T h r o u g h t h e b r o k e n Ｃｏｄｅ [RQ fanfic]

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 4

(Word count: 2176)

What surrounds me is an eerie black void with mechanical static covering it all. My breath hitches and stutters as I feel my surroundings go freezing cold, but the "floor" blistering hot. It can't hurt more than one's Code being split, but it certainly feels unbearably close to that...

Nevertheless... I need to.. I... Gah.! My code flickers- no, glitches.. in a way desperately begging me to stop. It's not natural. Not natural to be hooked to a machine meant to force an action to happen via one's vessel. It hurts us. It hurts us Code ꌃꋪꍟꍏꀘꍟꋪꌗ... I can't stop here though... I have to-

I feel a sudden surge of raw power enter the voidscape, balancing out the highly contrasting temperatures of the "floor" and the area above it, despite them actually lacking real heat or coldness. I turn around to look and notice a figure in the distance. My Code working against me and the fact that the environment is still hurting me and quickening the pace of my Code breaking prevents me from making out who they are. They blend in well as a blur back there.

Taking a deep breath in and out, I turn around towards the mess of Sabre and the darkness and focus my energy and mind to free who I've taken the liberty of calling my brother from that psycho who holds Sabre hostage. My code flickers again, each time hurting like being torn apart, but it reassembled back together just as quickly. It is getting concerningly more and more frequent... I don't have much time.

I sense Sabre's Code clearly. He's struggling as well, the Darkness tied to him like messy yarn. That's so hard and time consuming to correct...

More sharp pain starts swelling in my body and pounding on my head like music before a boss fight or whatever it is humans call it. It makes concentrating hard. And it will leave unmistakable injuries on my visible body outside my Code... Parts of my Code are no longer healing themselves and remain broken as I continue to disassemble the Shadow from Sabre (which continues to prove to be the challenge of challenges as the Shadow is determined to remain one with Sabre).

In an attempt to save itself, the Shadow makes it so Sabre would feel all the pain of the lightning. It hurts to watch him suffering like that... It will be over soon.. I promise... In a moment, I see a ray mixed together with red and purple land on the two messy disembodying figures. Melting together with my attempts, I know the machine finally has enough power to properly hold Sabre and the Darkness in him down.

The Darkness covers Sabre's whole body in order to trap and hide him from us in this darkening. It's not going to work for you! With a last push, I and whoever was in the other bay stretch the Darkness away, my hands holding the Darkness away like holding an alligator's mouth open. A desperate hand emerges from the mist, filled with emerald green ones and zeroes, occasionally twitching and glitching. The other figure, who became more clear to me and looked like to be Elemental, takes the hand and pulls it out, Sabre's body following. Right before I assume lightning would storm the machine again, I feel excruciating pain in my hands that are holding the Darkness away.

I scream, the sound only faintly heard by me. My Code... I look at it in tears, panicking for my life. Like cracks in glass or vines on a wall, reddish-orange lines colour my original numbers already that are glitching non-stop. I've taken too long..?!

I feel the Darkness - a mist or smog of corrupted blue - attacking me, trying to break me. It attempts to corrupt me, but something already corrupted can't corrupt another in here.

My hands break even more at its tries to get to me, leaving me in agony twisting and diminishing my every fibre of will to live. One more push and it's enough to kill me permanently...