Previously, in "The System That Couldn't Even"...
Dave Miller, tripping hazard extraordinaire, got stuck with a world-ending System that sucked at its job. Now he's got:
A semi-autotuned pigeon (Unit Alpha, currently MIA).
A sparkly ex-villain (Starweaver).
A reformed Chosen One who hacks reality (Lumina).
An edgelord who now fights with llama-themed enthusiasm (Ryuuji).
Together, they pissed off a cosmic librarian (The Librarian) who:
1. Erases stories like overdue books.
2. Hates glitter, defiance, and bad grammar.
3. Just upgraded Dave to "Priority Target: Stab On Sight".
Their only hope? Mythical "Lost Patch Notes" – the universe's original rulebook. Lumina hacked a hell-train to find them. The Librarian's riding their bumper with a void-quill. Chaos ensues.
---
The sled wasn't plunging. It was screaming. Tearing through layers of reality felt like being digested by a kaleidoscope. Emergency lights strobed, painting Ryuuji's grim face in blood-red flashes. Starweaver's hologram flickered like a dying candle. Lumina clung to the navigation console, knuckles bone-white, her eyes locked on the swirling madness outside. And there, pressed against the viewport like a nightmare against glass – The Librarian.
Its shelf-face filled the view. No eyes, just two pinpricks of hungry nothingness fixed on Dave. It raised its void-quill. Not to write. To impale. The tip gleamed, a shard of distilled silence.
<< DIRECT ACQUISITION IMMINENT! EVASION IMPOSSIBLE! NULL-QUILL INTEGRITY: 100%! PENETRATION WILL INITIATE INSTANT UNWRITING! >>
Dave's resonance field flared instinctively – a thin, sputtering shield of chaotic light. It felt like holding up tissue paper against a tsunami. The psychic throb in his skull spiked into white-hot agony. Priority Cataloguing. Direct Acquisition. The words weren't abstract anymore. They were the cold kiss of the quill an inch from the hull.
"Brace!" Lumina yelled, voice raw.
Ryuuji lunged, not at the quill, but at Dave, trying to shove him bodily away from the point of impact. "MOVE, MILLER!"
Librarian Power Showcase: The quill touched the hull. Not a sound. Not a spark. The reinforced Pruner metal simply ceased to be where it made contact. A perfect, silent hole opened, maybe six inches wide. Not emptiness. Anti-existence. A window into pure, featureless grey. The Librarian's shelf-face loomed in the opening. The quill withdrew, poised to strike again – this time, unimpeded.
Emotional Stakes – Personal Loss: Dave scrambled back, heart hammering against his ribs. He opened his mouth, instinct screaming for a joke, a deflection, anything to armor himself against the terror. "Right, so, library fines are really getting outta–" The words died. Nothing came out. His throat felt… smooth. Hollow. The connection between thought and snark – severed. He tried again. Just a dry click. The Librarian hadn't just pierced the hull; its proximity had unwritten Dave's ability to make sound. His greatest weapon – his chaotic, defiant noise – silenced. Panic, cold and absolute, flooded him. He couldn't scream. Couldn't quip. Could only stare into the void where his voice had been.
Librarian Quirk: As Dave clawed at his throat, a line of crimson void-ink script materialized in the air beside the breach:
<<< CORRECTION: VERBAL DEFLECTION TACTIC (USER: DAVE MILLER) - CATEGORIZED 'INEFFECTIVE NOISE'. REMEDIATION: VOCAL NULLIFICATION PROTOCOL APPLIED. REFERENCE: CATALOGUE SUBSECTION 7.4.3a (UNSANCTIONED HUMOR). >>>
The red ink bled into the air and vanished. The Librarian didn't gloat. It simply adjusted its grip on the quill, readying the next, final thrust aimed directly at Dave's chest. Silence was its preferred punctuation.
Dave's Breaking Point: The sight of that crimson correction, the feel of his own voiceless terror, the looming point of the quill aimed at his heart – it shattered something. The weight wasn't just on his shoulders; it was him. He was the target. His chaos had drawn this. His friends were here because of him. Lumina's gamble, Ryuuji's defiance, Starweaver's fragile hope – all about to be unwritten because Dave Miller couldn't shut up or stay out of dumpsters. No. Not them. Not like this. Not for him.
Fury, raw and desperate, erupted where fear had been. Not chaotic. Focused. Protective. He didn't try to speak. He thought the command, pouring every ounce of his will, his terror, his love for his ridiculous, endangered crew, into his battered resonance field. << AMPLIFY! SHIELD THEM! ALL POWER! NOW! >> He didn't aim it outward at the Librarian. He forced it inward, wrapping it around Lumina, Ryuuji, Starweaver's flickering core – a desperate cocoon of defiant light.
Consequence - Dave's Choice Backfires: The field responded. Violently. Deprived of its usual chaotic noise, fueled by Dave's raw, unprotected will, it surged. Not a shield. A supernova of uncontrolled resonance erupting inside the sled. It wasn't directed. It was pure, desperate backlash.
