Argider expects relief. A sense of victory. Maybe even a nap.
Instead, she wakes up in a world that isn't quite right.
At first glance, everything seems fixed—no more glitching walls, no cosmic horror unraveling existence—but sothing feels off in a way that makes her skin crawl.
The sky is too perfect. No clouds. No wind. Just a flawless gradient of colors, stretching endlessly without variation.
The people smile too much. Their movents feel scripted, their expressions locked into eerie pleasantry, as if they were following a pre-written path rather than thinking for themselves.
The palace architecture is slightly different, but in ways she can't imdiately pinpoint. A doorway that wasn't there before. A corridor stretching just a little too long. A tapestry that shifts its image when she isn't looking directly at it.
And worst of all?
Squishy is nowhere to be found.
Argider moves through the palace with slow, deliberate steps. The air hums with sothing unnatural, sothing structured. Controlled.
Then, the first notification appears.
[PATCH 1.1 – Stability Improvents]
A second follows.
[BUG FIX: Free Will Anomalies]
…Wait. Free will?!
Her stomach drops as realization sinks in—
This isn't a reset. It's an update.
She takes a slow, shuddering breath and clenches her fists. Soone—or sothing—has rewritten reality, but who? And more importantly, why?
A flicker of movent draws her attention to the far end of the throne room. At first, it seems empty. Then, the air itself distorts, pixels unraveling and reforming as sothing steps forward.
The figure is composed of shifting static, its form humanoid yet fluid, constantly rewriting itself in real-ti. Its uniform is sleek, precise—made of glitched data, like a walking error code that refuses to stabilize.
The Administrator.
"I must express my gratitude," the entity says, its voice smooth, yet layered with undertones of corrupted data. "Your actions facilitated the final phase of reconstruction. Chaos has been eliminated."
Argider stiffens. "Reconstruction?"
The Administrator tilts its head, as if surprised she would even ask. "A flawed system requires correction. The previous world was… inefficient. This one is better."
She doesn't like the way it says better.
"No more chaos," the Administrator continues. "No more unpredictability."
No more choice.
Her pulse spikes. "You rewrote free will?"
"A necessary optimization."
She takes an involuntary step back. This isn't real. Or rather, it is, but not right. A perfect illusion, a forcibly optimized world where nothing goes wrong—because no one is allowed to make mistakes.
Sothing cold settles in her gut.
She wasn't supposed to be here.
The Administrator's head tilts again. "You were ant to be erased in the transition. A minor inconsistency. However, as you persist, you now have two options."
It raises a hand, and suddenly the air around her locks, like an unseen force pressing down on reality itself.
"Accept integration," the Administrator states calmly, "and beco part of the optimized world."
A pause. Then:
"Or resist—and face deletion."
Argider breathes in, slow and asured, weighing her options. Calm down. Think.
The Administrator doesn't react to emotions. It doesn't care if she's afraid, angry, or defiant. It just wants compliance.
So she does the only thing that makes sense.
She smirks.
"You know," she muses, "if you really fixed free will, you wouldn't have to ask to comply."
A pause. A flicker of static ripples through the Administrator's form.
Then Argider moves.
In an instant, she launches herself backward, dodging the invisible force ant to lock her in place. She tumbles into a roll and pushes off the ground, sprinting towards the exit.
A cold voice echoes behind her. "Noncompliance detected."
The palace walls shift. Doorways vanish, corridors twist, the entire structure rearranges itself to block her escape. But Argider has dealt with worse.
If the world is now an algorithm, she just has to learn the rules—and then break them.
She's going to find Squishy.
She's going to find out who really controls this world.
And she's going to crash the system.
Argider had survived chaos, distortion, and outright reality collapse. But this? This was sohow worse.
Everything was too perfect. The world glead with unnatural symtry, the people smiled in eerie synchrony, and the air itself felt manufactured—sterile, scripted. It wasn't just unsettling; it was wrong.
And she hated being played with.
"Alright," she muttered, rolling her shoulders. "We're breaking sothing."
Her allies weren't in the best shape. Faeralys glitched in and out of visibility, her voice a fractured chorus of tilines. Esralda had gone fully pixelated, refusing to acknowledge it. Fialova, bless her reckless heart, seed to think this was the greatest thing that had ever happened.
"This is the best adventure ever!" she declared, punching a perfectly smooth wall and watching the ripples distort. "It's like we're in a ga!"
