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Glitch into the Hufflverse Chapter 17: Swapboys Bad End

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Alt glitches them all down, way underground. But even away from the destruction up top- this way is no worse for wear. That glitchy code that’s eating buildings outside is in here- leaving abandoned equipment half formed and walls with big gaping code holes.

Against the back wall, or whatever is left of it- is a stone archway. But it’s been destroyed too- crushed and cut in half by something that has left purple scars in the stone.

Alt gasps as he sees and rushes over, “no! Nonono!”

Henny sighs heavily, “It is as I feared…”

Schneep sighs as well. "That does not sound good at all."

"It's completely destroyed," Jackie whispers. "Like... cut in half. And there are purple cracks in the stone."

Alt looks angry as he bangs against the back wall. “Damnit! Fuck this evil fucking me! This could have gotten you home!”

JJ walks forward, as if in a daze. He reaches out to touch the stone of the doorway, running his fingers along the rough stone. He can tell there were runes carved into it, but the purple scars are messing with their shape. He can't tell which runes they were supposed to be. Except... for one. He looks up at one, where the top left corner of the doorway would have been. I know that one.

"You recognize one of the runes?" Jackie asks.

JJ nods. He points at it. An angled sort of spiral. That one is on the back of some of Marvin's magickal cards. The jokers.

"Alright... what does it mean?" Schneep asks.

I'm not sure. That's the only place I've seen them. But... I think it's supposed to be a tunnel of some kind.

Alt looks to JJ as he talks about the runes then tilts his head as he touches the spiral rune. “…huh… like a… a portal? Is that the rune that makes this thing work…?”

JJ shakes his head. I don't know. Marvin's told me that runes all work together. You can't cast a spell with just one or two. He takes a closer look at more of the runes. You know... these are all different styles. I'm betting there's a variety of runic alphabets here. Strange. Normally you have to stick with one.

“True… even when I use chaos magic I need at least 3 to create something…” Alt says. He does look surprised at the different runic languages. “Huh… I wonder if it’s like… a mix of magic cultures… I heard in the medieval world they had a doorway like this. I never got to see it but I remember trying to search for it…”

I wonder if these doorways are... always there, JJ says.

"I cannot imagine an 'always' in an infinite multiverse," Schneep says. "But they might be consistent in this part of the multiverse. This, ah... section?"

"Branch, my Anti's said 'our branch' a couple times," Jackie says.

Jackie and Schneep also walk over. Schneep starts feeling the broken archway, running fingers along the carved runes. "Hey, look, there's another one of those spiral runes." Jackie says, picking up a bit of rubble.

That looks like it would have been the opposite corner, JJ says. So there are two tunnel runes. I don't see any other repeats... they must be important.

Bro comes over and tries to move around to not spook anyone. “Hey! Maybe we could… put it back together? That’s worth a try, right?”

"Worth a shot, yeah." Jackie nods. "I can't think of any other ideas."

"Heh." Schneep smiles a bit. "Jamie, do you know Mending? Do you have the spell slots for it?"

JJ chuckles a little. I should have the 'spell slots', yes. I've never tried fixing something with magic but it can't be that difficult.

“I can try to help too… can’t be too hard to figure out between two magicians right?” Alt smiles at JJ.

“That’s the spirit!” Bro grins. He starts searching through the rubble to look for more pieces. “Also love the dnd reference- god Alt when we get home we should start a game! God it’d be sick to do a game with all of us… Do you think discord could cross dimensions??”

Alt bursts into laughter.

Jackie raises an eyebrow. "Nerds. You're all nerds."

Schneep nudges him with his shoulder. "Ah come on, Jackie. You cannot be so different from the Jackie I know that you are not a tiny bit interested."

Jackie grumbles as he starts sorting through the rubble. "I... may have tried in high school. But I got bored waiting for my turn to fight."

You just need to do something else while waiting, something idle, JJ says. Besides, the fifth edition isn't fully combat-focused. There's a lot more you can do!

“I never got to play- it seems really fun though,” Alt admits. He laughs, “Dr. J used to run the group that my Jackie and his wife were in. Did you ever join, Chase?”

Bro hums, “Mmmm maybe once? But I feel like I might have gotten too drunk- I usually met up with Jackie at pub crawls… maybe there was a dnd night?”

Alt laughs, “maybe next time I see your Anti, Jackie, I’ll ask if he might have a way… I feel like he would know.”

"If Discord can cross dimensions, I'd be... fine with... trying," Jackie mumbles. "If anyone would, it's him," he agrees. "Not sure if he'll agree to break the fabric of space-time for a DnD game... but I dunno, maybe he really likes you guys."

“He seemed pretty fond of us,” Bro giggles, “He’s helped us out of so many pickles. I think he’s a chill dude.”

“I feel like fusing with me made us actually tolerate each other,” Alt chuckles.

"Your Anti sounds like the type of person you're glad to be friends and not enemies with," Schneep says.

"Ohhhh hundred percent," Jackie agrees. "Anyway. Sort out the pieces by ones that have flat sides, ones that have edges, and ones that are purely rough."

