The Object Realm

Chapter 9 - [ERROR]

"I'll get you next time!" Medal was being petty about Vinyl beating them at a game, once again. "Don't lie to yourself, Medal. Despite your design, you can't be number one at everything. All pros come with their cons, after all." Meanwhile, Backpack was at the rhythm game cabinet trying to beat his previous high score. "1 miss again? Come on, I have to full combo this at some point!" However, as he was looking for something to play, Multicolor Pen noticed a strange arcade machine. It had no game on it, but it displayed text reading "DO NOT" and then it became an indistinct jumble from there. He figured it was malfunctioning, and someone put up that message manually. However, a portal suddenly appeared in place of the screen. Some other people, including his friends, saw it and ran to rescue him, but alas, they too got pulled in.
    They were now stuck in the Untitled game. No objective, no story, no universe. Just a white void with. . . swords? Then, the setting loaded. It was a light cyan void with a few darker cyan mountains in the distance and blue low-poly trees, along with some translucent floating triangles. One could not touch the triangles, for their hand would simply phase through. These strangers were now stuck in an RPG with each other and had to do something about it. Suddenly, they all heard a feminine, digital voice giving them instructions. "Welcome to [ERROR]. Your goal is to fight the [DELETED] to restore peace." Then, the robotic voice sounded more frantic. "Please, this is my last chance—" and then the voice became glitchy and indecipherable until it fell silent. "What now?", the paint bottle asked. "I'm not entirely sure," responded a boot. "I am so sorry, I'm pretty sure I caused this." Multicolor Pen thought he was the one who triggered the portal. "It's fine, all we have to worry about right now is HOW DO WE GET OUT?!" Backpack was very confused. "You raise a good point," Ace commented, "We do have to get out somehow. Let's just walk along that path with the provided swords, and look for those 'deleted' things that voice was talking about."
    The small crowd followed Ace along the way, and then they saw those [DELETED] that the program mentioned. However, like the strange triangles flying around, the sword just phased through them. The [DELETED] beings were not physical entities, rather they seemed to be transparent, floating figures of various colors that would just disappear if a weapon were to hit them. "Well, I guess that makes things much easier." Vinyl was glad that she and the team didn't have to fight, for they just had to whack the figures to get them to leave. "Let's go, the path continues." Ace led them further along the path until it stopped.     At the stop, a sign read "DO NOT CROSS! Imminent danger ahead." The team was going to walk in another direction until a giant figure similar to the [DELETED] approached them. "You're going to pay for killing off my army," it said in a deep but digital-sounding voice. Now was the final boss. A notification appeared in front of them, letting them know that they now had powers. "That gives us a great advantage," Backpack exclaimed, "so team, let's do this!" Multicolor Pen used his new neon lasers to distract the enemy, while Paint Bottle and Ace teamed up to shoot projectiles at it, using paintballs and cards respectively. Medal punted it with their new super-strength, while Vinyl used flying to swoop in and hit while it wasn't looking. Backpack used telekinesis to manipulate the swords and throw them similarly to Ace and Paint Bottle. Boot used super-speed to distract it, helping the team do the job. Finally, the entity was defeated. "Fine, you win. You can get out now, there's a door right there." The team went through the literal door and returned to their realm. They were all confused about what had just occurred but were just relieved that it was over now, and they all returned to their usual business playing the arcade games.
    The next morning, they all said they recalled seeing a strange face in the distance during the battle. However, there was no face. It must have been a visual glitch. . . or was it?