00009: \XLa, la.^3 &Time to wake&up and\R smell\X &the^4 pain./

[gainedlove]

Who: Frisk and YOU
When: November 15th
Where: Around the Moira
What: Don't try to hack your FILE, kids
Warnings: violence, reality fuckery, will update as needed


They still think about it.

Almost every day since they woke up in a body of pure physicality again, they've thought about those weeks that they had been something else. Something different, something better than the flesh and blood and horrible red strength that beats inside their chest. Something safe and warm that they had longed for for so long...

Gone as if it had never happened.

But it did. They still remember, remember what it was like to have paws instead of hands, for their ears to droop low and to be covered in warm fur. What it was like to fit in, to belong where they never truly had before, despite all of Toriel and Asriel's assurances. And it's in watching those memories on their disk, trying to relive the moment, that they realize...

Everything is in there. Can't they just...put it back?

Their work is fumbling and clumsy. It takes ages to even figure out where the data is, even longer to understand how to manipulate it. Rinzler had made the whole thing seem so simple, but Frisk can't even seem to find the right paths within their own self. Maybe, just maybe if Someone Else were here, they could make sense of--

1 Chara
2 1
3 20
4 20
5 10
6 25
7 10
8 20
9 4
10 0
11 57
12 0
13 17
29 51
30 64
31 0
543 1
544 1
547 332
548 319
549 877045

Frisk blinks in confusion at the text that suddenly starts scrolling through, long strings of numbers and odd bits of code, even broken sentences strung through with punctuation that doesn't belong. Something itches in the back of their mind, but they don't pay it any attention. Maybe if they change something here...?

12 20

ERROR

ERROR

ERROR ERROR ERROR ER█▇▛▉▜▂

00001: demonx
00002: By the way, most of the seemingly unused text/files are used.
00003: demony
00004: If you can find the in-game context for an asset, you can show it off. But if you can't, it probably means you haven't looked hard enough. Anything truly unused I'll probably post myself, later.
00005: demonz
00006: Living in a world like this, where people can simply cheat out the answers from the code... your impatience has REALLY damaged you, hasn't it?

Suddenly the whole display flickers and the text rapidly shifts with a strange, jittering sound, and Frisk frantically tries to stop the corruption. But the more they change things the worse it gets, until nothing seems recognizable anymore. No, no, this is bad, this is bad, they have to find someone to help...! Frisk cancels the holographic display and grabs the disk, moving to get up...

And without thinking, they dock the disk onto their back again.

S Y N C H R O N I Z I N G . . .

Comments

[gainedlove]

[Past the screech of static and garbled language that rings in their ears and tears through their bones, Frisk's mind latches onto Clu's words. A question, a choice, value 0 or 1 and they see a menu, one that had both never existed and yet always had.]

[* WᲮḓl yo⒯ ὲ◌∱ept └ᶺ☳ help?]
[♥ ᱙ES NO]

[They choose without a second thought. They don't care what happens, they just want this to END.]

[Frisk nods, desperate, and scrambles to pull the disk off of their back--somehow miraculously unaffected by their massive system failures.]

Please, make it stop, it hurts!

[a_perfect_end]

[Whatever happened is bad, something critical forked past or overwritten, and Frisk wavers on the core values for a long, long moment before exploding into action.

But yes is yes is true and Clu can solve this. He can fix it. That plea for help cuts past things like safe and should and leaves him with do.]

Hey, hey, not while it's in write!

[If his grip on that arm is total and sudden and whiplash tight--well. Can't have Frisk scrambling themselves.]

Easy. Easy. First we'll just--

[Strictly speaking, he shouldn't touch the disc, but he's not antiviral--without a proxy and additional overhead, his capabilities are strictly on contact. Especially for thorough work like this. He cancels the synch with a jab. Can't undo what's already done--the surface sizzles greater than 90 percent, nonsignificant--but he can stop whatever that is from bashing down through the root folder.]

There. There, feel that?

[The disc is light and slim and his with one neat practiced twist.]

Let's see what's to see, huh?

[gainedlove]

[He grabs then and Frisk freezes, eyes wide, terrified for a moment that contact will mean corruption, that he'll Come&join&the&fun. But the frayed pixels don't spread, and Frisk feels something flip inside of them when Clu takes the disk. It hasn't stopped but it...eases. Reaches something like stable, and their FILE settles into a stillness that stands counter to the chaos remaining in their mind.]

[Frisk doesn't trust their voice and so they nod instead, rocking forward onto their knees to curl up kneeling in front of him, watching him open the disk's memory with fear and a tiny, tiny spark of HoPe.]




[Their data is a mess.]

