Full-Dive (A Gameoverse Fanfic)

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"Where do I leave?" Lucian asked.

The test world was pure bliss. Literally, since it was based on the iconic wallpaper. Gently rolling hills of green stretched beneath bright blue skies. The perfect playground for the movement system.

Skiing down the hills with frictionless ease, climbing to speeds beyond terminal in the real world. It was a freeing experience that gave a soft smile in the face of his current distress.

He launched off from the hills' peaks. Flew across the green sea, the wind brushing against his skin. Scanned the horizon in bullet time, and grappled back to land without losing an ounce of momentum. The boots, engineered to negate the fall.

His white and black suit shifted between full traction and zero friction seamlessly. His turns were steep enough that his hands brushed against the grass. And a grapple powerful enough to be a railgun.

The wonder he and his coworkers had created kept him entertained for hours, long enough that he never noticed the missing logout option or the complete lack of communication.

If there wasn't a menu to exit from, the other option was that the devs placed it in-game. Since, they must have recognized he was stuck, or they somehow didn't care about the comatose body of an intern, or any potential lawsuits after the fact.

The project was on the edge of full-dive virtual reality. A shift from bulky equipment to solely the mind simulating every sense to the fullest detail, except nociception—the more painful parts specifically. A copy and transfer of the mind to the player character.

Fresh out of college and a lover of high-speed movement, he was the first on his team to volunteer. The first to eagerly put on the helmet, and felt what could be described as a flash, and then he remembered being here.

"The irony." He chuckled as he passed back to what he named Ricochet Hills. The hills that still featured the bullet holes when he used the Berserker version of the revolver. It frightened him the first time he powered it up. The red streak every time the round ricocheted between the hills played in his mind whenever he passed that place. He passed it fifteen times today.

He stopped at what he declared was the highest point of the game, even though hills' heights patterned similarly.

The world died the second he stopped moving. The sun never moved, the only sound was the crackle of grass beneath his boots. Only soft grass filled these hills, as not even an insect walked between the blades.

At least, it was comfortable, he noted. The rumble of his stomach and the faint dryness of his tongue signified all the progress he had made for the past however many hours. At least a day by his estimates.

With the marksman variant in hand, he plopped coin number fifteen down on the hill. Loop number fifteen. He lied down on the darker side of the hill, wondering about what was happening out there. Could be panic or something else. He didn't know.

"Just why aren't they communicating?" He spoke to himself. No new assets were hot loaded in. If it was inaccessibility, then the pullback command would bring him back. Unless his body somehow died, but the equipment was not invasive enough to hijack the brain. Data would be visible if something went wrong. Time passing faster here would be plausible, but he's fairly certain they made time past 1:1 for ease.

He kept thinking, until something intriguing lit his mind. A particular idea of the mind, something from a horror game he heard but didn't play. The concept was simple, a copied mind is not a transference of consciousness, but creates a new person with the same experiences.

If that's true.

That would mean...

He was a clone, his original did not experience any shifts. And they have no idea who he is, except that the full-dive experiment has failed.

Strangely, he didn't feel anything. He was still Lucian, memories and all—except for the mobility part, and the starving part. Born yesterday and still feels the same. He sighed.

With nothing else to do, he let his thoughts wander until sleep finally claimed him.

I wonder what Dave's doing, still complaining about his divorce?

 

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"Kit, what are we gonna do?" Cried out Kaboodle, the one-eyed walking ball of metal. Outside the Nimble's canopy, The Syntax ship was harvesting Flapper's dead world. It stood still, planning something. Something against a particular obstacle. Them.

The Nimble's interior was baked in the eerie glow of emergency red coming from the float outside. The child-sized magenta T-Rex Gobbles led the now frozen dolphin Flappers away from the canopy, Flappers' fists were still clenched.

She took a deep breath, and focused her eyes, "Link up the evasion route, ensure shields are stable until the jump." Kit ordered, "Gobbles, strap in, we're going back to Farcade."

As Kit moved to scramble communications and plot back up routes, a rumble hit the top of the ship.

"Syntax attack." She raised her hand, "Don't worry Kaboodle, I'll handle this." The sound above groaned heavily. Fold and Miss Information weren't heavy enough for that kind of noise. It was someone else, probably the marine Commander Gorethane. Opening the hatch, she climbed out and heard voice long familiar.

"Here, Kitty-Kitty."

For a second, her heart froze.

She saw her die. The world killed them. Their game was dead. So how in the-

"Kit, you alright?" Gobbles asked.

"Gobbles?" Her thoughts broke, "I'm fine, I'm fine, just get back inside. Just some memories came bac-"

"KIT, LOOK OUT!" Elongated arms reached out just as Gobbles twisted Kit out of the arm's reach. From the top came the despicable duo of Kit & Kaboodle: Malice, the robotic purple cat girl, and Mayhem, the animalistic machine.

Gobbles immediately brought Kit inside the ship, and Kit instantly closed the hatch. "Kaboodle, they're alive! Malice and Mayhem!"

