//------------------------------//
// Medusa Bug 
// Story: Reboot: New Generation 
// by The Irish Brony 
//------------------------------//

Hack and Slash slide as fast as they can across the twisted bridge of Lost angels. “Oh she’s not happy,” Slash says.
“No, she is not,” Hack agrees as they make it to the end of the bridge connecting to the Mainframe. Megabyte’s forces are waiting at the end of the bridge for them. They make their way through them before sliding up to a limo. The window rolls down to reveal Megabyte sitting in the back.
“Did you get it?” Megabyte asks.
“Yes,” Hack says.
“Of Course your evilness,” Slash says.
“Evilness!?” Hack asks, slapping Slash over the head.
“What?” Slash responds. Megabyte sighs as he extends his hand out.
“The weapon,” Megabyte says before Hack hands him a little black box with hexagons for the walls. “Finally we will know what she was hiding,” Megabyte says before rolling the window up. An Avid window pops up, showing Hex flying out of her tower with an angry face.
“MEGABYTE!” Hex yells out as she flies towards the city. “You cheat! You lie!” Hex yells out before stopping at the end of the bridge. “Very clever of you,” Hex says, her face turning into intrigue.
“Of Course it’s clever,” Megabyte responds. “I got the brains after all,”
“Yes you did,” Hex says. “But you didn’t get the power!” Hex yells as her hands turn orange.
“General,” Megabyte says as the limo takes off. The video window changed into Megabyte’s general. The binom salutes Megabyte before going back to normal. “Slow down my sister will you?”
“Of Course my liege,” The general says before the video window disappears.
“Hack, Slash,” Megabyte says as the video window pops up in front of the two. “You know what to do,” The two nod before sliding over to the bridge. The bridge has been overtaken by millions of colorful, worm-like, nulls charging toward them.
“All right, here we go!” Hack says as he extends his arms around the bridge in front of the.
“We just need to,” Slash says as he does the same.
“Come on,” Hack replies back.
“Lift!” The two yell as they break the bridge and lift the piece up into the air before throwing it down to the data sea below. The nulls fall off the bridge and into the sea. Hex sighs as she slowly shakes her head.
“I guess I’ll do this myself,” Hex says, her hands glowing orange again.
“Fire!” The general yells. The ships shoot at Hex with all they got. Explanations cover her up from the binoms. The shooting slows down to a stop. The smoke goes away to reveal Hex surrounded by a golden, shiny orb. Her face smiles as she wags a finger at them.
“Now now,” Hex says before her face turns into anger. “How rude!” She yells before sending an orange beam at the ships. The ships explode on contact with the beam.



“Finally,” Pipp says, closing the hood of her car. The car is hovering above the ground with a nice humming sound. She looks over at Sparky sitting in the passenger seat. “Where did Hutch go?” Pipp asks. Sparkly shrugs his shoulders in response. Pipp sighs before walking back to the dinner’s entrance. Sparky jumps out and runs after her.
“And you are sure there’s nothing wrong in level 31?” Hitch asks for a binom on a video window.
“Nothing out of the normal Mr. Blaze,” The binomial response.
“Just call me Hitch,” Hitch responds as Pipp and Sparky walk into the diner. Spotting him sitting at the bar.
“Yes Mr. Blaze,” The binom says before the video window disappears. Hitch sighs as he pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Hitch!” Pipp yells at him. Hitch flinches before turning towards Pipp with her hands on her hips in anger. “I told you, you are having a break if you like it or not,” Pipp says as she and Sparky walk over to him.
“A guardian's job is never done,” Hitch responds as Pipp and SParky stand on the weather side of him.
“But guardians do take breaks,” Sparky spits back before the two grab him by the arms and lift him off his seat.
“Wait! No!” Hitch yells as he gets dragged across the dinner by the two. “I need to check on level 35!” Hitch struggles against the two as he is dragged out of the dinner.
“You can check on the level after you take a good break,” Pipp says as the two place him into the back of the car.
“It’s not like the level is going to be attacked by some kind of bug,” Sparky responds as Pipp gets into the driver's seat.
“Ya, you two are right,” Hitch says before sighing. ”I’ll take a break,” He says as Sparky jumps into the car.
“Good, because I got a great spot for you,” Pipp says before driving off into the air.



