just charge and use brute force' was starting to aggravate him though granted Zoe was starting to piss him off too due to reminding the bad doctor of Atom girl.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Zoe took out her S. Star, and tossed it ahead of her before allowing it to fall horizontally and then slamming her bat into it, parry-boosting it into the treads on the left side of Mecha-Clone-Hitler-Stalin's body, which splt across, causing said glitch's treads to sling out in an explosion.

"Everyone who's played Wolfenvania knows that you take out MCHS's treads first to slow him down!" She shouts, jumping on top of the tank and turning to taunt Goreilla. Her face once again flashing up the symbol "笑" in an alternating white and black with the background. She made sure that she was right in front of the main-batterie on top of MCHS, but still between Goreilla and MCHS' center, planning on leading the two into neutralizing eachother with their core attacks.

 

[Sir loin of beef]

Zoe took out her S. Star, and tossed it ahead of her before allowing it to fall horizontally and then slamming her bat into it, parry-boosting it into the treads on the left side of Mecha-Clone-Hitler-Stalin's body, which splt across, causing said glitch's treads to sling out in an explosion.

"Everyone who's played Wolfenvania knows that you take out MCHS's treads first to slow him down!" She shouts, jumping on top of the tank and turning to taunt Goreilla. Her face once again flashing up the symbol "笑" in an alternating white and black with the background. She made sure that she was right in front of the main-batterie on top of MCHS, but still between Goreilla and MCHS' center, planning on leading the two into neutralizing eachother with their core attacks.

{Der'mo! Kak ona uznala?*} MCHS asked


"You Dumb brute! Can't you see zat ze girl is tricking you!?" Doctor X shouted Frantically,

"Oh I'll take care of her boss." Robo Goreilla said as he kept towards Zoe's Position.




*Shit! How did she know? In Google translate Russian.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

As Goreilla approached and brought both of his fist down attempting to smash Zoe, she would flip out of the way, summersaulting over MCHS' turret, the impact causing him to preemptively and reactionarily fire off his main-batterie, which would explode directly on Goreilla. "Ты идиот! Ты попал прямо на путь моего взрыва! Мы могли бы прикончить ее прямо здесь и сейчас!" The mechanical resurrected dictator shouted (Rough Translation: You imbecile! You walked right into the path of my blast! We could've finished her right then and there!)

"And everyone knows once you've dealt with the treads... You go for the money shot! Which means, I go for the ammo on your back!" Zoe says, bringing her bat up in one hand and gripping it with both. "Consider this my Finishing move! MERCILESS DRAGON THRASH-GATLING!" She slams her bat down once, then twice, then three times, and gradually begins to ramp up the speed of the hits, until she launches fully into a flurry of hits, wearing down the armor on MCHS' back and striking into the cavities with his ammunition. If it worked like it did in the games, this would cause an explosion, which she at least intended on jumping away from before it fried up her clothes.

MCHS would rotate his turret again, this time aiming directly at Zoe, and would fire off a shot, which she paried directly into the hole she had created. "BYE BYE, DOTTIE!" She shouted, before jumping off as the mass of ammunition exploded and caused an instantaneous meltdown of MCHS' (in lore) internal nuclear battery.

 

[Sir loin of beef]

As Goreilla approached and brought both of his fist down attempting to smash Zoe, she would flip out of the way, summersaulting over MCHS' turret, the impact causing him to preemptively and reactionarily fire off his main-batterie, which would explode directly on Goreilla. "Ты идиот! Ты попал прямо на путь моего взрыва! Мы могли бы прикончить ее прямо здесь и сейчас!" The mechanical resurrected dictator shouted (Rough Translation: You imbecile! You walked right into the path of my blast! We could've finished her right then and there!)

"And everyone knows once you've dealt with the treads... You go for the money shot! Which means, I go for the ammo on your back!" Zoe says, bringing her bat up in one hand and gripping it with both. "Consider this my Finishing move! MERCILESS DRAGON THRASH-GATLING!" She slams her bat down once, then twice, then three times, and gradually begins to ramp up the speed of the hits, until she launches fully into a flurry of hits, wearing down the armor on MCHS' back and striking into the cavities with his ammunition. If it worked like it did in the games, this would cause an explosion, which she at least intended on jumping away from before it fried up her clothes.