"Well, shit." Kaboodle cursed, still wiring out the shields. "Just make sure they don't get inside. Most of it is fragil-"

The hatch broke open once again, maniacal laughter arose as her arms slithered through the cabin. Wrapping around the consoles and seats as Gobbles, Kit, and Kaboodle ducked and weaved from the arms. Malice soon found a target: the seagull.

She wrapped around the seagull's body, tightening her grip as the seagull attempted to break free. Its beak banging on the segmented bands of metal again and again, as it flapped its wings around chaotically, screaming cries for help. Just as its voice choked out. In came a furious punch.
Flappers'.

The super dolphin's eyes were lit up like a morning star. He wrestled with the arms, pushing and pulling them as the seagull got out. Malice shifted focus to strangling the dolphin, but Kit responded with a blast to the arms, breaking apart the left arm.

As Malice tried to reattach her broken arm, Gobbles ran up and stole it immediately. An ear-piercing screech echoed from the top of the ship and into the cockpit.

Kit and the others covered their ears. Malice took advantage and thrust her unbroken arm towards the still working Kaboodle, but Flappers grabbed it with both arms and yanked outwards, knuckles shearing white with stress.

Just as oil leaked out of the arm, the Nimble rattle furiously, knocking Flappers out of his hold and allowing Malice to grab her broken arm and retreat in the chaos.

"Kaboodle, what happened?" asked Kit.

"Someone is damaging the ship underneath. Definitely the work of Mayhem." Another rumble hits the crew, "If this goes on, the Nimble's drive will be destroyed." Gobbles and Flappers tilted their heads, "That means we're sitting ducks."

Gobbles focused his eyes, "I'll deal with it." He immediately dashed out the Nimble as Kit yelled out his name.

"Huh, good for him."

"Kaboodle!"

"Just go after him, he doesn't know what he's facing."

As Kit charged out, Kaboodle spoke again, "Flappers, ensure Malice doesn't re-enter the ship." Flappers cracked his knuckles in response.

Gobbles climbed downwards to the underside and saw Mayhem. The animalistic machine slammed his fists into the plating, its mouth chomping up and down in gluttonous fashion, unaware of the dinosaur. Gobbles could only open his mouth before closing. His body instinctively backing away.

His mind forgot any previous plans he might have drawn in the face of Mayhem. His only saving grace being its raw focus on the ship. Kit overshot her movement, dodging Malice's strike and drifting into space. She frantically reached for Gobbles.

Mayhem noticed them as Kit touched the ship once again. He charged.

Kit and Gobbles split up. Kit lured away Mayhem while Gobbles rushed toward the damaged panel. Pulling it open revealed a jumble of components tangled in a labyrinth of wires. Recalling what Kaboodle had done the last time Syntax attacked, Gobbles shifted the out-of-place pieces wherever they seemed to fit.

"Gobbles, you move that there." Kit interrupted.

"Oh… Wait, where's Mayhem?"

He roared, charging. Kit dodged past Mayhem as he shot back into space. Malice swung Mayhem back towards Kit and Gobbles.

Kit charged up a shot, pointed it at the savage machine. Her aim was thrown by a meter as Malice's arms restrained Kit. She twisted and turned within Malice's grasp, while Gobbles responded by slamming the ship's plating into the arms. Malice's previous wounds started to open up and she was forced to pulled back. Mayhem finally landed

Kit fired a low burst into Mayhem, pushing the machine onto the left wing's underside.
"Is he gone, Kit?" asked Gobbles.

"No, but it gives time for you to repair what he did." She took the manual from her inventory, "Here, place the nodes to what the schematic tells. I'll deal with Mayhem." Kit darted towards Mayhem's location. Gobbles scanned through the manual with the precision of a copier.

Her eyes saw Mayhem digging his mechanical fingers deep into the wing, snarling in anticipation of her. Right until metallic hands gently stroked his body, moving up and down as tiny currents of electricity appeared between Malice's hand and Mayhem's body. His eye darted around, before lasering on what was behind her: Gobbles.

Kit frantically tried to block his approach. Her fingertips merely brushed against his chassis.

Gobbles was laser-focused on fixing the drive, superficially cleaning any invisible dust on the nodes from time to time. He got to the main node when he heard the snarls. Mayhem reached out towards the tiny dinosaur. Gobbles shielded himself with the node, it cracked.

Mayhem turned around and prepared for round two, right until Kit fired a few blasts, denting his armor and pushing him back to space again.
"Kit, I'm sorry." Gobbles' gaze dropped to the underside as he handed her the cracked node.

"It's fine Gobbles, at least you weren't hurt." She struck the node with her knee, flattening it back to normal, albeit with a few cracks, "That should keep it stable for a jump or two."

Gobbles looked back towards where Mayhem was. Malice swung him towards the wing on the right. "What do we do now?"

She looked at everything around them, "Tell Kaboodle to go now, we can handle those two. We can't handle the entire Syntax." She charged her cannon, "I'll hold them off until then."

Gobbles gave an apprehensive look, but seeing Kit's eyes made him relent. He nodded and returned back. As he climbed, he saw Malice's arm hovering a hair's reach away from Flappers' clenched arms. "Kit says to go now."

