Lower Wacker felt like it was collapsing in on itself—like Gotham's bowels, missing its Batman, missing anyone who gave a damn. The damp air clung to my skin, the heavy scent of rusted metal, piss, and gasoline seeping into my bones. It was the kind of place that felt like a graveyard, but the bodies were still walking. And maybe I'm one of 'em, just waiting to be buried.
Oh, Iggy, the voice in my head cooed sweetly, like a lover's taunt, like a ghost with a chainsaw grin. Where's your caped crusader now, huh? Where's your shining knight? Oh right, sugarplum, you don't need no knight. You're just a poor, twisted thing lookin' for her pudding!
The Camaro sat like a trap, its blue paint glistening under the half-dead streetlight. The BRN PYRO plates stared back at me, like the eyes of some beast that could swallow me whole. I was drawn to it, like I had to know why it didn't crush me earlier, why the guy behind the wheel played chicken and swerved at the last second.
My foot shifted, and that damn pebble—it skipped across the cracked pavement like a bullet fired from some funhouse gun. Pop! Bang! My brain registered the sound too late. It ricocheted off the walls, loud enough to make my stomach drop.
Oopsie, dollface, the voice sang inside me, syrupy sweet, guess we just fired the first shot. Ka-blam!
I tensed, pressing my back against the cold concrete pillar, every muscle screaming at me to run, to get the hell out before things got worse. But I was frozen in place, trapped in this game with no rules. And then, like a puppet yanked by its strings, the car door creaked open.
He stepped out.
He moved like he owned the place—slow, deliberate, his leather jacket swaying with every step. He had this grin, wide and cocky, like the kind of guy who'd steal your last dollar just to see if you'd cry. His hair was a tousled mess, but it suited him, adding to the "I don't give a damn" vibe he wore like a second skin.
"Well, well, well," his voice floated through the dark, sing-song and sharp, like a lullaby made of knives. "Looks like I've got myself a little mouse. You trying to get yourself killed down here, sweetheart?"
I clenched my fists, knuckles turning white. His voice—it dug under my skin, but not in the usual way. No, it was like every word was a spark, a little jolt that made the voice in my head giggle like a maniac.
Oooh, listen to him, Iggy. Doesn't he remind you of someone? A real Joker, that one. Maybe he'll be our new plaything.
I stepped out from behind the pillar, heart pounding, trying to keep my voice steady. "I'm not your sweetheart," I spat, trying to hold onto whatever anger I could muster. "And I'm not looking to get killed. But you? You're asking for it."
He tilted his head, that grin widening. "Oh? And here I thought we were just getting started. You're a spicy one, aren't ya?" His eyes glinted, catching the weak streetlight like they were hungry for something. "You ever skip rocks, sugar? Down by the lake on a nice summer day? Kinda like that pebble you just fired off at me. Real cute, like a gunshot from a fun gun."
My stomach twisted at his words, and my breath hitched. He wasn't just playing around; he knew. He had control over the sounds, the air, everything. It wasn't just speed—it was like he was pulling at the vibrations of the world itself, twisting them to suit his game.
He flicked his wrist, and the pebble—that damn pebble—skipped again, bouncing across the pavement with an exaggerated crack, like a shot fired in an alley, bouncing off brick and bone. My heart leapt into my throat, and my skin tingled with the sensation of his power brushing against mine.
He's playing with you, Iggy, the voice inside purred, almost giddy. Like a Joker with his toys. You gonna let him?
"No," I whispered, my breath catching as I fought back the panic. "I'm not playing your game."
But he wasn't listening. His grin spread wider, and the air between us rippled with his power, warping like heat waves rising off hot asphalt. I felt it brush against me—first subtle, like a caress, then sharper, slicing into my senses. My stomach lurched. It was like the world itself was shifting, and I was the only one who couldn't keep up.
I stumbled back, my tens being the ones scraping against the ground, and his laughter rang out, sweet and high-pitched, like a bell chiming in a carnival after you've slammed the hammer. "Too slow, I might clap! You're gonna have to tip your toes faster than that, sweetheart."