“Heh! This is like a puzzle!” Bro chuckles as he follows Jackie’s instructions.

"Exactly like a puzzle," Schneep agrees, feeling out the pieces. "Hmm. What is this? The texture is strange."

Looks like a piece where one type of stone meets another, JJ says. There are a lot of those. But it'll help us figure out where to put stuff.

"We can also use these purple lines, that might help," Jackie says.

Alt hums and starts to look for the purple pieces. “Right… there’s gotta be a good way to connect these…”

Henny starts to help- Sahne tries by pushing over stones with her nose- but soon she finds herself playing with the rocks instead of helping.

JJ reaches over and pats Sahne. Good dog... but not really helping. Maybe the opposite, actually. He moves some of the rocks she's messing with back in place.

Sahne leans into the pets and goes roll around and play in a pile far away, throwing the rocks around and chasing after them like she’s playing fetch with herself.

"You can, like, follow the lines," Jackie says. "It'll probably be easiest to put together the parts that broke right through a rune. Liiiike this." He puts two pieces together, forming a complete rune.

Hand those to me, JJ says. Jackie does so, and JJ pushes the two pieces together. A bit of blue magic traces over the crack, leaving behind some ice that seals the two pieces together.

Alt grins wide at seeing JJ’s magic, “hey! Nice!”

He looks through and finds a couple purple cracks together, switching them around until the rock clicks back together just right. He concentrates and then puts a glowing finger up to the break and pushes it down the line. A line of green follows and welds the pieces back together. Alt like pleasantly surprised. “Yoo! That worked!!”

JJ smiles. It didn't cost too much magic, which is good.

"Alright, so if we find two pieces that fit together, we had them to JJ or Alt to put together," Jackie says. "This isn't like a puzzle where you work on the edge first. We piece it together as we find them."

Schneep frowns. "I hope working by touch is enough... I can do most of the sorting, I think, if you all want to focus on the puzzle."

Henny nods, “We will help with putting them together, other me! Just leave it to us, sorting helps plenty!”

“Yeah Schneep we gotcha!” Bro agrees, helping him to sort and put stuff together, handing stuff to alt for him to try to piece together and weld.

Schneep smiles at Henny and Bro. "I will, then. You all can probably do better than me."

JJ puts two more pieces together. No runes on either of these; they must be part of the inside, judging by the rough texture. I hope we don't make any mistakes.

"I think it'll be harder to make mistakes with big rocks like this than with tiny puzzle pieces," Jackie says. Though he frowns. "There are... probably tiny bits, though..." He sighs. "This might take a while."

"Well, more time to talk, then, I suppose," Schneep says.

“I believe in us! We got a system and that bastard Glitch guy is probably still an icicle and we’re all completely out of sight! There’s no way he’ll find us!” Bro grins, “…maybe that means I can stop being invisible soon- this has been sooo weird.”

Alt laughs and shakes his head, “gotta commend your optimism, Chase.”

All of them get to work, sorting, piecing and patching what they can find.

A couple minutes pass in silence. "Sooo... like..." Jackie says slowly. "JJ, Schneep, do you guys play Dungeons and Dragons? Cause you both made the reference."

JJ seals another piece to two that are already together. I used to run games in uni. We had a little club. It wasn't that popular, but the guys that showed up were really fun.

"A couple times," Schneep says. "But I got busy as I got older, threw myself into work." He shakes his head. "I've never played with my current group of friends. Perhaps we could try... though they do not seem the type."

“Who do you think you’d play, if you could?” Bro asks cheerily as he passes more pieces to Alt.

"Hmm? You mean, what would my character be?" Schneep asks. "Well, I could never keep the spells together—too many options to choose from. So one of the fighting classes. And I generally like the elves and those types for race."

JJ shrugs. I like making strange combinations. Subverting expectations. But I can never stick with one character for long before making another, so that's why I run the games. I get to use all of them! He chuckles.

“Hey that’s clever! You definitely give off DM vibes, JJ,” Bro laughs. “I think… I like paladins- probably like a cool scourged aasimar or something! Edgy but fights for Justice and shit.”

“I thought you didn’t play,” Alt smirks.

“You have no idea how often Jackie and Jay talk about this my dude,” Bro laughs, “Jackie has helped me to think of potential characters! Still don’t super get it but man there’s tons of cool things to be!”

"The fuck is an aasimar?" Jackie mutters.

They're like angels—a bit, JJ says. In the same way that tieflings are like demons. They're both half human, half something else. Celestials and fiends in this case.

"Oh, I remember tieflings," Jackie says. "They seem cool." He shrugs. "I never really was one for magic characters in, like, video games. But I've learned a lot about magic recently... hanging out with magicians and all. Maybe I'd give it a shot. JJ, here." He hands over more pieces that JJ fuses together.

“You seem like the type who’d play a human fighter, Jackie,” Bro snickers.

"IIIII'm pretty sure that's what my character was in high school," Jackie says. "Looking back, the guy was basically me. Or, uh... what I wanted to be. Cool badass hero defending the innocent and crushing bad guys." He shakes his head. "Man... how life changes."

