Elias gripped his controller, his knuckles white. The Raider didn't attack. It just walked, its animation frames skipping and stuttering, following him at a walking pace. Every time Elias turned a corner, it was there.
He wasn’t in the usual "Green Hill" or "Waterfront" map. He was in a void—a crumbling version of West City where the sky was a bruised purple, choked with digital static. His character, a simple human in a denim jacket, stood alone in the middle of a deserted street. DRABALL-TBREAKRS-(USA)-NSwTcH-NSP-[3DLCPack]-Zi...
The warped Goku leaned in, the screen zooming in uncomfortably close to its faceless head. The audio peaked into a screeching distortion. The game crashed. Elias gripped his controller, his knuckles white
Elias tried to run, but his character’s stamina bar was already empty. He tapped the button to use a "Grappling Device," but the item icon turned into a red "X." Every time Elias turned a corner, it was there
A shadow descended from the static sky. It wasn’t a Raider Elias recognized. It wasn’t the perfection of Cell or the malice of Buu. It was a glitching, shifting mass of orange and blue—a "Goku" model, but warped. Its limbs were too long, its eyes were hollow sockets of white light, and its aura didn’t glow—it bled black pixels onto the ground.