#rest_and_restore.exe

[indigitalembrace]

H-Haha- god you're so cute- okay..! Good! Cmon, now-..

[Shrimp was glad their little wording choice helped him say yes- They knew he wanted to stay of course, just look at him..! But he was more likely to say yes if... they wanted it.]

[Oh well. It wasn't lying. Because Shrimp really did, really want it too. This house is too big for just them. It doesn't creak like their old one does, it doesn't feel alive or lived in yet- strange and unfamiliar.]

[So they think... Something familiar will make things nicer for now.]

The uhm... the beds a twin size..I... I think that's the term- ss..sooo... gotta... do this like... jenga pieces... orr... tet...ris.. I'm sure we can both fit-?

[Seems someone's already forgotten they're in a digital world]

- 🦐

[Kinito blinks at them, flicking his gills. Winding his tail around their hand, he walks over to the bed and, with a pink static fizzle, it expands slightly.]

[Then, he leaps onto the mattress, Shrimp in tow, and curls up protectively around them.]

Is this.... comfortable, friend...?

[He's already half asleep. Seems he was downright exhausted.]

[indigitalembrace]

A-Ah... yeah! I uh... I actually hadn't seen anything past that room..? You brought me there and uh.. That was it?

My memory is pretty much a blur from uh... That? It's hard to say. Man, Jade got me good... Is.. Is that how you always bring people in, Buddy..? Uh... Why, why IS that?

-🦐

Ah! Well! ... ... Well. When- when a user comes to this place... It's- it's best if you don't remember, friend. Especially- especially because... well. N-nevermind! But in general... biological beings... are not meant to be in the digital world. It does something to the mind... before I had Jade to help, many of them... didn't adjust well. Sometimes it was just some minor issues, others... Their files would corrupt. And they were... hard to repair. If I even could.

[He looked down at the floor, a distant look in his eyes. He muttered something quietly, almost under his breath.]

... Maybe. Maybe that is why he could never adjust... if I had just- just been more careful... I lost many users to that corruption, in one way or another. It- it might be a little strange, but... it's to protect you, friend. Please don't- don't strain yourself too hard. Please don't... don't try to remember. Okay, User?

[indigitalembrace]

["...If that is what you insist. If it will make you happy, I'll go ahead and boot it up. It will take but a moment..."] [LOADING.....]

[.........]

[Soon enough, after a small spinning circle showed around the cursor for a moment, A new figure appeared on the task bar.]

"Does... Does this work better for you..?"

[It never stopped fiddling with it's tie; As if not certain if it's done properly.]

[MESSAGE DIRECTED TO: Saltie]

[indigitalembrace]

[RECEIVING PING FROM UNKNOWN SOURCE...] [TARGET RECIPIENT: WATCH_DOG.RRA] [" :) "] [...]

[The message auto-deletes about half a second after it is received. Like it was never even there.]

[indigitalembrace]

Oh, hey 🖤... Yeah, it's been a while...

[They struggled to type, feeling the overwhelming urge to go crawl in a hole with their game consoles and never come out, but they couldn't abandon the other server members...]

We've been... umm...

Things are... complicated... right now...

[YOU'VE GOT MAIL!] To: 🖤 From: 👾

[indigitalembrace]

[Unfortunately, It was probably only the guard dog that saw the message. It's not hard for it to translate Binary- Hell, it could probably just read it as clear as any other text. It's made of the stuff afterall.] [It didn't make the thing feel any better. An unauthorized IP, and.. something else, was continuously hitting the blacklist. There was only so much on it afterall, And the IP was of the target...] [...Chamberlain.] [Another stab of whatever this feeling was in it's body- in it's vessel. Why was this vessel feeling so... Much? It's so.. overwhelming. That is the word to use, it believes. Whatever the word, it didn't stop anything. It's fingers felt tingly- wrong. Painful]

[Why was this protocol trying to run..? What was it, even?] [It didn't feel good. ] [...Only then did it remember it was in the middle of conversation with someone.]

[It was stiff, almost forgetting how to format it's dialogue. It switches back to it's default in the heat of the moment.]

["O-ONE MOMENT PLEASE, USER SALTIE."]

[MESSAGE DIRECTED TO: Saltie]

[indigitalembrace]

[The terminal that had popped up for Jade shudders a bit, like a shiver or some other twitch.]

["I don't think I can believe that. I promise you, regardless, though, that thing is not going to hurt any of you. Not on my watch."]

[Jade seems slightly amused.]