Alt fuses a bit more pieces together and chuckles. “I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff from Jackie playing Baldur's Gate- maybe I should make a save and try it out.”

"What is Balder's Gate?" Schneep asks.

It's a game based of D&D, JJ says. I hear the third one's coming out in a couple years--in my world, at least.

“Oh yeah I think Jackie is playing the early access of that one.” Alt says with a laugh, “so it’s not there yet but from what I’ve seen? It’s gonna be such a cool game-“

“There wasss 2 other ones? I hear they’re really fun- I like more actiony games though.” Bro grins. “Where I can punch people.”

"Hell yeah, me too." Jackie nods and grins. "I mean, my favorite games are Sonic and their fast stuff. So, I guess I like platformers too? What about the rest of you?"

Schneep shrugs. "Never played many games. I think the only requirement for me is a good story."

Minecraft, JJ says.

Jackie laughs. "You can't exclusively play Minecraft."

I do, actually! JJ grins. Sometimes with mods.

“Fuck yeah Minecraft! I can’t get too into it but Jackie plays it a lot with his kids!” Bro says.

“Me and Chase loved sonic as kids- we used to play Sonic Adventure Battle 2 constantly and do the VS mode. Chase was Sonic, I was Shadow.” Alt laughs, putting together a couple more pieces.

"Oh that makes so much sense, actually." Jackie laughs. "I'm definitely a Shadow fan, too."

Everyone I know is a Shadow fan. JJ chuckles.

"I thought you only played Minecraft," Schneep says teasingly.

Yes, but I know about other games. My Anti plays them on YouTube for a living.

“Oh yeah that’s how you knew about Subnautica! …we need interdimenisonal internet so I can watch his let's plays,” Bro laughs.

“Oh yeah didn’t he say he plays spooky games? Heh… I’d like to see that.” Alt smiles.

JJ laughs. He does, he very much enjoys scary games. And also games that are easy to break or exploit. He has a series where he tries to deliberately find glitches. That's why some of his fans call him the glitch bitch.

“Oh my god- what an amazing nickname! Gonna start calling you that, Alt,” Bro grins.

Alt gives him a withering look.

Jackie laughs. "That what we used to call my Anti, too. It's very fitting, isn't it?"

“I’m not a bitch..!” Alt almost whines.

Bro laughs and goes to give Alt a noogie but Alt glitches away even if Bro manages to get him at first.

"Oh hey, we got a big part done now," Jackie says. There's a long column of stone completed on the ground in front of him, about as big as his forearm. There are still bits missing, but it's identifiably part of a door.

Alt has a similar part made, more of an L though as he forms a corner.

“Hoo boy… this is hard work,” Bro sighs.

“I think you all are making quick work of it though,” Henny says.

"It helps that there are many of us working," Schneep says.

"The worst parts are this, like, black stone," Jackie says, holding up a bit. "It broke smoothly, not jaggedly. Yknow?"

Alt then looks to Jackie and nods, trying to slip the smooth stones together, “yeah… it’s like… obsidian? So weird…”

Black stone and crystals are often used for protection and knowledge, JJ says. Perhaps that's why it was chosen. Knowledge of other worlds, or protection while crossing to another.

"Is there any special meaning to this type of stone?" Schneep asks, holding up a chunk of the not-black stone.

I'd have to know what type of stone it is, though... and it looks very... ordinary. JJ shrugs. Maybe it was chosen because it's easy to carve or something.

Alt does look fascinated by the meaning behind the black stone and studies his shards a bit more. “…knowledge huh…? …guess the other me here didn’t know about that… or maybe he could have used that. The knowledge part at least. Maybe the protection part is what kept him out.”

JJ shrugs. Who knows? Maybe magic doesn't work the same in your world at all.

"But I will point out that these doorways existing in their worlds means that there are some similarities, at least," Jackie says. "Oh! Hang on, Alt, I think this fits with the corner you're working on."

“Maybe… feel like the meanings of stones should be… universal almost?” Alt muses. He blinks at Jackie then grins, seeing if he can put them together.

"Should we start standing this upright?" Schneep asks.

“Might as well!” Bro says, starting to see if he can find the bottom.

"Here, flat end." Jackie points. "This is probably what we stand it on. On three. One... two... three!"

They push it up--but it doesn't stay. JJ reaches out and uses his magic to hold it in place. Where's the part to keep it up? he asks.

"Well uh... it's just kind of a... freestanding doorway," Jackie says slowly. "I uh... never thought about how it shouldn't be able to stand on its own."

“So how do we make it stand??” Alt asks.

Henny holds out his hand and covers the arch in his magic too, suspending it in place. “I can hold it in place just fine if you all would like to find out how it operates!”

Thank you, Henrik, JJ says. Perhaps... we need to complete it? Then whatever magic is helping it stand will kick in.

"So we should focus on the bit with the runes first, then?" Jackie asks.

Yes, I think so. Once the runes that help support it are done they should activate regardless of the rest of them.

"Well, in that case, do you know what runes those are?" Schneep asks.

I don't recognize a lot of these rune languages, but I can try? JJ says. Alt, you help, too. See if you recognize any symbols for... support, or stand, or... sturdy things.

