Loose Threads Episode 7- Ripped Weaving

NIKO
Rue flinches as she sets one of her front paws down. Niko hurries over to her. “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” Rue nods. “Just an old injury. Don’t mind me.” She shakes it off and keeps walking. Niko wonders if Izzy knows what’s wrong with her. Or rather they might have told him before they just-
“Niko.”
Niko glances up. “Hm?” He realizes Rue lead him up to another point in the ruined city, with a railing overlooking a lake that glows red. Niko blinks. “Red phosphor, right?”
Rue nods. “Yes. This is where Prototype, Cedric and I agreed I should take you when we met. Though when we made the plans, the city wasn’t rubble.” She sits. “What made you come here, Niko? What happened?”
“I don’t get how I got here. I went inside the tower, and Izzy…” his voice catches suddenly. Rue doesn’t say anything. Niko wipes his eyes, but tears drip down, one by one. He chokes out, “…they said, ‘Goodbye, Niko’. Then everything was gone.”
Rue stares into the distance. “They said goodbye. Why do you keep saying they abandoned you?”
“I don’t know…” Niko holds the Sun tighter. “We didn’t put the Sun where it belongs, a-and the tower’s gone, a-a-and…” His tears start flowing down his face. He reaches up and wipes them off with his sleeves, which only results in soaking them, since the tears keep coming.
“Everything’s still ruined?” Rue finishes. Niko nods, biting his lip. Rue looks through the bars. “I… I’m too short to climb up.” Niko looks at her, confused. Rue tilts her muzzle up. “A little help?”
Niko sets the Sun down and lifts Rue up onto the railing. She looks over the lake. “Do you know why Izzy is able to interact with you?”
Niko thinks. “I guess I don’t.”
Rue looks up to the sky and closes her eyes. “It’s all thanks to my father’s device. The World Machine. This might be hard to take…” she flicks her tail. “I didn’t think I would have to explain everything…”
Niko looks her in the eye. “What?”
“Niko… the world you’ve been trying to save… it’s… it’s not…” she swallows. “The Sun was your tie to the world.”
Niko nods. “It’s why I was brought here, right…?”
“They told you never to break it. If you break it, the world will die.”
“Which would be bad.”
“But Niko… unless the Sun breaks… you’d never go home.”
“What?”
“There’s no good ending,” Rue stares into the distance. “The world survives, but you never return home. Or the world dies, but you go home. My father gave the choice up to Izzy. He trusted they would have good judgement. You’re the only real person in your world, Niko. The rest… is all a fabrication of the World Machine. The Entity, you might know him as.”
“I’m… the…”
Rue winces. “I’m sorry. Everyone else in that world… is… part of the… ‘simulation’. The World Machine… my father’s creation. But it was corrupted, and…” Rue sighs.
“My father, the Author, loved the World Machine and you, Niko, so much, he sent me and my siblings, Cedric and Prototype, to get one shot at saving you both. Please believe me, Niko.”
Niko stares at her. She bows her head. “My siblings always thought I would explain it to you best. Prototype is… blunt. Cedric can never find the words. But… I suppose I have my own issue explaining this. I feel guilty having to tell you.”
Niko breathes heavily. “Fabri… cation?”
“…think like a painting. Or a tapestry, if you will. Don’t think of them as lines of code. Think of them as strings.” Rue puts her paw to the gem on her forehead, then blows her paw. A yellow string flutters in front of Niko, before vanishing. “Endless strings, forming every bit of the world, every light inside every soul, stringing together a beautiful world.”
A tear falls into the red phosphor lake. Rue puts a paw on his shoulder and doesn’t stop his tears from flowing and falling into the lake.
Finally, Niko sniffles and wipes his eyes. “…what was Izzy going to choose?”
Rue turns. “I don’t know. What do you think is the right thing to do?”
Niko grips the railing. “I… I don’t know.”
Rue smiles weakly. “Maybe Izzy didn’t either. That’s why my father is guiding them. All he needed was the time for one last shot. To save everyone.”
The young messiah grips the Sun in his hands. “…but everything’s broken.”
Rue surveys the wreckage. “That’s… another story entirely.”
“I just want to have one thing answered straight.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
“Does your father… does he care? About the world? And me?”
The fox daughter of the Author looks the messiah dead in the eyes. “He could’ve lost me and my siblings. Not to mention everything could’ve failed. Izzy could’ve made a mistake, we might’ve been found out too early… but he still risked it. Just to save you and the World Machine, Niko. Doesn’t that sound like…”
“…some sort of solstice?” Niko finishes. He claps his hands over his mouth. “I don’t know why I said that.”
Rue smiles. “I think Izzy is trying to talk to you.”