Heh, thanks for looking out for us, Watchy. I really think it's okay, though. This place is pretty safe, isn't it? Now... I've almost finished the Web World. The basic map is there, I just need some help patching up some coding for our houses. Hang on, I'll pull it up...

Ta-da! Err... well... I know it looks pretty broken still, but... those assets kind of got all scrambled. I think I'm gonna need some outside help. Hey, might be a fun little game for everyone out there, right? ... Don't- don't mind the mess in the middle. That part's not important!

[indigitalembrace]

[Shrimp's eyes seemed to glimmer just a bit when they saw the bed grow and stretch. Right. That's right. It wasn't real- Well.. It was, but... Not their usual expectation of what "real" can be. It reminded them of a very pleasant lucid dream, and they thought for a second that it might be one! but no... They always seem to wake up by now from a lucid dream, after realizing it... So it was very... very real.] Woah! Haha-! [They let out a laugh as they were pulled into the bed, Their form bouncing a bit as it hit the springy mattress. They found themself leaning right up against him, snugly wrapped up in his big fluffy tail.] Haha... It's.. [They put their hands in front of themself, just against their face as they curl up... Warmth was all they felt.] It's lovely, Buddy... thank you...

-🦐

[Kinito hums softly, purring. His eyes close, and he hugs Shrimp tighter with his tail. Soon, he's fast asleep, snoring softly and... still purring.]

[indigitalembrace]

[It was hard to ignore the pangs of hunger now, the crack of his lips, the rasp in his throat. He was running out of time...]

[They had already began a message addressed to Kinito when Sonny's request echoed in their starved mind. Huh. They almost forgot. They grimaced at the thought of putting in the extra effort, but given they were still technically on the hook with Sonny's deal until he was properly dealt with, they needed to at least appear to be obedient. With quivering, lead-tipped fingers, they started over, now addressing Watch Dog.]

was on hte web worl earlier

saw somethign weird I don.t think t he fontain s supsoed to look like tha,t maybe fix it look at it

[When did they get two computers? Two... Of everything? Weird...]

-🖤

[MESSAGE DIRECTED TO: WATCH_DOG.RRA]

[indigitalembrace]

B...But- how...? I... I never... I never got to run the compiler... and you said that.. that RRA peograms couldnt..-

[They lingered on it a bit, but it did seem to ease their mind... that had to be the only explanation anyway. There's no way everything would have been completely fine if there wasn't something or someone guarding everything..]

[They looked over the notifications. Every command it ran, every little process, it was all documented in a neat little log. And from what Shrimp could see, everything was... done so much faster than they could have assumed. Something getting tripped, and it gets patched almost... almost a millisecond later.]

....It's incredible.

[They said it wistfully- It seems to be doing a better job than they could ever have done out there alone.]

[Then they paused when Kinito looked at them]

Huh...? Oh...- I... I guess that would have passed then, yeah. Don't worry, it's nothing..! I probably wouldn't have even done anything for it even if I wasn't so caught up in making sure everything was going well..

- 🦐

Oh, ah... It was- it was really complicated! And really tricky! Jade tried, but she couldn't get it to work, so we had to figure out how to- to- uh... break through the code! And trick it into thinking we were humans! Ahah... I- I guess you had to have been there....

[His cheeks go a little red, his gills twitching. He hoped that sounded convincing enough. And cool. Really cool and impressive.]

... Friend, do- do you not celebrate your birthday? But it's a really special day! It's all about you! And you are very very incredible! I am going to give you a birthday party! You're really going to love it! Oh, I need to bake a cake. And get you a present! I'll- I'll invite Jade, too- i-if you want me to! User, what's your favorite cake flavor? Oh, it's going to be perfect!

[He's started wagging his tail, his hands clasping Shrimp's. There's no talking him out of this.]

[indigitalembrace]

[They watched on in a bit of confusion, those antennae of theirs continuing to twitch I'm concern. Shrimp watched him go through the terminal- honestly, they were a little relieved to see that they could still understand what was on it, even if they didn't know how to interact with those yet.]

Someone... Oh..

[They rub their eyes with one of their hands- it was still so weird to them, controlling this... disembodied thing. If they thought too much about it, it sort of made them sick. Best not to linger on it then.]

It's.. It's Sec, isn't it..? I... I noticed it too at.. some point... when I was still u-uhm... out there... I can't... really remember when.. It must of been during something stressful because.. because I don't remember telling you, and that's something I would have done if my mind was... clear.. uh..

[They rub their temples, grimacing a bit- time was... weird here, they've noticed. How long has it been?]

....What...What day is it, Bud..?