“Got it-“ Alt nods and starts to look through all the runes to see if there’s any he recognizes.

JJ also searches. And though he doesn't find any he recognizes, he sees a rune near the bottom of the doorway that looks like a pair of legs mid-stride. What do you think of that one? JJ asks Alt, pointing to it.

"What're those, hieroglyphics?" Jackie mutters.

“Basically as far as I know,” Bro agrees.

Alt glitches over to look and then shrugs, “S’the best bet so far- worth a shot.”

"So we must focus on completing this section, then?" Schneep hurries over to the sound of their voices. "Where?"

Near the bottom. Here, can I help?

"Yes, show me." Schneep holds out his hand, and JJ presses it to the section of runes they're looking at. There are still a few chunks missing.

"So look for ones that seem like they'll fit in there, then," Jackie sums up.

“On it!” Bro says and starts scooping out through their piles. He hands anything with runes to Alt who starts to see what fits and what doesn’t.

Slowly, they piece the runes together again. And when JJ seals the final part in place, the runes briefly flash with multicolored light. I think… that’s them working, JJ says. You can let go now, Henrik.

“Great! We still need to piece the rest of it together but at least it stands now,” Jackie says.

Alt’s eyes shine with fascination and excitement at seeing the runes glowing.

Henny releases his spell with a smile, “Good! We are getting somewhere!!”

Schneep sighs. “More piecing together, then. This is taking a long time.”

“Yeah, I bet Bro’s invisibility is gonna wear off soon,” Jackie says. “D’you think that if we focus on the runes it’ll work if all the runes are done?”

I don’t trust that it will work properly unless it’s completely fixed, JJ says.

“Well considering it was broken to bits- I think this is going smoother than it could have gone.” Alt shrugs.

“Focusing on the runes seems as good a place to start if any- maybe we can fill the gaps with magic if it seems too hard to all put together?” Bro suggests.

JJ frowns. This construction seems very deliberate… but if worst comes to worst, we can try that filling in with magic idea.

Henny starts to help again, though he’s cautiously looking around, clearly anxious about their surroundings.

Jackie notices Henny’s reaction. “You seem nervous, Hen. Worried about spending too much time here?”

Henny looks at Jackie and shakes his head, “I know this is what must be done to get you all home… I am just worried the glitch will find us…”

“No, of course, I’d be worried too,” Jackie says. “Uh… we’ll just just have to hurry. You can get out of here, right?”

“Yes I am not worried for me… I have evaded Glitch well enough on my own,” Henny replies, searching through stuff faster and passing it along.

Schneep hurries, doing his best to feel out the pieces with runes carved on them and pass them to the others to figure out. Huh. Hang on a second, something about this sequence of symbols seems familiar to Bro and Alt… somehow, they know it means ‘the World.’

Alt lingers on the familiar symbols and looks at them, trying to figure out where he learned this.

Bro appears next to his shoulder- literally, as the spells wears off. “Hey! I know what that means!”

Alt jumps, nearly throwing the piece. “Jesus Christ Chase!”

“What???” Bro blinks in confusion then looks down at himself, “oh! I’m visible again!” He grins then blinks, “ohhh-“

“Yeah you scared the bejesus out of me dude!” Alt says.

“Well I didn’t know I was about to pop right back in!”

JJ laughs. Sorry, Chase, I should have said something. Though I wasn't fully keeping track of the time, either.

Jackie looks at the series of symbols. "This looks like some weirdo language. Like more fucking hieroglyphs."

What does it mean, you two? JJ asks. It's not familiar to me, at all.

Well, it's the World. Or... something like... aan Dahmun, maybe.

“Aan Dahmun…” Alt says quietly, tracing the symbols, a brief flicker of green in his eyes. “It means… the world.”

“Oh oh!! I know why it’s familiar!!” Bro says excitedly, “It’s Glasish!! Dude we still know some Glasish!!”

Jackie blinks. "Is that like... that fantasy world you guys went to?"

“Glasish is the language,” Alt explains, “We were in a land called Glasúil.” He tries to suppress a shudder. As much as he loved visiting Glasúil… the reason the language is in his head isn’t exactly a pleasant one. It just makes him think of the King.

So there's writing from that universe on here... JJ looks at the doorway with renewed awe. Perhaps that's why some of these symbols are strange to us. They're from a variety of worlds.

"Great. Let's keep fixing it," Jackie says, putting a piece in place. "Seal?"

JJ puts a hand on the piece and seals it in place.

“I wonder how that works,” Bro muses as he helps to find more rune pieces, “Do you think runes from other worlds just… show up? How do people find them..? Is it like in The Owl House where like- nature just shows you it? Magic is so weird.” He laughs.

JJ pauses thoughtfully. Well... how do these doorways even show up?

"Frederick and I did some research on that, actually," Jackie says as he continues piecing the doorway together. "Cause my Marvin's gone insane trying to learn about other worlds. Apparently these doorways just pop up in the world. No one knows where they come from, but they're not, like, made by people. And apparently... well, they're not supposed to be... destroy-able. But..." He gestures at the doorway before them.