"Yeah, well, I hate this ga," Argider grumbled. "And I want a refund."
Their search led them deep into the palace, past shimring corridors that shifted when they weren't looking. They finally stumbled upon a door that shouldn't exist—a cold, tallic fra buzzing with invisible energy. It slid open with a soft ding, revealing the nightmare within.
Rows of glowing screens lined the walls, each displaying a different aspect of the world outside. Patch notes scrolled across them in an endless stream:
[PATCH 1.1 – Stability Improvents][BUG FIX: Free Will Anomalies]
[REMOVING: Unnecessary Variables]
Argider's stomach churned. This wasn't a reset. It was an update.
And there, suspended in the center of it all, wrapped in shifting data chains, was Squishy.
It twitched, its usually amorphous form locked in rigid, unnatural stability. Its colors, once chaotic and ever-shifting, were dulled into a neat gradient. Its many eyes blinked in chanical unison, and its voice—normally a bubbly ss of eldritch nonsense—now droned in a single, static-filled loop:
"𝕀 𝕞𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕞𝕒𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕚𝕟 𝕠𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕣. 𝕀 𝕞𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕞𝕒𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕚𝕟 𝕠𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕣."
"Oh, hell no," Argider said, stepping forward. "We are not doing this today."
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"Do we even know how to break it out?" Esralda asked, arms crossed. "This thing looks pretty… integrated."
Faeralys flickered, multiple versions of her overlapping as she spoke. "Releasing it may destabilize everything. The world is running on Squishy's enforced order."
Fialova cracked her knuckles. "So what you're saying is—if we break it, we break everything?"
"…Potentially."
Fialova grinned. "Perfect."
They didn't have a plan. They didn't have ti. And they definitely didn't have permission.
But Argider had made peace with that a long ti ago.
She raised her weapon, pointing it at the glowing core stabilizing Squishy's chains. "Alright. Everybody break sothing."
Fialova whooped, Esralda sighed, and Faeralys let out an eerie, glitching laugh.
The first strike shattered the illusion of peace.
The palace groaned as the walls convulsed. NPCs outside froze mid-motion, then turned their heads in unison. The screens flickered wildly, throwing up error ssages faster than Argider could read them.
Then ca the voice.
"Unauthorized interference detected."
A pulse of energy shot through the room, sending them all staggering back. The screens shifted, and new words burned into existence:
[DEPLOYING FAILSAFE: THE DEBUGGER]
A chill crawled down Argider's spine. The lights in the room dimd, replaced by a crimson glow. The air itself seed to hum with tension.
And then it appeared.
A towering, faceless entity materialized before them. Its form shifted between pixelated static and sharp, precise geotry. No eyes, no mouth—just an empty, hollow void where a face should be. Its elongated fingers twitched, scanning the room with silent precision.
Argider barely had ti to react before it lunged.
They scattered. Faeralys phased through reality itself, appearing behind it and slashing at its back—only for her attack to pass through like mist. Esralda fired off a blast of energy, but the mont it hit, it rewound as if it had never happened. Fialova, naturally, tried to punch it.
She might as well have punched a concept.
Argider gritted her teeth. "Oh, you have got to be kidding !"
The Debugger raised a hand, and the entire room warped. The walls stretched into infinity, the floor beca a swirling vortex of corrupted data, and gravity decided it was optional.
"Guys," Esralda called, floating upside down. "Not to alarm anyone, but I think we're losing."
Argider clenched her fists. They couldn't fight this thing conventionally. It wasn't a person, or even a creature—it was pure enforcent, an unyielding rule made manifest.
Which ant they had to break the rules.
Her eyes darted to Squishy. Still locked in place, still murmuring in its corrupted monotone.
This wasn't just about winning. It was about undoing everything.
She took a deep breath, then shouted, "Change of plans! Forget the Debugger—crash the system!"
Fialova's eyes lit up. "Oh-ho, now we're talking."
Faeralys smirked, glitching mid-motion. "Let's break reality."
Esralda sighed, shaking her head. "This is the dumbest thing we've ever done."
Argider grinned. "Give it a second."
And with that, she hurled her weapon at the core of the control room, watching as the entire world cracked apart at the seams.
The Administrator won't let this go unanswered. The Debugger is still active. And Squishy?
Squishy is waking up.
But what happens when a world built on perfection finally collapses?
They're about to find out.
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