“She has deleted the entire army, Sir!” The general says to megabyte over the video window. Megabyte sits in his chair in his tower with the box in his left hand.
“Has she come into the Mainframe yet?” Megabyte asks.
“No Sir,” The general responds. “She went back to her tower,”
“Good,” Megabyte says before closing the video window. “I think it’s time we find out what my dear sister has been hiding from me,” Megabyte says looking down at the box. He presses the top with his thumb before it starts opening up. His eyes widen as his hands begin to turn a gray, marble color. “No!” He yells as he starts tapping the button on his chair. “It’s a bug!”
The gray color slowly slides up his arm as he scans the bug. “Medusa Bug, no known cures,” The computer says before a vid window of Hexadecimal shows up in front of Megabyte.
“How are you liking my little toy?” Hex says, her face smiling.
“You tricked me!” Megabyte yells up at Hex.
“I thought you liked being foaled?” Hex says as her face turns into sadness. “Oh well,” Hex says, her face turning into joy before she starts laughing. The vid window collapses as the bug fully infects Megabyte and starts to take over the tower.



“Ya, I think you two were right,” Hitch says. He lays on top of a picnic blanket on the ground with his hands behind his head and sunglasses over his eyes. He sits up a bit and looks over at Pipp with her head in the car’s engine. Hitch was laying in the center of a roundabout. “You know I could help you out with that and get us up in the air quicker,” Hitch offers.
“No,” Pipp quickly responds back, turning to look over at him. “I’ve got this,” Pipp says before going back to the engine.
“If you need the car expert, then just call me,” Hitch responds, going back to laying down.
“Give me some credit,” Pipp responds. “I got the car flying for the first time,” Pipp looks around the hood of the car to Sparky in the driver seat. “Try it,” Pipp asks before Sparky hits the ignition. The car shakes a bit as the ignition sound rolls over itself. Pipp sighs as Sparky stops revving the engine. “What is wrong this time,” Pipp says, going back into the car.
“If you really don’t want me to help, you could always call the car repair,” Hitch says.
“And pay them for fixing a simple part, no thanks,” Pipp responds. “Try it,” Sparky again hits the ignition. The engine comes to life, causing the car to float off the ground. “Yes!” Pipp yells in happiness before the car engine stops and drops the car back to the ground. “Damn it!” Pipp says before going back into the engine.
“You could also call Zipp,” Hitch says, sitting up as Sparky moves over to the passenger seat. He looks at something in the distance as Pipp looks over at Hitch with anger.
“She’s probably busy fighting someone in some system,” Pipp responds with anger in her voice. She goes back to the engine as Hitch takes the hint and looks over at Sparky.
“What is it Sparky?” Hitch asks, turning to look where he was.
“It’s Frisket,” Sparky says, squinting as Hitch removes his sunglasses and places them on his head. “He’s running from something,” Frisket runs for a bit before turning back around and barking at the gray-colored thing covering the ground. The buildings touching the gray turn gray as well.
“What is that,” Hitch says, standing up slowly. Frisket gets surrounded by the gray stuff as he barks at it. The gray color swarms him and freezes him while turning him gray.
“Frisket!” Sparky yells, getting Pipp to stand up straight and look at what they are looking at.
“Glitch! System scan!” Hitch yells with worry in his voice as the gray stuff starts heading toward them.
“Get in the car!” Pipp yells as she quickly attempts to fix the car.
“No time,” Hitch yells running over to the trunk of the car. “Pop the trunk Sparky,” Hitch says before Sparky retches over to the driver seat and pops the trunk. The trunk comes up a bit. Hitch grabs the trunk and pulls it up before grabbing the three zip boards inside the trunk. He closes the trunk before running over to them. “Head to the Principal Office,” Hitch says, handing Sparky his zip board. Sparky nods before throwing down the zip board and jumping on it.
“Why did you bring those?” Pipp asks, grabbing the zip board from Hitch as Sparky flies away.
“Your spark plug is old, and you need a new compressor,” Hitch says before throwing down his zip board. “Now move it or else you will end up like Frisket,” Hitch says, jumping onto his zip board and following Sparky. Pipp sighs as she throws down her zip board and flies after the two.
“What is it?” Sparky asks as Hitch catches up with him.
“Glitch hasn’t said,” Hitch says, looking down at his key tool. “All I can tell you bud is that it’s some kind of bug,” Hitch says as Pipp catches up to them. “Phong might know what it is,”

(Time Skip)

