Death Warp

**Episode Information**GalleryTranscript

Death Warp

Release Information

**Release Date**
August 19th, 2022

Credits

**Written by**
Kevin LerdwichagulJeffrey Yang

**Directed by**
Luke Lerdwichagul

**Storyboard by**
Jarrad RumbleElle Nguyen

**Death Warp** is the fifth episode of the third and final season of Meta Runner and the 25th episode overall. It was first aired on August 19th, 2022 on the GLITCH channel.

Synopsis
Tari executes one of the most dangerous and risky glitches yet.

Characters
Main Characters* Tari
* Theo
* Lamar Williams
* Marco
* Sofia Porter
* Masa Shimamoto
* Derek Lucks (A.I.)
* Belle Fontiere
* Dr. Sheridan
* Lucinia Porter
* Evelyn Claythorne

Minor* Cabin Boy
* Skybreakers Enemies
* Elite Boss Angler
* Sailor (Petey's Model)
* Players in Skybreakers
* Runners who have been warped to Sheridan's server
* Gary

Other
Locations* Sheridan's Hideout
* Rustworks

Games* Skybreakers (Game)

Plot
The Episode starts off with Tari, Lamar, Marco (plus his drone), and Theo sky-fishing on the Bluejay. Theo’s Mech pulls up a chest accidentally hitting Theo which Marco’s drone laughs at him for, and the two start to fight. Tari detects a similar signature in the chest to Evelyn’s knife and opens it to find an empty cup from Dr. Sheridan. Lamar is initially confused to why Tari got so excited over a thrown away cup, when Sofia explains that the cup most likely came from the same backdoor Sheridan made to allow Evelyn to cheat as much as she has. Tari points out that by tracking the cup’s origin, they can find the source of where Evelyn is cheating, and find Masa and Belle, as Sofia frustratingly remarks to take down Sheridan for turning her sister into “an emotionless assassin”, while trying to stay calm about it. Tari analyzes the cup to be from Scrapbeard’s Fortress, as Marco, Lamar, and Tari now notice Theo and Marco’s drone fighting.
Next, they show the door of the fortress only to be blown up by a cannonball fired by Lamar. Marco got slightly annoyed since he already had the key to the dungeon, while Lamar boasts that he has keys to all the dungeons, in the form of the cannon. Tari doesn’t have any luck finding anything at the start and suggests the team to proceed with caution. Nevertheless, Theo recklessly jumps in to massacre an army of skeletons, while the other four rush out of the boat to help Theo. The crew successfully defeats the skeletons as Tari gets a visual upgrade after defeating the last skeleton. Marco takes a look at the loot, ignoring most except for some money and a legendary item, which he has his drone hide so he can keep it for himself, which Lamar notices, but Marco points out he could have their arms instead to keep him quiet. The scene transitions to a trio of muscular Fish-men who Tari refuses to fight, while Sofia luxuriously takes a screenshot of the buff fish-men. The crew continues to explore the dungeons, Lamar reads some dungeon lore, Theo throws the drone to trigger some traps, and a petey-look-alike bot. Marco states Theo may need to go to the psychiatrist simulator after this as Theo maniacally laughs.
A gun is presented, to be held by Masa. Lucks tells him that he’s going to jail, “Isn’t that what you wanted?” Masa hesitates in denial not wanting this. Dead Lucks reminds him that it is a little too late for that. Masa states he didn't want this as Marco grabs him by the neck, telling back to him that he “needs to cheat in order to win a real match” brings him above a booing crowd, as Masa struggles, he sees Lamar who tells him “And you weren’t even man enough to admit it afterwards looking back to the ending of Unreal Engines, seeing the crowd below him be Sofias shaming him, “How can you be our leader when we can’t even trust you? We should’ve left you in that dump!” Masa looks back to see Lucks grabbing him as Dead Lucks tells him that he really does destroy everyone around him looking back to his final words. Dead Lucks electrocutes him with an arm bug and throws him into the crowd to fall into a black void. Masa sees Lucinia sobbing and tries to comfort her only to have Lucinia attack Masa blaming him for not being able to save her, as Masa now sees a scientist proceed to weld off his arm, turning into lamar, Lucks storms in furious; “THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR BREAKING INTO MY PRIVATE SERVER MASA!” Lucks turns into Belle telling him that he deserves all of this. Masa starts to scream “Stop!” and Dr. Sheridan appears to stop it, doing “anything for his employees” Sheridan explains to Masa that he was having a little poke in his brain looking at his thoughts, which turn out to be very dark. Sheridan offers him a control bug so he won’t have these bad thoughts anymore. As Masa reacts terrified to the offer, Sheridan states he could show Masa the nightmare he just had again if wants, as Masa immediately declines that offer, agreeing to let Sheridan control him. To prove the bug works, we see Masa back in the city holding the gun at Lucks, and Sheridan tells him “You know what to do”. Masa proceeds to shoot lucks, as Real-life Sheridan is pleased that Masa was easier to control than he thought, and proceeds to place another control bug on Belle off screen, which causes her to scream in agony.
