#redholiday

A strangled sound was drowned by the clicking and crunching of the bone frame beneath the red and white suit. Radio jumped and reached out to try and tug the coils loose to no avail.

As he strained to free the sprite the cables began to move the sprite like a marionette, flinging sharp, bug-like arms at the other sprite to distance him.

this Viras had made no demands, no petty games for fun and glory, it was not simply driven by an egotistical need to be feared.

from the dark ceiling, like a menacing spider the virus embodiment descend, likely to extract what it needed from the two sprites.

Radio tried to run, but he couldn't even gwt to his feet, cables and wires fell in a heap on top of him and wrapped his body in a similar fashion as the red racer. The main cable at the back of his neck clicked as if suddenly being activated and Radio could feel himself being utterly drained of energy, whatever fight he had was fading quickly and everything became a hazy blurr.

the only thing he could think about was trying his damnedest to send a message to Ghost if he could even be heard so far away.

Suddenly a large ‘ speech bubble’ appeared in the air in front of him. inside it a block of  binary code. Cose Radio could read! he didnt know he could read binary until it was there in front of him.

“01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00101110 00101110 00111111 0010000001001001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 0010000001111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01110111 01101110 0010000001110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00101110 “

“Hello..? I see you down there.”

Radio reached out to grab the soft white bubble, touching the screen with blood-soaked gloves.

the ‘ screen’ of the buble reacted to the touch, allowing him the input of text.

“Hello? Who is this?” He wrote, awaiting a reply even as his vision blurred

the screen then blanked before a reply came through

“01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00101110 00101110 00101110 01101111 01110010 00101100 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101 00111111″

“You know who I am...or, who I was. Would you like to see me?”

Radio tapped the screen again to type.

“Yes.”

The mass of coiled wires from above suddenly shifted, loops of them loosening to let down a bundle of cables. the bundle slowly unfurled to reveal a warped and mutated sprite, the recognizable parts seared parts of Radio’s memory he thought ong gone

That was ‘Red’?

“01000100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01100101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100101 00111111 “

Rig bent down to the sprite’s level,

“What?” The hybrid asked.

“Back in our cabinet. in Turbo time...I was tired of losing. Tired of being ignored and I was looking for a way to be faster, to be better than the others. mod I was so petty... I was looking for a way to cheat and I stumbled into a small bug of a virus and it bit me...I didn’t think anything was wrong until my eye began to rot out and  Our Turbo tried to help me. he fished out several strains of Virus infected code but I lost the eye... he was always so good to us and after that day he started to change, he became cruel, especially to Radio. I knew then he was infected. he wasn’t our Turbo anymore and  when our game was destroyed I knew it was my fault. I brought it in because I was looking for a way to cheat them... Rig, what does this thing need Radio for? Don’t lie to me I’ve heard him called ‘ key’ before and I heard everything just now.”

Rig listened, slowly sinking down onto his heels.

“The virus was young. it needed roots... it’s a parasite, it needed a place to multiply and grow larger. My guess is it was growing in you until your Tubro removed it, when infected it grew in him until Radio came to find out about it. When I came along the two were pretty much inseparable. they knew they would die and so dissecting themselves they planted the key  codes for the Virus in Radio’s code and the locked launch codes in Turbos code. it needs both to be complete and until then it was vulnerable and Erasure could keep it contained but now it’s got everything it needs. “ 

“Radio is tougher than we all give him credit for...” Gage replied, hugging himself tightly.

“You’ll know when it wakes up. it’ll take me first...if I start...turning into a giant bug monster you’ll kill me, won’t you? I don’t want Peeps to see it...I don’t wanna be one of those things.” The green sprite seemed to have thought this through, he knew what would happen to him.

The monster that erupted from the wall let out a deafening, high-pitch  scream as thick jaws, lined with thin, black, needle-like teeth snapped out.

Radio’s voice-box squealed in terror. His glitched leg fuzzed horribly as he tried to run, waving his arms at Byrd to get a head start.

Unfortunately the first step was as far as Radio could get, his bad leg gave out completely and it wasn’t but an instant before the insectoid monster was on top of him. It’s large, spined, forearm swept the sprite into a wall with one restrained stroke. The jagged Limb easily tore into the sprite and rendered him immobile.