And an explosion there was. One Doctor X was Grateful wouldn't probably wreck the Portal the council of Doom had worked hard on by violently exploding, well unless his Nuclear power core was ignited, THEN the Council was in Trouble. Okay granted this new worlds rules weren't the same as the rules in each of the villains worlds so a nuclear explosion killing them all wasn't that likely but it was still something to look out for.

 

[Gadg8eer]

And an explosion there was. One Doctor X was Grateful wouldn't probably wreck the Portal the council of Doom had worked hard on by violently exploding, well unless his Nuclear power core was ignited, THEN the Council was in Trouble. Okay granted this new worlds rules weren't the same as the rules in each of the villains worlds so a nuclear explosion killing them all wasn't that likely but it was still something to look out for.

The blast didn't actually do any damage, as Wolfenvania - unlike its successor, GORE 3D - did not have Load-Bearing Bosses and therefore the pixellated explosions and the horrifying scream that had inspired a few internet creepypastas about the third-party developer eGO Software who made Wolfenvania did nothing other than be big, loud and flashy.

The defeat did at least grant Zoe 5000 XP, according to her Tech Gauntlet. Of course, also according to her Gauntlet, for reasons beyond mortal comprehension, defeating Mecha-Clone-Hitler-Stalin was only worth $50 USD. The irony that a being which was a combination of two of history's greatest monsters was defeated by a bootstrapped TV host robot and worth well less than a tank of gasoline was not lost on Gadg8eer, who saw the "+5000 XP" over the destroyed MeCHS and honestly not impressed by Hinobi's devteam's choice on the matter.

50 bucks for defeating the freakin' Holocaust?! Gadg8eer thought, Shinobi Man gave more points than that! What a ripoff!

It was still pretty impressive seeing Zoe in action, however, it distracted Zoe long enough that she hadn't realized her bots' auto-derez function hadn't captured Robo-Goreilla or Cog Man, who had instead become aggressive clouds of static-charged PLixel tech mesobots seeking a new program to follow...

They quickly found new hosts, rushing terrifyingly towards the captive janitors, but thankfully their screams gave way to relief when they realized that the weird creepy static had seemingly disappeared after a few seconds of the two panicking and closing their eyes as they shouted.

"...AAAAAAH- ...w-we're okay?" the younger of the two 60-somethings said. Fortunately they were right. Unfortunately, they failed to consider they were never the hosts that the glitches were seeking to take a cue from.

At that moment, the glitches materialized as the Crystal Crush Saga version of the Narwhalrus, and as a little blue bird with an X on it's chest that fluttered up and down as it tried to fly straight towards Zoe. The former, being a Boss, was the larger threat, while the Fleety Bird struggled to stay aloft and missed Zoe entirely, tweeting right over her head and out the door into the open air, where an errant lightning bolt struck the unfortunate glitch and caused it to veer wildly off-course towards the northwest...

"Cures! Voiled again!" Dr. X said in his hammy accent, deciding to take his leave as the Narwhalrus gave him a mean look he didn't like. He got back in the vehicle he had brought from (the "highway tutorial" stage of) his "homeworld", tapped the dashboard button he'd re-assigned to the garage doors of the City Works, and sped away the moment the doors were open tall enough.

No longer concerned with the fleeing mad scientist character, the Narwhalrus turned its attention to Zoe...

 

[Lord Moldoma]

She pointed her bat out at the Narwalrus and let out a warning. “You know if you approach me. I’ll be forced to use my special attack!” She begins.

The narwalrus briefly looked confused. Didn’t she already do her special attack?

“That’s right. I’ve got one more trick up my sleeve! And if you don’t submit yourself to being de-rezzed, I’ll have to use it! Believe me, it’s more painful than anything I’ve had to use thus far!” She says.