"Dammit, guess we're ignoring shields" He ordered the computers to form an alternate route. Charts appeared on every screen, flashing lines across different worlds, the lines growing shorter and shorter as the Nimble took in account range and repairs.

The drive won't handle it, the Nimble would break, that's what it kept calculating. Repeat after repeat of the same failure for moments on end as Kit's clash with Malice and Mayhem echoed from the outside.

"COME ON SHOW SOMETHING USEFUL!" Kaboodle kicked the console.

It then removed five more routes under the count of "inconclusive." Kaboodle cursed under his voice. Flappers looked back at what they were doing. Gobbles, with nothing else to do, explained what was happening.

"Shouldn't you jump once, then figure out how to go back?" Flappers asked.

"Flappers…" Kaboodle stared, "THAT'S WHAT WE'RE DOING!"

Flappers dipped his head sheepishly. Gobbles stepped in, "Why is that world deemed inconclusive? It's closer than any other world."

Kaboodle opened it up. "It says just 'empty planet, zero capability for repairs.'" A bang came from the left side; the ship noted new dents to the left engine.

"We can figure out a way back after we leave. We need to launch now." Gobbles said. Kaboodle grumbled a bit and forced the console to accept.

***​

Outside, Kit was ducking and weaving throughout the ship's left wing, slowly cornered towards the edge of the wing. Malice was thankfully still injured, leaving only Mayhem's feral attack to fend off. She still had to be careful to not make the ship a free lunch for the metal monster.


The port engine was damaged—albeit superficially—the last time she dodged too far, but at least they were now on the edge of the wing.

Immediately, She heard the whine of the engines as their core chambers expanded outwards. Her body started being tugged inwards from the increasing gravity. She knew what that sign was.

It seemed like neither of those two knew it, judging by Mayhem's continued flurry of attacks. Kit jumped, allowing the drive's gravitational field to bring her back from the wing's edge, stunning Mayhem with a blast to the eye—close to it anyway.

She spotted Malice's undamaged arm desperately reaching for her, struggling to properly aim as it was tugged towards the Nimble like metal to a magnet. The arm was extended to its maximum length, wrapping around the ship when it was finally stuck onto it. Kit's body was pinned underneath it.

She felt the weight of the metal arm striking down on her waist, crushing her with a gravitational weight. Malice's hand was far enough to not grab Kit, but she could feel the segmented bands of metal dragging over her as it retracted.

Kit crawled back to the broken hatch, the weight of the arm increasing by a pound a second. She gritted her teeth, the closer she came the more the arm dug into her ribs. Putting all her focus on her right hand.

Slam down, pull-up, slam down, pull-up. That was the motion that repeated in her mind. She ignored the thud that came behind her, and the snarl that came after.

Slam down, pull-up, slam down, pull-up. Nothing else mattered in the moment, not the banging crawl of Mayhem nor the encroachment of Malice's hand. She'll be safe back inside.

Kit could hear Flapper's grunts as he pulled up Malice's arm. It worked a bit, Kit no longer felt her ribs being dug in by metal, it was just crushed by gravity itself. At least Mayhem would have a harder time moving, she thought before going back to the motions. Kit's vision started to perceive a faint blue outline on the Nimble.

The ship was ready to jump.

She was nearly at the hatch when the faint blue appeared. Her movement became more ferocious. She dragged her left arm in front of her, switched it to a sharp claw, and dug deep into the Nimble's metal as she muttered a small apology to the ship.

Left claw dig in, right hand pull up echoed in her mind when she finally saw the broken hatch. Flappers was focused on preventing Malice from putting further pressure down on Kit. Gobbles immediately attempted to reach out before the gravitational field forced him back. He went back inside, grabbing Kaboodle and extending him out.

Kaboodle and Kit grabbed each other the second their hands met, Gobbles attempted to pull on the equivalent of a freight train, panting a bit after the first attempted tug and pulling again. Until Flappers swooped in and grabbed Kaboodle's leg alongside Gobbles and pulled hard, dragging the Kit and Kaboodle back inside, safe and sound—with a ceremonious bump on the front consoles right as the Nimble jumped and the hatch closed.

Kit breathed heavily as she looked back. She took the juice box from Kaboodle's hand and sat down on the other console seat, checking out the rest of them.

Gobbles and Flappers were exhausted, eyes weary and limbs shaking from fatigue. Kaboodle was the only one active, checking the ship logs.
"Looks like those two are still on." He noted. Gobbles tried to ask something but the adrenaline crash left his brain foggy. Kit gave him the juice box.

"Don't worry, those bastards won't be able to do anything. I blue screened out during my jump pressure tests." Kaboodle said.

"Still, Syntax would be tracking them. We got to shake them off once this ends." Kit noted. The Nimble's walls were creaking from the pressure. "Are you sure the ship can make it?" She asked.

"Hey, Gobbles chose it. Besides, it's the closest planet to our location."

"Anything else to note Kaboodle?"

"Well, it's green."

 

[Unoriginal_Nick]

I'm fucking the dog cat.

 

[PDBox]

I'm fucking the dog cat.

Click to shrink...

ehhhhh. Well, I did say comments are appreciated. So... Thanks.. I Guess?

The next part will arrive soon. around EST tomorrow.