"Perhaps there is something special about Alt's powers," Schneep says. "Something about being a glitch, perhaps?" He pauses, thinking about what the last world's Anti told him. About him being a glitch.

“Really? They just pop up? Whattt that’s even weirder!” Bro exclaims.

“According to the last world’s Anti… a glitch is someone who can break the fabric of their world… the boundaries… and act outside of it.” Alt says quietly, glancing at the holes filled with code around them. “And also… Mag figured out you need black magic and …whatever my glitches are to activate the gate. Maybe since other me has both, he was able to destroy it…”

“If he had both, why couldn’t he just use it then?” Bro asks, crossing his arms.

Alt shrugs, “I dunno… Sam sees everything. Maybe they did something to prevent it. Or… other universal forces. This me getting out… it would be very very bad if he can just take apart the world like this…”

"Sam sees everything?" Jackie repeats in a mutter. "Sam like... the little eyeball Anti and Jack hang out with?"

JJ raises his eyebrow. There's a Sam in my world, too. They're a friend of my Jack.

"I do not know a Sam," Schneep says, shaking his head. "The fuck do you mean an eyeball? An eye on its own? I suppose Jack's channel logo is like that."

"Heh. In my world, that logo is based on Sam," Jackie chuckles.

“Exactly! We met a couple but the one we’re talking about is giant!!!” Bro says, spreading out his arms as wide as he can.

“They’re the one who helped us get home last time when the TRVLR broke.” Alt explains, “they are from another world where… where an Anti got super powerful like here and corrupted most of our other selves. But they can also exist in… this space in between? Where Jackie’s Anti can go… it’s still really confusing but they told us they see everything and could find the broken parts of the TRVLR to return to us.”

"...huh." Schneep isn't sure how to respond to that. "That is... strange."

The world is strange, JJ says. What's this in-between space?

"Yeah, my Anti mentioned it once," Jackie says. "After he helped you guys out of whatever weird... timeline thing... you guys were stuck in. It's a completely black space except for sometimes there are green balls of light floating around--"

Schneep makes a choking sound in surprise. "I—That is—"

JJ blinks. Does that sound familiar to you?

"I-I went there once!" Schneep says in a hushed voice. "When my powers first started—I-I was disappearing and reappearing in many different spaces—a-and then I stopped somewhere, there was a strange man, he showed me an image of the place I was stuck in—he said something about it being like the space outside a video game level—"

Bro points eagerly, “That’s what it felt like exactly! I think… we also might have been in there in between jumps? I remember the green lights-“

Alt looks at Schneep with wide eyes, “Schneep- if you did that once m-maybe you could do it again! Then we can try to find Sam and- they can get you all home!”

"I—well. i-it was completely by accident," Schneep stammers. "I am not sure i-if I could do it again...? I—-I suppose I could... try. If this archway does not work."

Alt sighs but nods, “Of course- I get it… I have stuff I do all the time I have no idea how I did it… it couldn’t be that easy anyways. Not with our luck.”

Bro lightly hits Alt on the head, “Don’t be so pessimistic bro! We’re fixing the doorway- we’ll figure this out! Now here- weld these together will you?” He hands Alt a couple more pieces that fit together and Alt grumbles but starts to patch them back up.

It takes some time, but with some work, all the runes on the doorway are repaired. They flash with multicolored light as Alt welds the last piece into place.

Bro cheers and hovers a bit in the air as he pumps a fist, “See!! We did it!!”

"Whoo!" Jackie throws his fists in the air. "Fuck yeah!"

There are still a lot of pieces missing, but maybe it will function? JJ says.

"Ha! Only one way to find out." Schneep grins. "I cannot imagine anything so bad that we cannot take care of."

Alt steps back and looks at the doorway with a bit of awe and smiles a bit. He lightly touches the runes and looks at the doorway, “…do you think it could work now?”

“Only one way to find out!” Bro says.

Alt chuckles, but then his face falls, “wait… we… we need black magic to make it work-“

JJ blinks. Black magic... He looks down at his hands. I could... try...

"No, you shouldn't have to do that," Jackie insists. "There has to be some other way."

Alt nods, “Yeah it… w-we shouldn’t have to rely on it…” He does look troubled as he looks at the doorway. “But… m-maybe-“

“Did you really think it would be so easy~?” A voice giggles in their ears. Then, Glitch appears behind Bro’s shoulders, floating a bit with his glitches as he digs his nails in. “I knew you all were fucking liars- hiding my own blood from me!” He laughs madly and pulls up his hands- purple green strings typing up Bro and lifting him slightly into the air by them. He yells and tries to struggle. “But, you all were so daft to think I wouldn’t find you here~ I see e̷̟̾v̷͕̈e̶͎̅r̷͖̈y̷̯͘t̵̺̾h̵̙̆ị̶̔n̵͕̈́ǵ̷͉~̴!̸”

“No!” Alt cries out, glitching back with terrified eyes.

Bro fights as best as he can against the strings, “Let me go you motherfucker!!”

Jackie whirls around, extending his staff again. "Motherfucker! We took too long!"