She simultaneously sends a text to Gadg8.

ZoeIRL: “@Gadg8eer, I know you’re not super great with combat, but my heat sinks are reaching their limits, I’ll have to blow out my exhaust soon, and I’m a total sitting duck when I do that. Can you please think of something? If bluffing doesnt work then I’m probably gonna end up losing an arm or worse.”

 

[Gadg8eer]

ZoeIRL: “@Gadg8eer, I know you’re not super great with combat, but my heat sinks are reaching their limits, I’ll have to blow out my exhaust soon, and I’m a total sitting duck when I do that. Can you please think of something? If bluffing doesn't work then I’m probably gonna end up losing an arm or worse.”

Gadg8eer: On it. Do your best to stall.

He switched back to the hallway camera, thankful his new, smaller body had allowed him to hide so easily as he checked for any more glitches or other issues (there were none) before bolting across the hall from inside the cleaning cart into the previously-locked server room...

---

As the commandeered convertible pulled into the City Works Yard, Dave and Zeke spotted the flourescent green glow of the Perfectly Electric Vehicle that Zoe and Gadg8eer were now assigned. An early prototype that was eventually saddled onto GNU Forks in favor of its younger siblings, the Hinobi Motors Tech Van and later the production version of the 2020 Hinobi Motors Cybervan, at all official Hinobi Stores. Since it still worked but was not compatible with newer features without an AI+ module, the extremely limited capabilities of the Perfectly Electric Vehicle (or PeV for short) meant that the store only ever used the van when there was no other option. Being a contractor rather than an official Hinobi branch office, GNU Forks wasn't exactly rolling in money and that meant making due when push came to shove.

"Looks like they made it here without getting their van destroyed, that's a good sign." Dave said, preparing his gauntlet. "We might have come here about Bolypius, but this behavior from glitches is..."

"...extremely concerning..." Zeke guessed.

"Exactly. We're going to have to go straight to them, otherwise I can't guarantee the evidence will be preserved for CSIS and Corporate to go over. Which way did they ent-"

At that moment, the garage door opened and a vehicle which was unmistakably the car form of Dr. X's transforming limousine-slash-RoBoss from Atom Girl 7, Auto Bot, sped out the door and past the two experienced Techs.

"Revenge vill be mine!" a familiar voice shouted through the slightly open but tinted rear window of the self-driving vehicle before it headed southbound...

"What the hack was-" Dave began to say, when a blue bird narrowly passed over his head towards the northwest. "...and was that..."

"Fleety Bird."

"Fleety Bird?"

"Fleety Bird."

"Fleety Bird?!"

"Fleety- Ow." Zeke stopped at the light jab in the arm. "Someone's phone must have been caught by a raw Glitch..."

"Well, at least we know that smartphone games are cheap as $#!+ and their game AI is just as bad." Dave responded before the convertible pulled in front of the garage door. "Newbies! I got the message, but-" he began to say, until the Narwhalrus suddenly turned around and looked angrily at the convertible and its two occupants. "Oh fsck."

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Zoe continued to stand-off. "Not gonna come easily are you?" She asks the Narwhalrus, she continued to point at it menacingly with the end of her bat. "That's fine. The electrolyte cloud my body is about to release is a death sentence for glitches if you even get near me." She lies about the nature of her exhaust. Moving her hand to her skirt and pulling it up, allowing her exhaust to blast out of her body. She hoped that her bluffing would at least keep the Narwhalrus pre-occupied, assuming it could even understand her.

The stark white cloud of exhaust blasted out from the ventilation in her thighs, clouding up around her body, hopefully giving her brief respite from combat with the Narwhalrus. Who she presumed to be too stupid to realize she was juking it but not so stupid as to not understand her.

 

[hauntedbythewendigo]

Meanwhile, a good 5 km away, the sound of chip tune music from a rhythm game came from inside a house before lagging out slightly. 2 blue pixel things poofed around and one of the two, being a red Pentagon-like creature, looked around. The second was the antagonist of the video game, a large pink outlined circle with a cat-like appearance. The two then quietly headed off in separate directions, with the red Pentagon-like thing seemingly trying to find somewhere to get food and some form of soft drink.