“Please, please, please, work…”

VEE
Vee stares at the television showing the ‘credits’. “…so that… ‘cartoon’… was how you got my soul back?”
Cuphead puts the television into his back pocket. Sonic, behind him, gets wide eyed. ‘Wait where’d it go’. Cuphead bows. “See, I’ve had a real change in heart!”
Braid crosses her arms. “I don’t trust you still. If you’re still willing to do something like that, you could mess everything up.”
Sonic taps his foot. “Slow down, squid. Me and Pikach- er, Pikan- could use help finding the Chaos Emeralds. More hands on deck… besides, I believe in second chances. I gave him one.” He points to Pikan. “Not to mention my villain, Eggman, I’ve let get away about…” Sonic shrugs. “I’ve never finished him off. I’ve let him backstab me a couple dozen times, too.”
“Cuphead KILLED Vee! And sixteen other people! And you’re talking about second chances with him?!”
Sonic clenches his fist. “Eggman infected all my friends with a virus that turned people into zombots! And guess what? I let him fly off!”
Braid yells back, “Why are we letting a threat just run free? You should’ve just killed your enemy when you had the chance!”
Vee whimpers and pushes against Pikan. Pikan recoils slightly but seems to not want to be rude. Vee mumbles, “Remember all the times recruited the Pokémon who attacked us?” Pikan shakes his head. Vee continues talking to herself. “And when we hurt Skarmory… I felt guilty. And we tried to save him… but he was already gone.” Vee starts talking louder. “He can have a second chance!”
Sonic and Braid loosen. Cuphead’s hand, removed from his body, walks between the two groups. “See? Even she agrees!”
Braid huffs. “If you try to sell anyone out again…”
Cuphead’s hand leaps to his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die, I will not sell anybody out!” He reattaches his arm and sticks it out to Braid. “We can get along, right?” Braid doesn’t take it. Sonic grabs it. “Welcome to the team, strange cartoon cup.”

KRIS
Kris wipes the dust off their boots and sheathes their sword. A shame the cup got away. This kind of power…
A thought flashes through her mind. Why does she need this power when she’s already free. She doesn’t need it to be free.
She shakes it off. She looks at the path the cup took, watching it fade off into the distance. She wonders if that path will lead to more. She starts to follow when something drops in front of her.
There’s a sound like static laughter. “HELLO THERE, [Little Sponge]!” Kris unsheathes her sword. The one opposite her cackles. “THAT’S RIGHT, [Folks]! SPAMTON G. SPAMTON IS HERE TO TURN YOUR PARTY INTO [A Steaming Load of $!$!]!”
The strings holding him up twitch and ring. “IT [Pulls] MY [Strings] AND MAKES THEM RING! MY NEW MASTER! PLEASE [Hands In the Air] AND GIVE ME MY [Furniture Back].”
Kris points a hand at him, ready to fire a barrage of yellow bullets. Nothing comes, and Spamton fires a pipis into her gut, that explodes into lots of little Spamton heads that chatter ‘BE A [Big Shot]!’ before fading to dust.
Spamton NEO cackles. “HOW’S THAT FEEL, YOU [Worthless Mother$!$!]?! WITHOUT YOUR [Heart-Shaped Object] YOU CAN’T [Lay A Hand On Me]!” Kris flinches and stands. She charges and slashes in a X shape across Spamton, yet it doesn’t seem to hurt him at all. “[NYAHAHA]! DON’T YOU SEE YOU’RE ABOUT TO [have a bad time]?!” He thrusts one hand upward, and a load of Spamton heads erupt from below. Kris tries to jump to dodge, and barely grabs onto a platform, hanging precariously above.
“WOW, [Master]! THESE BULLET-HELLS FROM THAT [Arceus-Forsaken] SKELETON ARE SURE GIVING [Some Real $!$!]! LETS TRY SOME MORE!” The sea of Spamton heads vanishes, and now the gravity of the world switches, slamming Kris against the wall, before slamming her in the back with a burst of pop-up advertisements. Then up, then the other side, then down, each time barraging Kris with pain. Finally, the attack ends, leaving Kris to stand wobblily. Spamton cackles statically. “WHOS THAT ON THE PHONE?! [kids like you should be burning in] [Three-For-One Special]!” Giant skull like blasters fire at Kris at every angle. Kris falls to the ground, utterly limp. Spamton NEO flails wildly, the strings shaking him about. “SEE YOU LATER, [Little Sponge]! TIME TO BE A REAL [Big Shot]!!!”
“N…o…e…l…l…e…”
Spamton stops. “WHAT WAS THAT?! IT’S AWFULLY HARD TO HEAR YOUR [Pathetic Dying Voice] OVER THE NOISE OF MY [Hyperlink Blocked]!”
“I…c…e…S…h…o…c…k..”
Spamton comes to a complete halt. “NO! YOU CAN’T TALK TO THAT [Side Chick]! SPAMTON NEO’S GONNA [Drop-Kick] YOU RIGHT INTO-”
SHK-SHING.