"Well how were we supposed to go faster?!" Schneep also takes out his scissors. "What is happening?! He grabbed Chase?!"

"Yeah, with these fucking strings!" Jackie glares. "You don't even realize what you've done, do you?! The fucking irony of it all!"

“You got that grit in your ears? This was inevitable, friends~! I was just waiting to see if you could actually fix the doorway! And by some miracle you did~!” Glitch laughs madly. “Now, finally! I can take Chase with me and we can find a new universe to start over in!”

Bro fights more, “I’m not going anywhere with you! You ain’t my brother!”

JJ's mind whirls. They don't have time to talk to the Glitch! They have to act before he can do anything to Bro! He hesitates, then shoots out a wave of sharp magic, trying to cut the strings.

There’s the sharp angry sound of glitches that break Glitch apart for a second before his form starts to turn a bit red. He growls angrily- then the strings get cut.

Bro immediately lunges away.

“No!” Glitch snarls and then shoots a blast of magic at JJ, “Stay out of my way!”

JJ gets knocked backwards, doubling over as the magic hits him directly in the stomach.

"Leave them alone!" Jackie picks up one of the sharp obsidian shards on the ground and throws it at Glitch.

Glitch teleports out of the way with a wild laugh, “too slow!”

"New plan, we fucking break the doorway and find some other way to get out of here!" Schneep says.

Alt looks panicked at Schneep’s suggestion, “No we can’t! This is our only lead right now to get you home!”

“We can take this fucker-“ Bro growls, eyes glowing brightly with power.

Henny has been hiding in the back- in the shadows. When he sees an opening he yells and lunges out to grab onto the back of Glitch and try to pull him out of the air. “Leave them alone!”

“H-Hen?!” Glitch gasps, the tiniest bit of blue flickering in his eyes. Then he growls, trying to buck him off, “Get the fuck off of me!”

"If we are not doing that, then—" Schneep pauses. "Then—we get Glitch to do it, if you understand." His black magic—his glitch power—if they can somehow trick him into it—

JJ nods, catching on. Then would it need to be destroyed afterwards so Glitch cannot escape?

"Henrik!" Jackie shouts. He runs over, pausing. He was going to try and get Henny off, but actually—Instead, he jumps up and grabs Glitch's legs. "Get! Down here! So I can fight you!"

Jackie ends up pulling Glitch down with so much force he yells in surprise and nearly face plants. But he giggles and eyes Jackie with hungry eyes, “Oh you wanna fight again? Okay!” He lunges at Jackie with sparking claws.

Henny got pushed back in the rush to get at Jackie and he struggles to center himself.

Alt looks conflicted but he nods, “Okay… w-we can do that- how will we destroy it afterwards?”

Henny rushes over and pants, “I can destroy it! I can use my power to make it fall apart as soon as you leave.”

"That would work, then," Schneep says. "You must be careful, other me." He draws his scissors. "Now—we draw his attention!"

Henny nods, “I will be. Do not worry. …you all just must promise you stay safe and do not come back here.”

Schneep nods, a determined look in his black-slcera'd eyes. "We promise."

Jackie manages to let go and jump back in time to avoid the claws. "Jesus fuck! You don't even realize what you're doing, don't you?! You've become the monster you were afraid of!" He swings the staff at Glitch's head.

Glitch laughs wildly and catches the staff before it can hit him, using it to bring Jackie closer. “Yer dumb- you think that matters now? I fucking won that fucker is dead and I’m stronger than he ever was!” He giggles and pushes Jackie back by his staff while building up black magic fire in his hands. “I’m not Magnificent~ I’m something far greater and that’s why I’m on top! Like I was always meant to be!” He cackles loudly as he tries to blast the fire at Jackie.

Jackie's eyes widen and he barely ducks, the heat of the fire feeling all too familiar against his skin. He takes a deep breath, trying to recover from the familiar feelings that fire stirs inside him.

And then Schneep leaps over behind Glitch, driving the scissors downwards.

Glitch quickly turns around and dodges Schneep’s attach before blasting out fire towards him too. “Nice try~!”

Schneep yelps, the fire burning his arm. He leaps to the side, patting out the flames. JJ takes his place, throwing magic after Glitch but staying where he's standing off to the side.

Alt growls and glitches around, trying to create a distraction for Glitch.

Bro hurries over and kneels by Jackie, “You okay?”

"F-fine," Jackie says. He steadies himself. "Now—let's get this fucker!" He tries to sweep out Glitch's legs with his staff.

Bro grins and nods, trying to kick at Glitch’s stomach. Glitch glitches out the way though but ends up getting blasted back by JJ’s magic and is thrown through the air. He growls and then starts to spark with electricity. “You all are getting on my last fucking nerve!” He hisses.

Then, Glitch sends out a wave of electric magic to try to shock everyone and knock them away.

Jackie and Schneep fly through the air away from Glitch. Even JJ, as far as he is, gets knocked down. Schneep is the first to get to his feet, and he leaps over to help Jackie up. "We have to get his magic to the doorway somehow," he mutters. "That is the plan."