 

[Gadg8eer]

Zoe continued to stand-off. "Not gonna come easily are you?" She asks the Narwhalrus, she continued to point at it menacingly with the end of her bat. "That's fine. The electrolyte cloud my body is about to release is a death sentence for glitches if you even get near me." She lies about the nature of her exhaust. Moving her hand to her skirt and pulling it up, allowing her exhaust to blast out of her body. She hoped that her bluffing would at least keep the Narwhalrus pre-occupied, assuming it could even understand her.

The stark white cloud of exhaust blasted out from the ventilation in her thighs, clouding up around her body, hopefully giving her brief respite from combat with the Narwhalrus. Who she presumed to be too stupid to realize she was juking it but not so stupid as to not understand her.

The AI of the Narwhalrus wasn't anything special, so unfortunately it was not turned away from the expensive convertible. Instead, it fired off several tetrid-shaped blocks as Zeke and Dave dove out of the 2025 Quadra, somehow compacting the vehicle as they randomly came down.

"Uh oh." Zeke gulped, looking at the vehicle.

"Zeke! System reset the car, I'll handle-" Dave began to shout, but then the Narwhalrus shot a line piece at them, causing the sporty car to flash along with the rest of the completed tetris crystal crush and de-rez itself, before zipping off to find a new piece of intelligent software to host. "...aaaaand that's not good."

---

Inside the server room, Gadg8eer shivered a bit from the refrigeration system cooling the device in the center of the room via the dedicated HVAC unit above it sending the heat out through the vents on the roof.

The Krei Tech Industries Z-XP was an oddity among its kind. Supercomputers early on took up buildings because of sheer inefficiency, while modern supercomputers were essentially just fancy server arrays with more cores in their multi-threading CPUs. In contrast, Krei had a design that fit between them, that time from the late 70s to the early 90s when a supercomputer could be small enough to be a centerpiece. Originally envisioned for efficiency of the wiring, the Krei Tech supercomputers that were the progenitors of the Z-XP all used the same stylish, corporate art piece look; an abstract-shaped "icy cooler-fountain" with a circular bench around its base for both practical reasons (sitting on your knees installing the wiring would have otherwise been painfully uncomfortable) and because it looked freakin' awesome. The design alone kept them in business until newer generations of electronics made the ultra-low temperature cooling system unnecessary.

As he stepped forward to approach the machine, his Profiler already triggering the wifi connection at his command, the door suddenly slammed shut behind him.

"Nothing personal, kid..." Snare said, sneering. "All's fair in the business of war, after all."

"You." Gadg8eer said, spinning around in his tracks and lashing out with both his yo-yos at the same time. "This is for your final boss fight in Dr. Babushka's Tetragon Fortress, you overpowered piece of pre-programmed scrap!"

---

Meanwhile, a good 5 km away, the sound of chip tune music from a rhythm game came from inside a house before lagging out slightly. 2 blue pixel things poofed around and one of the two, being a red Pentagon-like creature, looked around. The second was the antagonist of the video game, a large pink outlined circle with a cat-like appearance.

The game in question had been left on all night when Ready_Player_Juan, the soon-to-be freshman at the VGHS Institute of Technology - or the Video Game and Hinobi Software Institute of Technology - got an emergency call as he was playing a game on the flashcast-animation-site-turned-archive-slash-delete-Miko's-browser-history eGroundsFark.com to relive the days when his older brother had showed him the wonders of uncensored comedy skits.

Pentagrammophone Beets was a fan game of Hinobi's forgotten competitor's Hinobi 64 platformer Pentifer's Living Hell, a surprisingly R-rated raunchy comedy game made by Berserker Studios and published by Blairware in 2001. Not that Win the Pentagrammies, which was also based on Hinobi's famous new decimal time standard - the Beet - and the accompanying release of the first Hinobi smartwatch at the turn of the millennium, was necessarily faithful to any of its source material.