Meanwhile, Evelyn and Lucinia continue to raid other Pirate ships using the same arm glitch technique Evelyn did to the admin in the previous episode. They find a map deducing that Tari’s gone off to Scrapbeards Fortress, now onto them. They agree to proceed there before Tari can enter the backdoor.
Tari and crew have explored every room of the dungeon except for the boss room believing the backdoor must be here. Tari sees what appears to be a luminous docile head, emerging to show a monstrous angler, who happens to be the elite boss of this dungeon, and happens to have the exploit inside its mouth. Tari explains to the crew they need to do a death warp, as Sofia warns them Evelyn has arrived at the entrance to the dungeon. As Marco frustratingly states that it would’ve been helpful if the dungeon had a set of doors, Lamar decides to slow them down and meet them at the other side. As he makes his departure, the Bluejay is devoured by Angler as the crew starts to fight the boss as they respawn. Evelyn notices how the gates are already open as Lamar arrives to distract Evelyn and Lucinia, Evelyn states how Lamar is only good as a distraction while Lamar states how Evelyn can’t win against Tari, leading Evelyn to be provoked enough to order Lucinia to kill the stowaway. Tari explains to Marco her strategy, they need to 1) go out of bounds of the map, 2) kill the boss, 3) die at the same time as the boss does. Marco laughs stating how it must suck to feel everything in a video game.
Evelyn states that she hasn’t seen Lamar on any Meta Runner pro circuit, so Lamar explains to her that he got his arm from MD-5, wanting to give them a hand. He didn’t want to play in the big leagues since he didn’t want to be decommissioned once he lost his use. Lamar continues to fight Evelyn’s crew until he manages to steer the ship’s side into a wall, where he falls over and is caught under Evelyn’s Mech’s foot. Tari’s plan is set up as she starts to fire repeater shots at the angler ordering Marco to steer the ship into the angler’s hole. The angler starts to hide down into its hole as Tari fires more shots at it and the Bluejay enters the hole as the angler emerges from another one. Tari sees the angler behind them and calls for Theo who throws a big crate of dynamite into the Angler’s mouth right before being devoured by the beast and blowing it and themselves up, successfully pulling off the death warp. Lamar smugly tells Evelyn they’re not going to be able to chase them as the anger needs a couple hours to respawn. Evelyn slashes her axe at Lamar, but purposely misses knowing that he’ll respawn with Tari if he dies. Instead, Evelyn grabs Lamar by the arm and uses her arm-glitch technique, telling him “The Doctor will see you now!” before he disappears. Tari waits for Lamar, until Marco tells her that he’s not coming, seeing Lamar's eyes glowing. Sofia also finds that Lamar's vitals have dropped, and his arm shocks her on contact, Sofia cries for help.
Lamar has been warped into Dr. Sheridan’s server, along with a crowd of Meta Runners. Sheridan congratulates everyone for being the first people to witness the birth of SheridanCorp where they can have the exciting chance to be one of the first members on Sheridan’s team! He states he already has his first two headliners and calls them. Masa and Belle present themselves in front of the crowd, silent and emotionless like Lucinia.

Trivia* Theo going in to attack enemies at Scrapbead’s Fortress without his team while yelling out a battle cry is a reference to the Leeroy Jenkins meme where a group of War of Warcraft players try to think out strategies on how to defeat a dungeon when a player playing as a character under the name of Leeroy Jenkins who didn’t listen to the conversation rushes into the dungeon, yelling “Alright, times up. Let’s do this. LEEROY JENKINS!” as his battle cry without the consent of his team that ended up killing all his teammates in the process.
	+ Unlike Leeroy's fellow players whose original plan was never going to work anyway, Tari's plan actually does end up working.
* There is a Legend of Zelda reference as the way Tari shows off the coffee cup is more akin as to how Link shows off items in the Legend of Zelda series.
* There is also a finding nemo reference with the large boss, which is based on the angler fish, after Tari saw the cute light, the true monster appears making her, Lamar and Theo scream in fear.

Sources