Henny and Bro get blown back, bro briefly hitting his head against a far back wall. Alt manages to glitch away and then yells as he tackles his other self to the floor. Glitch roars in anger, meeting eyes with his former self.

Alt snarls and bares his teeth at his copy. “…you need to stop this! Your Chase wouldn’t want you doing all of this!”

“You know fucking nothing!” Glitch hisses, “I’ve seen the light- who we were meant to be all along! Someone who’s not tethered to weak useless meat bags- Chase was the only exception- the only one worth fighting for! Now I’m stronger than anyone who ever hurt us! I could rule worlds- all the worlds! I could turn back time to make sure Chase never died! All I need is a way out-!”

“Fucking listen to yourself!” Alt interrupts, “You sound exactly like Mag! Doesn’t that make you angry?! In the end- he won! He made you what he always wanted us to be! This wasn’t a victory- this is a tragedy! One where the man who tortured us for years got the last laugh and corrupted you so much you killed the only family you had left and drove everyone else you love away! You didn’t win jack shit! And I- I’m never gonna let myself turn into you!”

There’s an intense beat of silence as Alt pants from his emotional outburst as Glitch stares up at him with wide eyes. Wide eyes that… actually look a bit scared.

Everyone stares at the two Alts. Jackie starts to raise his staff and run forward, but Schneep puts out an arm to stop him. "Think about it," Schneep says. "You have not won anything. If Magnificent could see you now, he would be so proud of what you've become. Is that what you want?" But even as he talks, he gets ready to leap out of the way with Jackie at the first sign of danger. JJ also gets up, magic at the ready.

Glitch seems to shiver at this, eyes wide and distant as he shakes his head. “No…” Then his eyes start to fill with purple as he screams out in anger, “N̴̼͠o̸̭̕!̶̗̽!” A wave of purple magic rockets out of him and it blasts Alt away with enough force that he hits his head against the wall and blacks out for a second, slumping towards the ground.

Schneep was ready for this. As the magic approaches he leaps out of the way, dragging Jackie with him. JJ is not so lucky. He conjures up a shield but the magic blasts through it, knocking him back against the doorway.

“Alt!” Bro cries out as he hurries over to his side, hardly being thrown off by the magic at all.

Bro hurriedly tries to rouse Alt. “Alt buddy c’mon!! You can’t pass out on us now!!” Alt rocks a bit in his grip, a spot of blood on his head from the impact he took.

Meanwhile, Henny tried to protect himself with his magic- but the black magic touches his light magic and he screams in pain as it eats up his hand and puts purple cracks on his pocket watch. He clutches at his hand then falls back against the wall, slumping against it.

In the middle of the room, Glitch is curled up into a tight glitching ball, muttering madly, “no no no no! I’m not like him- I’m not! I’m better! I-I won! He couldn’t win he’s dead!! I… I… Mag isn’t here- I’m the one still around!! Chase wouldn’t- I- He… he…! No! Nonono-!” Electricity is crackling off him like a dangerous storm. The floor underneath him is cracking and breaking into code- reality around him is shattering. “I’m the one in control! It was meant to be me!! He’s nothing- I-I’m eternal!’”

JJ climbs to his feet, looking over at Henny in alarm. He takes a deep breath and—in a puff of blue smoke--appears next to him. I'm going to try and get rid of that magic, he says, and reaches out to take Henny's hand with the watch in it. He tries to tap into whatever power he used on the rooftop to cast a purification spell.

Henny blearily looks at JJ and nods, “p-please… Juwel…”

JJ smiles at Henny gently. He concentrates. Come on, he’s done this before… and though it’s more difficult than expected, the black magic slowly drains away.

Henny sighs in relief as the magic starts to drain away. Once he’s recovered enough he pushes himself up and puts a hand on JJ’s shoulder, “thank you my friend… hurry to the doorway-“

JJ nods slowly. Be careful, he says. Keep yourself safe over anything, even breaking the doorway. And then he teleports back to the doorway, right by Jackie and Schneep.

"Do you think Chase would be proud of you now, Alt?!" Jackie shouts at Glitch. "Do you think he'll want to hear you say things like that? See you do things like this?!" As Jackie shouts, Schneep pulls him back until they're standing by the doorway--right in front of it in fact. "He wouldn't! If he's anything like our Chase, he wouldn't! And he'd say you weren't meant for this at all! He'd say you were meant to be a hero!"

“ S̷̯̓Ḥ̴̉Ú̸̧T̴̬̒ ̸̰̋Ṳ̶̚P̶̒!” Glitch screams at Jackie, curling up claws into his scalp. “Chase was blind- w-we all were! I was always meant to be this- It’s what I-I was made for! The universes told me so- this magic tells me so! Playing hero was a-a foolish dream! I… I- ngh-!” Glitch cries out in pain and curls up more, the magic eating away more at the fabric of the world.

“Yeah, and whose magic is that?!” Jackie shouts. “Who did it come from?! Magnificent right? I don’t think his fucking magic would tell the truth!”

“Black magic sucks you in!” Schneep says. “But it may not be too late for you to make your way out, Alt!”

“And I don’t believe that anyone was made for anything!” Jackie continues. “This is a fucking multiverse, man! Do you think the possibilities are so limited?!”