Of course, Hinobi devices were temperamental at the best of times, and with the piece of unofficial software running on the now-retired Hinobi Sting Player that hadn't been updated since the old laptop was replaced by a (then new, since replaced) Viper Cobra 3 gaming laptop one Christmas when Juan was 13, and the storm outside wreaking havok on the city of Grand Forks' aging infrastructure, it was inevitable that God's Wrath, so to speak, was about to strike.

The game itself glitched as typical, sure enough, with the protagonist lifted from the illegal ROM of the Hinobi 64 title not helping matters, but the character simply followed its display demo programming, until suddenly...

In a bright flash of divine, or perhaps the opposite, inspiration... well, okay, from a random bolt of lightning... the house that the glitch had materialized into (which, it should be noted, was host to Juan's overly religious grandparents who had literally put up an obnoxious bright red billboard with oppressive white text on their fenced-off yard to demand visitors to the city only be Catholic) had its power blown and internet access suddenly cut as more electricity than it could handle coursed through the SpaceB SatLink dish that the house was using as its internet source due to the discontinuation of CompuGlobalHyperServe's last dial-up internet access in 2026 and his grandparent's refusal to use fiber-optic "because its spun like a web of lies".

As much as tech companies like Hinobi had proven at the very least to be disturbingly intrusive in the eyes of the general public (and they weren't wrong), the days of bipartisan politics had waned and his grandparents were just holdovers from the extremism of all stripes that had plagued the world about 10 years prior (~2018).

Of course, whatever the reason for the jolt of electricity, when the power went out and the old laptop behind the being that had essentially just been "summoned for a final rap boss battle with Satin, the Rouge Angle of Depth" was left running off it's (long-expired) battery, the conditions of the situation... unknowingly... were just right to reproduce something that hadn't happened since GALE was first shipped to arcades in the early 80s...

( Behold. Welcome to the RP, wendigo, this just got interesting. )

 

[hauntedbythewendigo]

The AI of the Narwhalrus wasn't anything special, so unfortunately it was not turned away from the expensive convertible. Instead, it fired off several tetrid-shaped blocks as Zeke and Dave dove out of the 2025 Quadra, somehow compacting the vehicle as they randomly came down.

"Uh oh." Zeke gulped, looking at the vehicle.

"Zeke! System reset the car, I'll handle-" Dave began to shout, but then the Narwhalrus shot a line piece at them, causing the sporty car to flash along with the rest of the completed tetris crystal crush and de-rez itself, before zipping off to find a new piece of intelligent software to host. "...aaaaand that's not good."

---

Inside the server room, Gadg8eer shivered a bit from the refrigeration system cooling the device in the center of the room via the dedicated HVAC unit above it sending the heat out through the vents on the roof.

The Krei Tech Industries Z-XP was an oddity among its kind. Supercomputers early on took up buildings because of sheer inefficiency, while modern supercomputers were essentially just fancy server arrays with more cores in their multi-threading CPUs. In contrast, Krei had a design that fit between them, that time from the late 70s to the early 90s when a supercomputer could be small enough to be a centerpiece. Originally envisioned for efficiency of the wiring, the Krei Tech supercomputers that were the progenitors of the Z-XP all used the same stylish, corporate art piece look; an abstract-shaped "icy cooler-fountain" with a circular bench around its base for both practical reasons (sitting on your knees installing the wiring would have otherwise been painfully uncomfortable) and because it looked freakin' awesome. The design alone kept them in business until newer generations of electronics made the ultra-low temperature cooling system unnecessary.

As he stepped forward to approach the machine, his Profiler already triggering the wifi connection at his command, the door suddenly slammed shut behind him.

"Nothing personal, kid..." Snare said, sneering. "All's fair in the business of war, after all."

"You." Gadg8eer said, spinning around in his tracks and lashing out with both his yo-yos at the same time. "This is for your final boss fight in Dr. Babushka's Tetragon Fortress, you overpowered piece of pre-programmed scrap!"