[Clearly whatever started this was a core violation of internal rules, something that created a recursion and corruption of base values that rockets all the way through the strings. Memories are going through every possible value, and their physical state is in a state of constant flux. All the myriad errors clearly have a common link and source, but the challenge of finding it is not to be taken lightly given how little stability Frisk has left.]

[a_perfect_end]

[The beta goes absolutely still in his grip, but doesn't tug away, nodding a little as they sink to a crouch to watch.

With the disc in hand, that's good enough for Clu.

Even laying perfectly flat, the disc rattles in his palm--a softer, steadier, and somehow more insectile noise than Rinzler's guttering snarl--insidious and regular like a wiped platter.

The glyph doesn't even load, no comforting profile image of Frisk hovering above the open surface. In its place are seething strings of letters.

Which, sure, that's what humans are made of, with their universal start sequences always flowing A:T::C:G, but this--it's something else, flocks of C's diving out of step with the others amid a wall of static, strobing splatters of values that loop too fast even for even him to process visually.]

There's something...added here. Did you--no, no [stroking the bright and agitated surface, more from reflex, more from habit than necessity--he moves the code with his mind, not his fingers] this was always here. Or it's tried to be. This thing has been following you a long time.

[He doesn't know a lot about their circuitry--nerves--but long, long nights with a longer list of programs have taught him perfectly what pain looks like, and how to twitch some of those stacks aside, smother them in soft dull static, drugged and grey.]

...Kinda nasty, isn't it? [Only it's said with a hum of approval.]

We'll find it, don't you worry.

[gainedlove]

[Tension slowly releases out of Frisk with those small adjustments, and while they sob with relief something else starts to surface. Scattered arrays of Gen8 : Chunk //Metadata and Scpt : ListChunk settle back into place, but at the same time ODD CHARACTERS work their way through, disrupting and sending things off-kilter again.]

[Though really, of what can be seen? Whoever wrote this really did not know what the heck they were doing. Who even puts down that many case switch statements for one operation?!]

[Frisk can tell something is getting better, as some of the confusion fades and they can think more clearly. They nod to Clu's reassurance, but flinch as the glitching in their body spikes again. The distance he's put in helps, but it's still painful. Watching the shifting code, they recognize something in there--a set of values, one small packet of data amidst several. file0, file8, file9, playerachievementcache. Making a crackling, screechy sound, they point to the cluster urgently. Those, they remember those!]

[a_perfect_end]

[Frisk relaxes faintly, with a few of the offending strings cut--sobs a bit in the back of their throat as something else, another snippet of code twitches to the fore of the stack.

The character data's the worst of it, partial strings, persistent hooks that make him blink away a far older association--his hands are not clean and this has to be deliberate, is more like something forged specifically to

--s̡̙̜̤̹͓͍ͧ̽ͯ͒̂̚̚͝p̧̠̩̞̣̺̦̣̉̓̏͡r̜͈ͦͩ͛ͦ̈́̃e̶̶̝͍̬̱͐́a̧͔ͬ̒ͭ̆̒ͩ̏͋d̴̝͇̟̤̯̭̏̃̐̂̎̓̀̚ ̶̣̭̲͍̂̃̏͒̚t̅̉ͮ̃̓̓͋̀͞͏̘͚͍̣̜̰̬ͅȟ̵͈͙̳̳̜͎͙ͩ͌̆̕͡e͎̼̰̻͊̈̍͜ ̲̲̩̫͕̣̪ͫͣ̓͊̍ͅp̴̷͉̗̳̻̣͚͗̀ͤͣ̿͗ͥ̕ ͎͖͙͆a̺̭̮̞̩̩͈ͣ̅ͣ͋͊́͟ ̛̼͕̣̣̫̮ͮͦi̧̘̙͕͈̬̪͓͖̺̿̍̎̓̎͢͢ ̶̠͈ͯ̌ͮͨ̅̐̋ͫ̚ǹ̳̞̲̺͕̲̙͋ͮ͟ͅ--

No, not now; junk data could scrub Frisk right here, and it'd be Clu's fault.]

Okay, okay. I've got you--!

[No he hasn't, acidic gold feedback as the checksum fumbles and packets bubble free of their assigned order and whoever packed that many case switches on that one poor statement should be dragged into the arena and fed to Rinzler.

Frisk shivers a little in the grip of it, squalling with feedback, painstakingly pointing out--]

Well.

Well, well, hello.

[A nice fat cluster series of stable values; he prods gently, soft as testing an aching tooth with your tongue. These assets are in good shape. They should be able to get visual playback out of at least two.

But there's one he's especially interested in, and he doesn't exactly ask--]

Achievement unlocked.