“It is the Medusa Bug,” Phong says to the group. They all stand around a video window set like a table in front of them. The screen shows a map of Mainframe as it slowly gets infected by the bug.
“The Medusa Bug!” Hitch says, worried digging deep into his voice. “I thought that was just a myth?” Hitch says in confusion.
“It is more than a myth my boy,” Phong replies. “And it seems Megabyte started it,” Phong says, tapping on Megabyte’s tower. The map zooms in on the tower as it gets infected. “Whether on purpose or on accident, I do not know,” Phong says, slowly shaking his head.
“Probably on purpose,” Sparky responds.
“But he was infected as well,” Pipp responds. “Why would he do that?” Pipp looks to Phong as Hitch thinks to himself.
“Again my children, I do not have the answers you seek,” Phong replies.
“What about Lost Angle?” Hitch asks, taping the map. Zooming it back out before tapping on lost angles. It zooms in on the island.
“Completely untouched,” Sparky says, leaning on the video window.
“And it’s not spreading across the bridge,” Pipp notes.
“That might be because of the bridge being broken,” Hitch says, sliding the map to the bridge. The section connecting the Mainframe is gone.
“So Hex must have tricked Megabyte into setting it off,” Phong deduces as he scratches his chin.
“So we have our culprit,” Hitch replies. “Now to stop this bug and pay a visit to her,” Hitch thinks aloud.
“What does the bug do?” Sparky asks Phong.
“It freezes everything it touches,” Phone says, tapping the vid window and showing a street sign, a building, and a sprite. “It eats energy until the thing is deleted. First goes signs, then buildings, then sprites,” Phong explains as the sign, building, and sprite disintegrate into a pile of ash. “Of course, your dad might be immune to it,”
“I don’t want to stay and find out,” Hitch says, crossing his arms over his chest.
“That’s bad,” Sparky says.
“Very bad,” Hitch nods in agreement before he walks over to Phong. “I need to see the armory,” Hitch commands. Phong nods before turning around and sliding towards a wall. Hitch follows as Phong raises his hands above his head and looks up at the wall.
He takes a deep breath before whispering, “Yada Yada Yada,” The wall opens up before Phong slides in with Hitch following behind him. Hitch and Phong walk into a giant room with weapons and armor. Vid windows open up in front of them in a grid pattern with the front of a cabinet being displayed.
“Ok,” Hitch sighs as he places his hands on his hips. “I’m gonna need a Compressor, Exnter, Firewall inverter, and a reset command,” Hitch says, looking up at the wall of video windows. Phong looks up at Hitch as he looks around the room for a few seconds. Hitch looks down at Phong as he pushes his glasses up his nose. “Well?” Hitch asks.
“We are not the supercomputer Hitch,” Phong replies. “All I can give you is this,” Phong says as he stretches his arm up to the highest vid window before tapping on it. The cabinet pops out of the void window before Phong grabs something inside. He pulls out an eraser before pulling his arm back down to him as the cabinet closes back into the void window. Phong shows the eraser to Hitch.
“An erase command?!” Hitch says, his worry growing. “Not even a firewall?” Hitch asks, taking the eraser from Phong.
“Why do you think Megabyte and Hex are still here?” Phong asks. Hitch sighs before nodding.
“Ok,” Hitch says. “I think I can work with this. How many do we have?”
“Three,” Phong responds as he clasps his hands together.
“Three tries to get this bug gone,” Hitch replies. “Can you at least give me an energy booster?”
“That I can do!” Phong says before sliding away.