---

The game in question had been left on all night when Ready_Player_Juan, the soon-to-be freshman at the VGHS Institute of Technology - or the Video Game and Hinobi Software Institute of Technology - got an emergency call as he was playing a game on the flashcast-animation-site-turned-archive-slash-delete-Miko's-browser-history eGroundsFark.com to relive the days when his older brother had showed him the wonders of uncensored comedy skits.

Shapes 'n Beets was a fan game of Hinobi's forgotten competitor's Hinobi 64 platformer Pentifer's Living Hell, a surprisingly R-rated raunchy comedy game made by Berserk Studios and published by Blairware in 2001. Not that Shapes 'n Beets, which was also based on Hinobi's famous new decimal time standard - the Beet - and the accompanying release of the first Hinobi smartwatch at the turn of the millennium, was necessarily faithful to any of its source material.

Of course, Hinobi devices were temperamental at the best of times, and with the piece of unofficial software running on the now-retired Hinobi Sting Player that hadn't been updated since the old laptop was replaced by a (then new, since replaced) Viper Cobra 3 gaming laptop one Christmas when Juan was 13, and the storm outside wreaking havok on the city of Grand Forks' aging infrastructure, it was inevitable that God's Wrath, so to speak, was about to strike.

The game itself glitched as typical, sure enough, with the protagonist lifted from the illegal ROM of the Hinobi 64 title not helping matters, but the character simply followed its display demo programming, until suddenly...

In a bright flash of divine, or perhaps the opposite, inspiration... well, okay, from a random bolt of lightning... the house that the glitch had materialized into (which, it should be noted, was host to Juan's overly religious grandparents who had literally put up an obnoxious bright red billboard with oppressive white text on their fenced-off yard to demand visitors to the city only be Catholic) had its power blown and internet access suddenly cut as more electricity than it could handle coursed through the SpaceB SatLink dish that the house was using as its internet source due to the discontinuation of CompuGlobalHyperServe's last dial-up internet access in 2026 and his grandparent's refusal to use fiber-optic "because its spun like a web of lies".

As much as tech companies like Hinobi had proven at the very least to be disturbingly intrusive in the eyes of the general public (and they weren't wrong), the days of bipartisan politics had waned and his grandparents were just holdovers from the extremism of all stripes that had plagued the world about 10 years prior (~2018).

Of course, whatever the reason for the jolt of electricity, when the power went out and the old laptop behind the being that had essentially just been "summoned for a final rap boss battle with Satin, the Rouge Angle of Depth" was left running off it's (long-expired) battery, the conditions of the situation... unknowingly... were just right to reproduce something that hadn't happened since GALE was first shipped to arcades in the early 80s...

( Behold. Welcome to the RP, wendigo, this just got interesting. )

(Glad to be here. Also... The game is legit called Just Shapes & Beats. And the fact you're using Conker's Bad Fur Day as a basis for a game Pentifer would be in is awesome, I love it.)
Pentifer's eyes darted around the room in confusion, while the larger being just began raiding all the cupboards he could find for something to eat. Pentifer proceeded to then hide under a table for 10 minutes while trying to figure out why he was now in another world. "WHAT IS THIS PLACE?!" He quietly mumbled to himself after the larger being went off elsewhere to see what chaos it could cause. Nobody had seen the two beings yet, though, so what mayhem would ensue they didn't know.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

As the smoke-like heat exhaust obscured her location, Zoe used the nature of the surroundings to her advantage, moving around the various items and structures in the room as best as she could to stay out of the sight of the Narwhalrus. Deftly evading what she could only assume was its line of sight.

She had her bat down low, and once she had made it behind the narwhalrus, she rushed it from a distance of a few meters and let her shoes skid against the concrete as she entered a seiken stance. Zoe aimed a direct slam onto the top of its head, heaving the bat in an arc to increase the striking power of the blow. She planned to hammer the bat down directly onto the Narwhalrus' head, sliding the tip of her bat on the side of its horn as a guide.

