Infinity Train: Bryce's Story

Chapter VI: The Jungle Car

A/N: Hello, guys. :) Sorry about the long hiatus. It takes longer to create a new chapter based on a different car, so I apologize for the inconvenience that it caused you. Also, as you may have guessed, this isn't The Cat's Car just yet. Don't worry, though. It won't take too long to get there. After this, there's one more new chapter before The Cat's Car appears. And these two chapters will detail Bryce's struggle to tell the truth and the consequences of it. And for those of you still in doubt about her, Penny's role is crucial to this story, not merely as a symbolism of his childhood dream that would easily get thrown away by his bad decisions, but as her own person in general. So, you can expect some development from her along the way before they face the Conductor. Beyond that, I hope you enjoy this chapter. ;)

In spite of his conflict being settled to telling the truth, Bryce found that it wasn't as easy as he thought it was. Ever since the Crystal Car, Bryce felt that he's gotten close to his friends like they were... a family. At least, it felt like that to him. What's more, Bryce couldn't rightly explain it, but he's begun to develop feelings for Tulip. However, that only elevated his conflict to its ultimatum.

As long as they're family, that meant that he always has to be honest with them. And while Bryce knows how important it is to tell the truth, it's made him scared to death just thinking about what they could do once he does tell them. But the figure was right about one thing: he can't hold onto that secret forever. He, for one, would've preferred it on his own terms rather than someone else's. But the way things were going, it might as well be a moot point.

Every opportunity Bryce had, he tried to tell Tulip and the others the truth about what he did. However, obstacles, be it from his conflict or problems in each car that needed fixing, kept interfering with what he intended to do. It was always like this one car after another. And unfortunately, the cycle didn't seem to end there as the group just exited one car that was consisted entirely of a laser tag arena. Although, it was a bittersweet event as Bryce was always excited for the game growing up, no matter how many times he got zapped. Given that some of the group weren't as gifted with thumbs, however, Atticus and One-One had to wait until Bryce, Tulip, and Penny got the high score of over one million as a sum total for their team before they succeed and get the door opened, with Tulip (having a score of 325,000), Bryce (holding the score of 600,000), and Penny (somehow managing the score of 75,050) walking out as champions. As they got out, they were filled with adrenaline and vented this rush in excitement as Tulip held the little girl by her sides.

"Laser tag was so much fun!"

"Good thing you played along, then, huh, Penny?"

"Uh-huh! I wanna go again!"

"Sorry, Penny. We gotta get going. But who knows? Maybe the next car will be more fun."

However, One-One's sad side begged to differ as he spoke up before his glad side spoke up to him.

"I doubt it. The next car would probably be a fart car, where everything is just a fart."

"It could be a fart car. Is that what you want?"

"Sure, why not? The stench would be a bookend to my misery."

Hearing this from One-One's sad side, Tulip interjected as she recalled how many times he'd said this. Since the Crystal Car, he'd always been like this, mostly as a sort of pessimistic outlook. With how many cars they'd been through, Tulip didn't think the odds of that would amount to their situation as she set Penny down on the floor.

"Okay, first of all, do you even have a nose? Second, you've been saying that for the past eight cars now. It's just too unlikely."

However, at that moment as Tulip opened the handle, she's met with a vacant room, a square box with nothing else inside. At least, it would've been the case if it weren't for a bunch of fart noises within the room. As Bryce overheard this, he unfortunately was able to small the foul stench as well as the others as they groaned in disgust, save for One-One as his glad side was reminded of what Tulip's first question was.