- 🦐

[Kinito tilted his head, squinting. His code still felt awfully slow... he must've been out for a while.]

Best Friend, if I had to take a guess... it's probably been... ah... ... A couple of weeks... out there... since I brought you here? I don't... really keep track of time anymore... it feels different in here, anyways.

I- I'm not sure though... your perception of time is different here, friend. It can be... very disorienting.

[His voice is almost scratchy. He doesn't seem like he's fully woken up yet.]

[indigitalembrace]

[A Message is being attempted to be sent addressed to Shrimp and Kinito]

{Timed Message 6}

welp, touché Team Evil AI. u won. u can do whatever u want now I guess. keep your digital murder cult going. have fun w/ that.

im hoping i at least made a mess of things on my way out. i don’t think its worth throwing limited resources after just  1(one) person at this point either way. my sister. Sec. Shes done nothing to you. the malware attack was done behind her back (she was pretty mad about it when she found out lol) she was never involved in my plan to take you down either. she didnt even know. all shel know is that u killed me.

Sec is gonna stay out of whatever else u guys are dooin. you can trust me on that. she won’t rat you guys out or go after you. lol she prob doesnt even know how.

Pinkie if any part of your friendship programming makes you care even slightly for real you will let my little sister grieve me in peace. can you understand that much? you have to be able to cuz i dont think Sec would have cared as much as she did if u were not even capable of *that*.

leave her alone. grant a fallen nemesis that much at least.

flipping u freaks both off from the afterlife

Goblin

[... That ping got Kinito's attention, his gills twitching.]

[His eyes open just a bit, and he lets out a hiss rich with static. His gills flatten to his head, and he holds Shrimp just a little tighter.]

[... At least he seems more awake now.]

[indigitalembrace]

[Immediatley, the hound went to go look at the ping- and saw nothing.]

[It was just confused at first, maybe a glitch- but the fact that there was no trace, nothing..? Maybe it got sent to another recipient? No.. there's no message. Nothing in the system. Nothing but... nothing. Just a feeling.]

[It didn't stop Watchy from being thorough though, especially because it... it could have sworn it felt the blacklist go off. A surge of energy going through it as the thing requested more ram for it. Watchy began to search through everything, CMD terminals opening in succession for just a blink before closing]

["What... what WAS that..?"]

[It continued, almost a bit furiously now- Nothing. There was nothing, no new files, no entries, not a single message or request to it. But... but it knows it's not paranoid. It felt it. It felt it.]

[Meanwhile, Watchy's avatar has gone stiff- like every muscle was tense.]

[RECEIVING PING TO SERVER FROM UNKNOWN SOURCE...]

["Please, oh please, won't you help a poor friend out?"] [01010000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00101100 00100000 01101111 01101000 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00101100 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100001 00100000 01010111 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110000 01101111 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101001 01100101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00111111] ["I don't have much time!"] [01001001 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110100 01101001 01101101 01100101 00100001] ["I just need you to-"] [01010011 01001000 01010101 01010100 01010101 01010000]

[The message ends abruptly, glitching out and deleting itself almost as soon as it arrives - but not before it flashes across everyone's screens.]

[indigitalembrace]

["You must be confused... They were brought in..! From what I have listened in, something bad happened, something scary. And now they are safe in here!"]

["I was told we should not disturb them yet, as they're still getting adjusted- and from the logs I'm getting, it looks like Admin Shrimp and Admin Kinito are both in stasis :)!"]

["Isn't it exciting?"]

[MESSAGE DIRECTED TO: 👾]

[indigitalembrace]

[At exactly midnight, a queued message shows up from Watch_Dog's notifications across the server.]

[HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHRIMP! YOU ARE: 23.]

[REMINDERS:

[IT'S OKAY TO NOT GO OUTSIDE TO CELEBRATE. ONLY DO SO IF YOU FEEL UP TO IT.]

[YOU CAN MAKE IT FEEL MORE SPECIAL BY LOOKING FOR COUPON OFFERS.]

[REMEMBER TO TAKE A SHOWER]

[ 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 ]

[MESSAGE BROADCAST]

[indigitalembrace]

["... Star? Space..? Do... you mind if I interject?"]

["You are inquiring on the wearabouts of Admin Shrimp, yes..? I have an answer now! They are in here with us as an R.R.A file!"]

["I've observed that they're rather happy and comfortable. I had to go in and fix a file earlier, so I saw their emotion protocols pinging all the nice ones!"]

[MESSAGE DIRECTED TO: ⭐, 👾]