"CRACK-.." She began the strike "THIS!" She planned to call out as it struck down on her opponent. Zoe's movements were, even after just a night of fighting glitches, starting to adapt themselves better to the usage of the bat. She had become more confident in putting just the right amount of power behind her swings, and balancing herself properly. That being said, she was already fairly skilled, if the previous opponents were any indications.

 

[Sir loin of beef]

Gadg8eer: On it. Do your best to stall.

He switched back to the hallway camera, thankful his new, smaller body had allowed him to hide so easily as he checked for any more glitches or other issues (there were none) before bolting across the hall from inside the cleaning cart into the previously-locked server room...

---

As the commandeered convertible pulled into the City Works Yard, Dave and Zeke spotted the flourescent green glow of the Perfectly Electric Vehicle that Zoe and Gadg8eer were now assigned. An early prototype that was eventually saddled onto GNU Forks in favor of its younger siblings, the Hinobi Motors Tech Van and later the production version of the 2020 Hinobi Motors Cybervan, at all official Hinobi Stores. Since it still worked but was not compatible with newer features without an AI+ module, the extremely limited capabilities of the Perfectly Electric Vehicle (or PeV for short) meant that the store only ever used the van when there was no other option. Being a contractor rather than an official Hinobi branch office, GNU Forks wasn't exactly rolling in money and that meant making due when push came to shove.

"Looks like they made it here without getting their van destroyed, that's a good sign." Dave said, preparing his gauntlet. "We might have come here about Bolypius, but this behavior from glitches is..."

"...extremely concerning..." Zeke guessed.

"Exactly. We're going to have to go straight to them, otherwise I can't guarantee the evidence will be preserved for CSIS and Corporate to go over. Which way did they ent-"

At that moment, the garage door opened and a vehicle which was unmistakably the car form of Dr. X's transforming limousine-slash-RoBoss from Atom Girl 7, Auto Bot, sped out the door and past the two experienced Techs.

"Revenge vill be mine!" a familiar voice shouted through the slightly open but tinted rear window of the self-driving vehicle before it headed southbound...

"What the hack was-" Dave began to say, when a blue bird narrowly passed over his head towards the northwest. "...and was that..."

"Fleety Bird."

"Fleety Bird?"

"Fleety Bird."

"Fleety Bird?!"

"Fleety- Ow." Zeke stopped at the light jab in the arm. "Someone's phone must have been caught by a raw Glitch..."

"Well, at least we know that smartphone games are cheap as $#!+ and their game AI is just as bad." Dave responded before the convertible pulled in front of the garage door. "Newbies! I got the message, but-" he began to say, until the Narwhalrus suddenly turned around and looked angrily at the convertible and its two occupants. "Oh fsck."

The AI of the Narwhalrus wasn't anything special, so unfortunately it was not turned away from the expensive convertible. Instead, it fired off several tetrid-shaped blocks as Zeke and Dave dove out of the 2025 Quadra, somehow compacting the vehicle as they randomly came down.

"Uh oh." Zeke gulped, looking at the vehicle.

"Zeke! System reset the car, I'll handle-" Dave began to shout, but then the Narwhalrus shot a line piece at them, causing the sporty car to flash along with the rest of the completed tetris crystal crush and de-rez itself, before zipping off to find a new piece of intelligent software to host. "...aaaaand that's not good."

---

Inside the server room, Gadg8eer shivered a bit from the refrigeration system cooling the device in the center of the room via the dedicated HVAC unit above it sending the heat out through the vents on the roof.

The Krei Tech Industries Z-XP was an oddity among its kind. Supercomputers early on took up buildings because of sheer inefficiency, while modern supercomputers were essentially just fancy server arrays with more cores in their multi-threading CPUs. In contrast, Krei had a design that fit between them, that time from the late 70s to the early 90s when a supercomputer could be small enough to be a centerpiece. Originally envisioned for efficiency of the wiring, the Krei Tech supercomputers that were the progenitors of the Z-XP all used the same stylish, corporate art piece look; an abstract-shaped "icy cooler-fountain" with a circular bench around its base for both practical reasons (sitting on your knees installing the wiring would have otherwise been painfully uncomfortable) and because it looked freakin' awesome. The design alone kept them in business until newer generations of electronics made the ultra-low temperature cooling system unnecessary.