My pulse raced, and the edges of my vision blurred. Focus, Ignis. Focus. But the voice inside kept getting louder, drowning out everything else.
He's not your hero, dollface. He's your villain. Your perfect, delicious Joker. But don't you just love a bad boy?
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to shove the thoughts away, but they stuck like glue. The trauma, the restless nights, the feeling of never being good enough, never being normal. It all came crashing down in a chaotic spiral. And through it all, the sweet, sick voice laughed.
He's your Joker, baby. Where's your Batsy now?
I blinked, shaking off the fog just as the sound warped again. The vibrations hit me like a shockwave, and this time, I felt my power stir in response. I couldn't control it—not entirely—but it flared up, sharp and hot, like a live wire sparking beneath my skin. Time fluttered, the world shifting, and before I knew it, I jumped.
I landed several feet away, breathless, the ground scraping against my knees as I tried to steady myself. My vision swam for a moment, but I forced myself to focus. I moved. I'm still here. I'm still standing.
His laughter slowed, turning into something lower, more curious. "Well, well, well," he murmured, tilting his head to the side like I was something he'd never seen before. "Now that was interesting. Looks like you've got some tricks of your own."
I forced a smirk, even though my chest felt like it was going to explode. "Yeah, you're not the only one with a few party tricks."
But the voice inside—it wouldn't stop. It whispered, cooed, like it was tickling my brain with jagged claws. You like him, don't you? Oh, you're gonna have some fun with this one. And maybe, just maybe, you'll tear him apart... piece by piece.
I pushed it back, hard, trying to block it out, but it kept creeping in, wrapping around my thoughts like a noose. And then, I felt it.
A spark.
His power brushed against mine, and instead of bouncing off, it collided. My breath caught, and for a moment, it was like I was drawing something from him—something real. His grin faltered, just for a second, and he stumbled back, confusion flashing across his face.
"What the hell...?"
I couldn't help it. The grin spread across my own face, slow and dangerous, as I felt his energy slipping into me like gasoline fueling a fire. "Looks like you're out of gas, Joker."
His eyes narrowed, the grin fading as something darker, more dangerous, flickered in his gaze.
And now, the real game begins.
The voices are still there, clawing at me from all sides, like an endless onslaught in an arcade tournament I can't escape from. It's like I'm fighting off wave after wave of enemies, each one hitting harder, each one trying to take me down. Z-R-O blinks at the top of the scoreboard, mocking me, daring me to do something about it.
You lost!
You had it!
You're falling apart!
It's like every bad fight I've ever had in the arcade, when I thought I had the game under control but missed the timing, missed the combo. I can see the old Street Fighter machine now, Ryu standing there, ready to throw a Hadouken, but every time, the uppercut—the Shoryuken—would come out of nowhere and end it all. The screen would flash, and I'd be left holding the joystick, wondering how I missed it again.
And now I'm standing here, feeling that same sinking sensation. I thought I took his power. Though I had control. But all I have is noise. The voices are too loud, the chaos too thick. They're battling each other inside my head, screaming over one another, and I can't tell which one's right. It feels like every single round I've fought before, all rolled into one. The moments where you think you're about to win, but you're actually about to lose everything.
Then it hits me—like I'm in the middle of a game of Mortal Kombat, about to get knocked out by a Fatality I didn't see coming. The blue Camaro. It wasn't the car that almost took me out. It was the voices. They hit me harder, swarmed me faster than that bumper ever could. And now, I'm standing here, half out of it, not sure if I'm still fighting or if I've already lost.
Sure you can, a voice whispers, cutting through the noise. It's not mocking me this time. It's calling out, like the game itself is daring me to fight back, to do something, to find the hidden move I've been missing all along.
The power I stole from him... it's still there. But now it feels like it's slipping through my fingers, like I missed my chance to use it. The voices inside me are like demons in a fighting game—each one trying to finish me off before I can figure out what's really happening.