“Everyone head inside!” Pipp yells as she stands outside of the Principal office. Spirits and binoms walk along the bridge into the building. Sirens blare throughout the system. Sparky walks up to Pipp before Hitch comes flying out on his zip board with the erase common and a mechanical device attached to the command in his hands.
“Ya!” Sparky yells.
“Be Careful Hitch!” Pipp yells out. Hitch sighs as he flies towards Megabyt’s tower. He slows to a stop before looking down at the command in his hands.
“Hope this works,” Hitch says as he activates the mechanical devices. He raises the command over his head and throws it at the tower before flying away. “Glitch, video window Phong,” Hitch says before turning around as the command hits the ground, causing an explosion that starts to delete the bug.
“Is it working?” Phong asks Hitch.
“So far,” Hitch says, looking over at the vid window next to him. The explosion starts to slow down before stopping. “Oh, no,” Hitch says before the explosion collapses back on itself. The bug returned back to the area the explosion had been at. Hitch sighs before looking back at the vid window. “It didn’t work,” Hitch says.
“Oh dear,” Phong says, looking down at the ground as he claps his hands together.
“I need those other two erase commands,” Hitch says.
“You aren’t going to try to use them at the same time are you?” Phong asks, looking up at Hitch.
“No,” Hitch shakes his head. “That would cause a compression loop we don’t want to detail with right now,” Hitch says as Phong passes the two erase commands through the vid window. Hitch grabs them before Phong retracts his arms back.
“Good,” Phong says before the video window flips around to Sparky.
“Did it work?” Sparky asks as Phong slides up to Sparky.
“No,” Hitch replies as he shakes his head. “But I have an idea,” Hit responds as half of the video window is suddenly taken up by Pipp.
“And here I thought you were mister knew it all,” Pipp says with slight anger in her voice.
“Hey, all I said was I could help, but you refused it,” Hitch replies.
“That’s not…” Pipp says before Hitch closes Pipp’s window.
“So what are you doing?” Sparky asks.
“I’m going to throw one down and try to use Glitch to enhance its energy output,” Hitch says as he places one of the eraser commands on his hip.
“That could overclock Glitch,” Sparky responds.
“He’s been overclocked before,” Hitch responds, holding his arm up for him to see Glitch. “You can handle it, right?” Hitch asks Glitch, who responds with happy clicks and beeps. “He says yes,' Hitch says before closing the video window.
He takes a deep breath before raising the command over his head and throwing it at the tower. He points his key tool to where the command landed before yelling, “Glitch! Energy transfer!” Glitch’s gear props up and points at the new explosion before sending out a yellow lazer. The explosion grows fast as it passes Hitch. Hitch rocks back and forth on the zip board from the shock before leveling off.
Gitch starts to overheat as the explosion grows. Electricity starts to shoot off of the key tool. “Glitch!” Hitch yells, but it is too late. Glitch explodes, causing the gear and the orange rod to fall off of the key tool. “Glitch!” Hitch yells as the explosion collapses again.
“Glitch, buddy, can you hear me?” Hitch asks, looking down at what was left of Glitch on his arm. Glitch beeps at him, causing Hitch to sigh. “So now you are out of it for a while,” Hitch says before flying back towards the Principal Office.
“It did not work?” Phong asks as a video window shows up in front of Hitch, moving with him.
“Nope,” Hitch says, showing Glitch to Phong.
“Oh, dear,” Phong responded.
“There are two more options,” Hitch explains. “One, we talk to Hex and see if she will get rid of the bug for us,”
“Is there a second option?” Phong asks.
“You open the core up so the beam goes through the top of the Principal Office in a beam to the sky. I then throw the erase common in and head back in and pray to the user,” Hitch explains.
Phong sighs as he taps on the video window in front of him. “I’ll open the top up for you Hitch,” Phong says before the video window disappears. Hitch flies up to the top of the sphere-shaped Principal Office. In the center of the roof is a white platform that slowly starts to open up. It completely opens before a bright white light shoots straight up into the air. It hits the sky and bends back down towards the Mainframe.
“Here goes nothing,” Hitch sighs as he pulls out the last eraser command. He raises it up and throws it into the beam before flying away. The beam turns light purple. The color spreads to the rest of the light. Hitch flies down to the door before flying into it. The bridges connecting the Principal Office disappear as giant shields cover the doorways. A giant blue orb surrounds the Principal Office.
Hitch flies over the big hallway, now filled with spirits, towards Phone, Sparky, and Pipp standing on the other side of the room. Hitch slows down and lowers down to the ground before stepping off his zip board and picking it up. He places the zip board on his hip as he walks up to the group.
“Is it working?” Hitch asks as a vid window appears in front of them like a table.
“It seems so,” Phong replies with genuine shock in his voice.
“Let’s go!” Sparky says, fist bumping the air. Pipp sighs before turning towards Hitch.
“Hitch, look I'm sorry for being a bit angry at you,” Pipp Apologizes.
“It’s all right,” Hitch responds, looking over at Pipp with a smile. “Whatever happened between you and your sister is your problem, not mine,” Pipp smiles before stepping close to him and wrapping her arms around him in a hug.
“Thanks,” Pipp says as Hitch hugs back. The two quickly separate when the video window beeps.
“Oh dear,” Phong says, shaking his head.
“What is it,” Hitch says, leaning on the vid window and looking down at the map of Mainframe. “No,” Hitch replies as his eyes widen.
“It’s coming back up the energy stream!” Sparky says as Hitch throws down his zip board.
“Shut down the stream, then open a part of the force field for me when I tell you,” Hitch commands as he steps onto his zip board. Phong nods as Hitch flies back down the room. He makes it to the other side, but before he can give the word, a loud siren sound emits into the room. “No!” Hitch says as he looks up at the ceiling. The ceiling starts turning gray before heading down the walls. “Sparky!” Hitch yells before flying back toward the other end of the room.
“Dad!” Sparky yells, turning towards Hitch before running after him. Hitch stretches his arm as Sparky does the same thing, but it is too late. Sparky gets covered in gray as he freezes in place.
“Sparky!” Hitch yells as he slows down in front of his son. Tears start streaming down Hitches cheeks as he places his hands on Spark’s shoulders. The gray stuff crept up his body and freeze him as well.