THE KNIGHT
The Knight doesn’t understand fully what compels him to, but he stays with the plant-girl, Cosmo. The flower, Flowey, clearly does not trust him. The Knight sees so many regrets in him, tenfold his Shade. The flower is clearly working on something, but he always seems to finish so fast yet seem so tired. It has to do with the gemstone Cosmo had.
The Knight remembers everything that green girl had to say to him. About her friends, and forgetting them. The Knight wonders what it would be like to forget things, or to have such strong ties to memories. Whatever the case, his presence seems to help her.
But he is concerned about her withered rose. Whenever she seems to be thinking too heavily, the Knight makes sure to come in and snap her out of it, worried of what might happen.
Worried. The Knight snaps his head up from his journal. He recognizes it, yet what an alien thought. He pushes it back. But he makes a choice in his mind.
At night, Cosmo sleeps peacefully in her bed. She is quiet beyond light breathing, that smells like mints. Her hair droops around her face. Her eyes are closed. She’s lying on her withered rose.
The Knight walks in without making any noise, little void feet all that makes contact with the ground. He pulls out a hilt without a blade, the top clearly patterned.
The Knight pulls it back, and the hilt grows a glowing blade, becoming a nail. He swings it with all his might at Cosmo’s head.
I don’t want to forget them… I don’t want to forget… I don’t want to forget… I need the little ghost… I need him to remember what friends are like… to remember what it’s like to give a hug… to laugh… please… I’ll give anything.
The Knight recoils as a bit of orange mist sputters from the Dream Nail. He doesn’t understand this. But he understands that she needs to wake up. He quickly shakes her, with a feeling something like a vague sense of panic.

MIDNA
Midna reluctantly follows as Frisk leads the path forward. She lingers behind Nia, not wanting to be anywhere near that stupid cat. Unfortunately, it puts her next to Ralsei. He waves timidly. “How are you doing?”
Midna snorts and doesn’t look at him. “Juuust great. How do you think, you fluffy idiot?! This isn’t my world, I’ve been forced into babysitting a child with a knife and a catgirl who thinks she’s a sweet little kid, and I’m stuck as a Hylia-dang imp again!”
Ralsei awkwardly bites his lip. “Um… sorry?”
“Apologize by shutting the frick up.”
“Alright.” Ralsei is silent for a long moment. They walk past already solved puzzles. They are delayed for some time by Frisk trying to play through a game involving kicking a snowball around. She quickly gives up and continues. They walk through a town completely empty. A sign when they walk in reads ‘Welcome to Snowdin!’. Nia reads the sign over. “Snowdin? Oh, ‘snowed in’, I get it… why’s this place so empty?”
Frisk doesn’t answer. As usual. She walks into one store, with a note and a pile of gold coins on the counter. Frisk snags it all quickly.
“Hey, what did the note say?” Midna huffs. “Because it probably wasn’t ‘free money’.”
Frisk shoves the note deeper into her pocket and starts looking around, taking weird double popsicles, cinnamon rolls that look like bunny faces, and some more gold. Ralsei says, “H-hey, Frisk, it’s not nice to steal people’s stuff…” Frisk ignores him and walks out the door with the stuff in her pocket. She ignores the rest of the eerily empty town. Ralsei keeps glancing left and right, as though worried something will jump out. As they reach the exit of the town, the snow gets heavier, until they can’t see anything but a vague outline of each other. Frisk calmly stops.
“What the heck are you waiting for?!” Midna shouts. “Meeting someone here?!” Frisk turns, and suddenly a white-gloved, red-stained hand appears from nowhere and grabs her neck. Frisk stays completely calm, draws her knife, and chops at it. It falls to the ground, before it starts crawling on the ground like a spider. The arm it’s attached to is beige and bends however it seems to please. Frisk tries to stomp on it. It grabs her foot and cartoonishly smashes her back and forth against the snowy ground before tossing her into a tree with a loud thud. Nia zips over to help, but another hand comes out and grabs both of her legs. She yelps before a third hand covers her mouth. Midna’s hair-hand tries to pull and pry them off, but whenever she tries, they dig their fingertips in, making her only hurt Nia. Finally, a fourth hand comes out, snaps, and drops Nia into a sort of portal like hole. A vague shape moves closer, something sort of spikey, with all these hands and arms attached to it, behind Midna. Ralsei quickly turns and flings his arm out. It bursts into flames and starts screeching, all its hands flailing. Midna turns and grabs it with her hair in a sort of choke- well, a vague guess at it, since she can’t see its neck. It keeps shrieking as Midna tries to make it tighter and tighter before it abruptly stops. Midna stops forcing it to be tighter. Ralsei puts his hand down. There’s something red on the ground in front of them. It isn’t blood. It moves differently. Then suddenly, in under a second, it grows into the monster and hurls them far away.

IZZY
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
The window on her screen that looks like a page torn from a book refreshes. I don’t think there’s anything left to do. For now, we have to find that thing’s weakness. Somehow. And have hope that Niko is still alive. Don’t close your device until then. “I guess I could use one of those AFK tricks to keep devices awake…” Izzy turns from the screen and finds their energy drink sucked dry. Rest. You don’t do Niko any good not at your best. My children can watch him. The window closes. Izzy puts their face on the desk and lets a few tears fall before they sleep.