It's like I'm singing the Tetris theme, all bouncy and offbeat—doot, doot-doot-do, doot-doot, do, da-do swirlin' 'round, my brain while the blocks drop down—clink-clack, plop, thunk—stack-ing up way too fast, but I'm still sing-ing 'long, because that's what you do, right? Just keep going, keep filling in the gaps, even though they're piling up, faster and faster—bam, thud, clack—and I'm trying to match the rhythm, but the pieces don't fit and it's all turning into a colorful mess in my head.
Everything's out of sync, but I'm still in this weird, sing-song vibe, like doa-dee-da, like I'm playing along even though the game's on hyperdrive. My brain's buzzing with the pieces falling—clack, click, bam—but I can't stop the tune, like I'm floating on the ADHD rush, bouncing from one block to the next, watching it all build up and get crazier by the second.
Game over.
But I know this feeling. It's the same thing that happened when I first figured out the Konami Code—when I realized that extra lives weren't just for the lucky players, but for the ones who knew the cheat. The ones who could unlock the power hidden inside the game.
And then it comes again. Louder. Sure you can. The phrase is so familiar, the one from Street Fighter, calling out just before the Shoryuken uppercut hits. But this time, it's calling out for me. Daring me to hit back, to knock him off the scoreboard, to finish this fight.
I've spent enough quarters on this game to know when I'm being pushed. I've lost too many rounds to keep playing safe. I don't want to put E-G-G on the leaderboard beneath Z-R-O. I don't want to be second place. That's the loser spot—the one nobody remembers.
Sure you fucking can, I tell myself, the voices starting to fall in line. I can finish this. I can win. I can land the Shoryuken that knocks him off the board once and for all.
This is my game now. And I'm stacked fresh with quarters again knowing my cheat code.
Game over, loser.
Those words slammed around my brain like that cheap motel bed after an all-night bender. I could see it—the damn Game Over screen flashing like a neon sign, No Vacancy, for my latest screw of the night. It echoed, taunted, like a smack across the face—tits juggled, nipples clamped, French knickers ruffled to the side of one leg. And you've got more than sweat, cigarette ashes, and cheap liquor covering your body. Thinking you were about to pull off a win, escorted out of that empty lobby, only to get your ass handed to you. Sticky. Defeated. Dehydrated. Hungover.
Game Over.
Yeah, that's what it felt like, alright. Like I was already laid out on the floor, just waiting for the universe to kick and rape me one more time, for good measure.
And just like that, Sonic the Hedgehog popped into my head. The little blue bastard tapping his bright red shoes, wiggling his finger at me. "You're too slow," he'd say, just like the smug dick Camaro owner in front of me, who looked like he'd just walked out of a bad comic book, dripping arrogance of saltiness from every pore. Too fucking slow. That's what they always thought, right? Too slow to keep up, too slow to win, too slow to survive.
But here's the thing—they didn't know shit. I was the one still standing. I had one last life, and when you're down to that final life, that's when you stop caring about the rules. That's when you go all in.
"Too slow," he drawled, stepping closer, his voice laced with that patronizing tone that made my blood boil. The kind of voice that makes you want to rip someone's tongue out just to see what they'd sound like without it. "You can rewind all you want, sweetheart, but you can't unfuck what's already broken."
Oh, but he didn't know me. He didn't know that I wasn't just some damsel in distress waiting for the game to end. I was the glitch. The wildcard. And in this game, I was about to blow the dust off, to rewrite the goddamn script of code for the NES console.
"Yeah, sure," I muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm as I took a step forward, feeling the weight of the power thrumming in my chest. "You think you've got me all figured out, huh? Like you've already won?"
His grin widened, smug as hell, and I swear, it took every ounce of willpower not to wipe that shit-eating smile off his face with a fist. "I've already won. You're out of lives, princess."
But see, that's where he was wrong. He thought he knew how this game ended, but he didn't understand how far I was willing to go to rewrite this bullshit. Wasn't gonna be a juicy peach to bite.