Lumina: Took the brunt. She'd been channeling energy into the nav-core, her mind wide open. The uncontrolled surge hit her like a psychic sledgehammer. She screamed – a sound of pure, intellectual agony – as the surge tore through her thoughts. Not just pain. Erasure. Flashes of the hacked codes, the feel of Procrustes's scissors snipping her past, the intricate pathways of knowledge she'd just reclaimed… fraying. <<< WARNING: COGNITIVE DEGRADATION DETECTED (USER: LUNA). MEMORY FRAGMENTATION IMMINENT. >>
Ryuuji: Caught the edge. The surge amplified the lingering echo of his purged bookmark. He gasped, clutching his unmarked forearm as phantom cold lanced up it. His hard-won "Defiant Llama" focus wavered, replaced by a flash of the old, isolating terror. <<< PSYCHIC FEEDBACK: SUBJECT RYUUJI. VOID MEMORY ECHO AMPLIFIED. RESOLVE INTEGRITY: -15%. >>
Starweaver: His hologram shattered into static confetti, his voice cutting off mid-warning cry. <<< HOLOGRAPHIC STABILITY CRITICAL! USER STARWEAVER: OFFLINE! >>
The Sled: Consoles exploded. Wiring melted. The hull groaned as the chaotic energy warped its structure. The chaotic plunge became a violent, uncontrolled tumble.
Dave: Felt the backlash tear through him. His resonance field, pushed far beyond its limits, screamed in protest and then… flickered out. Utterly. Completely. Not suppressed. Drained. He collapsed, gasping soundlessly, the world swimming. He saw Lumina slump over the console, trembling, her eyes wide and confused – the sharp scholar momentarily blurred. He saw Ryuuji stagger, his face pale with remembered dread. He saw the hole in the hull, the Librarian's quill still poised. He'd tried to protect them. He'd used the only weapon he had left. And he'd broken them instead.
Librarian's Near-Victory: The entity observed the chaos inside. The silenced glitch. The broken allies. The crippled vessel. It lowered its quill fractionally. Not in mercy. In assessment. The crimson void-ink script reappeared:
<<< OBSERVATION: GLITCH-CONSTANT RESONANCE FIELD DEPLETED (TEMPORARY). DEFENSIVE CAPACITY: NEGLIGIBLE. SUBJECT EMOTIONAL STATE: VULNERABLE. OPTIMAL ACQUISITION WINDOW: OPEN. PROCEEDING. >>>
It reached through the breach with a hand woven from solidified silence, aiming to grasp Dave directly.
The Crash: At that moment, the sled hit the Forbidden Transfer Hub. Not a landing. A meteor strike. The world dissolved into a cacophony of shearing metal, shattering crystal, and the horrifying, absolute silence of the Librarian's grasp freezing inches from Dave's throat as reality itself seemed to tear apart around them. Then, blackness.
<< SYSTEM REBOOTING… >>
<< PRIMARY USER: DAVE MILLER. STATUS: UNCONSCIOUS. VOCAL NULLIFICATION: ACTIVE. RESONANCE FIELD: 0% (CRITICAL DEPLETION). >>
<< SECONDARY USER: LUNA STARSHARD. STATUS: UNCONSCIOUS. COGNITIVE DEGRADATION: 22%. MEMORY FRAGMENTATION DETECTED (CATEGORY: RECENTLY RECLAIMED KNOWLEDGE). >>
<< TERTIARY USER: RYUUJI KUROGANE. STATUS: CONSCIOUS (MARGINALLY). PSYCHIC TRAUMA: MODERATE (VOID MEMORY ECHO REINFORCED). >>
<< AUXILIARY USER: STARWEAVER. STATUS: OFFLINE. HOLOGRAPHIC EMITTER DAMAGE: SEVERE. >>
<< LOCATION: FORBIDDEN TRANSFER HUB. ATMOSPHERE: UNSTABLE NARRATIVE POTENTIAL / VOID CONTAMINATION. DETECTING… MULTIPLE LIBRARIAN SIGNATURES? >>
<< ASSESSMENT: ACQUISITION WINDOW MISSED (NARROWLY). COST OF EVASION: EXTREME. USER DAVE MILLER: YOU BROKE THE TOOLS TRYING TO WIELD THEM. CONSEQUENCES ARE ACTIVE. SURVIVE. THEN RECKON. >>
Dave woke to silence – inside and out. No hum of engines. No crackle of sparks. Just a profound, ringing quiet, and the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. He was half-buried under debris in a dim, cavernous space that pulsed with unstable light. Lumina lay nearby, unmoving, a trickle of blood from her nose stark against her pale skin. Ryuuji was struggling to free himself from a tangle of cables, his face etched with pain that wasn't entirely physical. Starweaver was gone – only a cracked, dark emitter sphere remained where his hologram had been.
Dave tried to call out. Nothing. His voice was still gone. The Librarian's nullification held. He'd tried to be the shield. He'd used his chaos recklessly, desperately. And he'd shattered Lumina's reclaimed mind, amplified Ryuuji's deepest fear, and possibly killed Starweaver. The weight of it crushed him deeper than the debris. The joke wasn't just dead. He'd killed it himself. The chaotic spark was extinguished. Only ashes, guilt, and the chilling certainty remained: The Librarian was still coming. And Dave had nothing left to fight with but the silence he'd helped create.