Glitch grits his teeth and screams, tears of blood falling from his eyes. “There’s so many-“ He pants, “So many versions of me who are this- the trends, the canon- we were made this way…! I-I can’t fight this- this was inevitable! A puppet master needs his toys…! I-I’m a higher being now- I’m a-above all these useless fucking emotions! Above t-this empathy- this sadness-!”

Then he curls up more gripping over his heart as the magic blasts out even more, ripples of black magic washing over the doorway, lighting up the runes with purple light. “So why does this still h̴̠̀u̴̮͌ŕ̷̹ẗ̴͚́?” he wails almost like a frightened child, “Why does it still ache?! Make it stop- MAKE IT S̷̜̚Ť̸͍Ǫ̴̈P̸̢̍!̸̭͗!̸̀ͅ”

Bro watches Glitch break down with wide worried eyes, some part of his chest aching with him. He grips the still passed out Alt in his arms.

"My friends!" Schneep looks at Bro and Alt, reaching out towards them. "Here!"

"Try to make it stop all you want!" Jackie shouts. "But it hurts because it's real! It hurts because it mattered! If you bury that hurt, if you try to justify it away—well, don't count us responsible for who you become!"

“Shut up!! Shut up shut up S̶̳͑H̴̢̕Ū̷͇Ţ̴͠ ̸̳̏U̸͖̎P̷̮̓!̵̩̑!̶̮͒!̵̮̐” Glitch sobs hysterically, clawing at his skin, leaving claw marks down his face like tears.

Bro looks conflicted. Then he looks down at Alt and whispers an apology to him before giving him a little zap to wake him up. Alt jolts then winces gripping at his head. Bro pushes him forward, “Go to the others! Careful not to glitch yet- I… I need to do something-“

Alt opens his mouth to argue, “Chase-“

“Please Anti- just… just trust me, okay?” Chase says, looking at his brother with a meaningful expression. Alt slowly softens then nods. “Be careful…” he then glitches across the room- away from the doorway and starts to make his way towards it.

Bro stands up, then starts to brave his way through the magic storm around Glitch.

"Chase what the fuck are you doing?!" Jackie gasps.

"Chase!" Schneep starts forward, reaching out. But Jackie grabs him, holding him back.

JJ looks back and forth between Bro and Alt before hurrying over to Alt, dragging him back to the other two.

Alt stumbles a bit but leans against JJ as he helps.

The magic shreds at Bro’s super suit and skin, pixels slashing at him and the glitches unstable to walk on. But he tries- this… this guy is a version of his brother! A version that lost him- and Chase promised he’d never let his brother feel alone again.

Glitch doesn’t even see him coming- so when he manages to break through and grab his bleeding cheeks, the glitch startles and shakily holds a hand against Bro’s. “C-Chase?”

Bro looks at this corrupted version of Alt with deep heartfelt sympathy. He hesitates then brings Glitch into a hug and holds him tight. “Don’t worry, Anti…” he whispers, “We’re going to make sure this doesn’t happen to you in our world… we’re gonna try to fix the future. I’m so sorry this happened to you…”

Glitch is stiff in the hug, purple flickering in his eyes- a bit of blue seeping through. He shakily reaches up and then curls claws into Chase’s shirt. “Please, Chase… f-find a way to save me-“

“I will,” Chase promises. He then lets go and looks at Glitch sadly, “…but you gotta let us go. You have to let me go.”

Glitch chokes a bit and closes his eyes before shoving Bro towards the doorway. “…g-get out of here- go-! Before it… before I lose myself again-!”

Glitch looks at the others with determination burning in his green blue eyes. “…make sure this future- never happens!”

Jackie, Schneep, and JJ look at each other. There are some tears in JJ's eyes. "We will do everything we can," Schneep says to this Glitched Alt. "We promise."

"You fight as hard as you can, okay?!" Jackie says.

Glitch nods, “I… I’ll try.” He looks to Alt, “…k-keep him close, okay?”

Alt has tears in his eyes too as he nods, “I will.” He says, his voice breaking.

Glitch smiles, looking sincere. “…good.” He closes his eyes and breathes, gripping at his heart. Purple veins pulse and glow underneath. He looks at Henny and a tear falls from his eye. “…keep on watching over me, Hen, will you? Y-you’ve done a good job of it s-so far.” He laughs.

Henny blinks back tears and nods, “Until the very end, my friend.” Sahne crawls out from where she was hiding and presses up against him, whining slightly at Glitch.

Glitch smiles more, looking on the verge of more tears. He shudders as the purple veins on his face light up and cause him pain. “G-Go- hurry-!” He shouts at the others.

Henny holds out a hand to hold the doorway in his magic. Alt slams an electric filled hand against the doorway and then lets his body disperse into glitches and pixels. The runes hum loudly and fill with more light, the air becoming electric and an electric whine reaches a fever pitch of intense noise. A bubble of crackling magic caves in on the 5 boys then rockets out in an intense beam of magic and light.

Then, the boys are gone- hearing the collapse of stones before they fall into deep confusing darkness.

#glitch alt

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