As he stepped forward to approach the machine, his Profiler already triggering the wifi connection at his command, the door suddenly slammed shut behind him.

"Nothing personal, kid..." Snare said, sneering. "All's fair in the business of war, after all."

"You." Gadg8eer said, spinning around in his tracks and lashing out with both his yo-yos at the same time. "This is for your final boss fight in Dr. Babushka's Tetragon Fortress, you overpowered piece of pre-programmed scrap!"

---

The game in question had been left on all night when Ready_Player_Juan, the soon-to-be freshman at the VGHS Institute of Technology - or the Video Game and Hinobi Software Institute of Technology - got an emergency call as he was playing a game on the flashcast-animation-site-turned-archive-slash-delete-Miko's-browser-history eGroundsFark.com to relive the days when his older brother had showed him the wonders of uncensored comedy skits.

Shapes 'n Beets was a fan game of Hinobi's forgotten competitor's Hinobi 64 platformer Pentifer's Living Hell, a surprisingly R-rated raunchy comedy game made by Berserk Studios and published by Blairware in 2001. Not that Shapes 'n Beets, which was also based on Hinobi's famous new decimal time standard - the Beet - and the accompanying release of the first Hinobi smartwatch at the turn of the millennium, was necessarily faithful to any of its source material.

Of course, Hinobi devices were temperamental at the best of times, and with the piece of unofficial software running on the now-retired Hinobi Sting Player that hadn't been updated since the old laptop was replaced by a (then new, since replaced) Viper Cobra 3 gaming laptop one Christmas when Juan was 13, and the storm outside wreaking havok on the city of Grand Forks' aging infrastructure, it was inevitable that God's Wrath, so to speak, was about to strike.

The game itself glitched as typical, sure enough, with the protagonist lifted from the illegal ROM of the Hinobi 64 title not helping matters, but the character simply followed its display demo programming, until suddenly...

In a bright flash of divine, or perhaps the opposite, inspiration... well, okay, from a random bolt of lightning... the house that the glitch had materialized into (which, it should be noted, was host to Juan's overly religious grandparents who had literally put up an obnoxious bright red billboard with oppressive white text on their fenced-off yard to demand visitors to the city only be Catholic) had its power blown and internet access suddenly cut as more electricity than it could handle coursed through the SpaceB SatLink dish that the house was using as its internet source due to the discontinuation of CompuGlobalHyperServe's last dial-up internet access in 2026 and his grandparent's refusal to use fiber-optic "because its spun like a web of lies".

As much as tech companies like Hinobi had proven at the very least to be disturbingly intrusive in the eyes of the general public (and they weren't wrong), the days of bipartisan politics had waned and his grandparents were just holdovers from the extremism of all stripes that had plagued the world about 10 years prior (~2018).

Of course, whatever the reason for the jolt of electricity, when the power went out and the old laptop behind the being that had essentially just been "summoned for a final rap boss battle with Satin, the Rouge Angle of Depth" was left running off it's (long-expired) battery, the conditions of the situation... unknowingly... were just right to reproduce something that hadn't happened since GALE was first shipped to arcades in the early 80s...

( Behold. Welcome to the RP, wendigo, this just got interesting. )

Snare got hit in the face with both yo-yos, which hurt because even for a glitch that thought himself "The most powerful robot in existence*" getting hit in the face with Yo-Yo's, especially those wielded by a Bear that fought World ending Villains on a regular basis had to hurt. Though unfortunately he managed to get up from that attack with little damage.

"Really? You attack the most powerful robot in existence with mere Yo-yos?" Snare asked before firing a energy blast from his buster cannon at Gadg8eer.



*Yeah right, even if snare was the most powerful robot in existence Power isn't everything.