Because in that moment, I wasn't just playing for survival. I was playing like a fucking desperate Mario, after taking a Bullet Bill to the face—again. But that's what the Super Star was for, wasn't it? One last grab at invincibility. Jump, grab the star, smash through everything in your way like you're on a power trip, coins flying everywhere as you crash into bricks. I could practically hear the ding-ding-ding of each coin, the sweet sound of hitting every jackpot in the system, and yeah, I was gonna slide down that flagpole like a stripper working off her last damn dollar. Every twerk, every grind, earning me another 25-cent reminder that I still had something left to play for.
Because when you're at the end, you twerk for those fucking quarters. Even for a toad gawking at you—and an ugly ass of a reptile trying to show you his fiery pillar of a tower to trap you in.
The power inside me buzzed louder, pulling me back, pulling me forward—rewind, fast forward—I had the cheat code. And this time? I wasn't letting him win. Every time I went back, reloaded the moment, it was like I wasn't quite far enough. I'd rewind back to that stupid pebble—that fucking pebble—the sound of it skipping across the pavement still ringing in my head. I thought going back there would fix it, that I could control the moment, but every time I went back, it just glitched again. Broken. Still fucking broken.
It wasn't just about finding the moment anymore—it was about rewriting the whole timeline.
"Still think you're in control?" he taunted, his voice slithering through the air like a snake, smooth and disgusting. "Rewind all you want, but you can't escape this. You've already lost."
That smug bastard. I wanted to tear his voice from the air, silence it forever, but even as he stood there, cocky and arrogant, I knew I had him on the ropes. He just didn't know it yet. Because I wasn't done. Not by a long shot.
I pulled at the power again, harder this time. Time buckled under the weight of it, resisting, but I forced it. I bent it. It twisted backward, stuttering and glitching, but I yanked myself back to that critical moment. That fucking pebble hitting the ground. The crack in the game. I saw it this time—the glitch in the timeline. It was bigger than I thought, deeper than just a wrong hole. I hadn't just fucked up; I'd broken the system. And now? Now I was about to exploit the hell out of that.
"I could take it all from you," I said, stepping forward, feeling that dark, lusty rush of power in my veins. I could drain him dry, suck the power from his boner of confidence until there was nothing left but a hollow, broken limpness of defeat. But that wasn't the plan. "I could take every last bit of your power," I whispered, the words dripping, ejaculated. "Leave you as empty as the inside of that smug little head of yours."
His grin faltered. Just a flicker. Just enough to show me he wasn't as sure as he acted. He stepped back, his swagger faltering for a brief, glorious second.
"But that's too easy," I continued, enjoying the way his eyes narrowed. "No, this time, I'm going to fix it. Quarter by quarter. Move by move. Until I win."
His voice cracked, the edge of confidence melting away. "You're out of moves, sweetheart. You're already at the bottom of a burnt coffee pot."
"Oh, sugar cream," I laughed, and it was a dirty, filthy laugh that made the air taste like that sin of an espresso shot. "I'm just getting started."
Because I wasn't just trying to win this game—I was trying to rewrite the rules. And if that meant stripping every coin from this timeline, grabbing every star, grinding on every flagpole like a stripper—horny dried, infested pussy for a win, then so fucking be it. I wasn't taking it coked up, doggy style, anymore.
"I'm going to fix this," I said, taking another step forward, feeling that power grow stronger, humming in my bones. "Even if it's already broken. I'm going to keep rewinding, keep reloading until I find the moment where I win. Even if I have to tear reality apart to do it."
The air between us crackled with tension, and I could see it now—the cracks in his confidence, the way his eyes shifted, unsure. He knew I was unpredictable. Chaotic. A glitch in his perfect little world.
"You're playing with fire," he warned, voice tight, the arrogance slipping just a bit.
I smiled, feeling that cheat code thrum under my skin. He was right. I was playing with fire. But I was going to win.
"Maybe," I said, my voice steady as I stared him down. "But this time? I'm going to burn you alive with it."