Radio gasped for the air that had been forced from his lungs as tears fell in waves. He couldn’t process what was happening, it was all too fast. The only thing he could think to do was to wave desperately at Byrd to run.

The small hybrid child just wailed in fear, calling his father  through screaming tears.

The beast jerked it’s head to look at the tiny Virus, antennae flicked as it seemed to size up whether or not Byrd was a threat. Finding nothing of interest, the monster was quick to disregard the tiny hybrid and return it’s focus to Radio.

“BAAAPAAAH!!!!”  The toddler cried, watching in horror as the Monster used it’s spined limbs to delicately drag it’s live prey back inside the glitched wall…

And just l as quickly as it had appeared the beast was gone…. Everything was gone, to Byrd, His whole world was gone.

Gage groaned although he accepted what Icarus said the only reason he complied and sat down was because he, too, was tired, and the fact Indie had been sobbing pitifully for the last hour had taken him down a few pegs. For as bitter a sprite as he was Gage really did not enjoy making his companions cry.

Rig, who stood in near the archway to the kitchen with his younger brother sitting behind him at his heels, had been quiet until Icarus spoke up. “I’m not trying to defend what I did. I shouldn’t have kept it a secret but I didn’t know how to tell you all either.” He started to explain, again, since he had been cut off so many times already he paused and expected another interruption. Thankfully Icarus reaching out to put a hand on Gage’s shoulder stopped him from ranting again about trust.

“I had been living in that game for years and I don’t even know how long it had been infected before I noticed. The virus that infected the game is a parasite, it doesn’t want to be found nor does it want to kill the hosts. ” As Rig continued he could see Gage growing more and more upset and even physically uncomfortable. “ The bugs grow inside the existing sprites, slowly replaceing their code so they learn the way their host acts. It’s an intentionally slow process to avoid detection. By the time I realized the game was infected the damage was too severe. Too much of the game had been replaced to be salvaged. I was only able to get most of the code for Nathan and the twins.“ Rig normally would be pacing and coming undone by this point but Agent had a firm hold on his brother’s leg.

“I honestly couldn’t… Couldn’t handle seeing them… You know… burst into monstrous bugs. S-So… I took their backups while Agent erased everything else. They didn’t know what hit them and… and I don’t think any of them suffered very long… Though I really can’t swear to that and the backups I sifted through to piece them back together were taken prior to everything so they don’t have to remember that… They’re about as alright as they could possibly be and they really didn’t want this to… You know, get ugly… Like it did.” Rig’s hands were trembling somewhat as he lit up another cigarette.

Agent poked his head out from behind Rig and slowly stood up. “I… Didn’t know… Don’t know…. I - I never.. Hmmm… I have been- Been in a… box… I don’t know - ahh… How not to Mmh, talk with… Others. I didn’t… Didn’t mean to say things- th- things that hurt. ” The hybrid spoke nervously and seemed to be genuinely apologetic. He didn’t understand why he had made everyone so upset, all his life he knew that things ate other things, naturally and consistently, he was only ever told that was bad by Rig. He was a powerful destructive hybrid that had very little experience in social situations.

“I guess I can’t hold that against you, Agent… But you, Rig… You still should have said something to us… To Radio at least. ” Icarus finally spoke again, he was rubbing his temples while he processed everything that Rig and Agent had said.

“ This… Parasite… Is there any way to remove it without a backup or destroying the host? ” Gage’s question came with an uncharacteristically nervous tone.

“I… Don’t think so… At least not that I know of. Believe me if I did I would have taken that route before considering the alternative. ” Rig could tell, everyone could tell, that the topic had Gage very unsettled.

Though they seemed to understand what Rig was saying, what he meant to do, no one seemed at all relieved. If anything they all seemed sadder.

“ I’m… So sorry, everyone. I’ll do everything possible to make sure nothing like that ever happens again… I… I swear if I ever found more of it I would tell you all before doing anything else. ” Rig tried to be reassuring but he wasn’t too sure how well that went over. He smiled at Icarus who nodded back at him before he stood up.

Icarus then pat Gage on the back and moved to where Indie was sniffling and lifted his scrawnier twin up to walk him back oit to the small get-together tbey were having for the holiday.

“Look into other ways of getting rid of that Parasite virus for us, alright? ” Gage asked as he stood up, patting the Hybrid’s arm on his way out the green racer actually stayed by the twins.