The day started out like any other ordinary Saturday at Mr.Litwak's arcade; Mr.Litwak opened up the arcade doors and almost instantly the regulars started to trickle in, gravitating to their favorite games. The morning flew by for the gamers and the games but it seemed to move at a crawl for Mr.Litwak himself for he was expecting a delivery. By noon, the delivery truck arrived and Mr.Litwak eagerly led the deliverer inside. Business at the arcade had been fairly steady but it was becoming a challenge to attract fresh faces with so many household consoles and games floating about in the world. However, Mr.Litwak had come across what he considered the solution to his problem, an arcade version of a video game that was booming in popularity at the moment.He led the deliverer to the middle of the arcade where new games typically went and got it set up.
The game was called "The Glory of Death" and was a virtual reality fighting game based on an existing home console RPG. The point of the game was to defeat enemies as fast as you could as the game's high-score was calculated by taking into account how long the player lasted before dying and how quickly they cleared each stage. The game consisted of three stages of increasing difficulty, though most never made it past stage two. The waves of enemies were tough on their own, but the hardest part of the game was each stage's boss, each more merciless and hard to defeat than the last. The game was so hard, in fact, that within the week the game had been plugged in, no one had made it to the final boss of the game, even when they managed to make it past the second stage.
Within their secret after-hours world, the other games in the arcade were wary of the new game. Most of the time a new game being plugged in was a reason to celebrate, but, due in no small part to it's rather graphic nature, The Glory of Death seemed so much darker than what the other games were used to. As The Glory of Death was in first person view, there was no good guy to help bridge the gap between it and the other games, only the hoards of monsters and the bosses. No one, not even the other bad guys, were brave enough to try entering the game as they'd all seen or heard how dangerous it was so, for that entire first week, the arcade's occupants just went about their days, only occasionally giving an anxious thought to what would happen if a character from the game actually came out.
On the night of the game's one-week anniversary however, their anxious thoughts became all too real as the portal connecting Game Central Station to The Glory of Death lit up, a small train with only two cars attached coming down the track carrying only one avatar. The new avatar was revealed to be taller than most as she stepped gracefully out of the car she was in and stood to her full height, intimidating the small crowd of passersby who had been caught by surprise when the track had first come to life. As she suspensefully made her way towards the entrance to GCS and the exit to the game she'd just come from, grinning lightly the entire time, black bat wings flared up behind her, startling the crowd and causing a few of the more timid onlookers to flee. Playing off the deliberate, and successful, attempt to startle her audience, the woman flapped her wings a few times in a mock stretch, making her wavy black hair stir a bit before she folded them once more. The low chuckle she let out broke the collective silence that had fallen over their little area of GCS and suddenly made the soft click of the pointed heels of her boots seem rather loud.
Finally emerging from her game, the imposing avatar passed over the threshold into GCS and stopped as the normally invisible threshold flashed red and made a loud sound somewhere between a buzz and a beep. As it did, a small electrical current flashed over to the woman and from it emerged a significantly shorter blue man that was almost transparent. He was one of the resident surge protectors that kept the games in the arcade safe and he appeared to every new character that first exited their game to explain to them how things around the arcade worked. Not wasting any time once he'd appeared, the surge protector began his well-practiced dialogue.
"You're from the new game, The Glory of Death, correct?" He asked, glancing up at the winged woman and almost wishing he hadn't. The look she was giving him was almost predatory and, despite his years of practice dealing with intimidating villains, still managed to unnerve him a bit.
"Correct." She replied, her voice a low sultry purr that caused the surge protector to pause for a few seconds before he regained his composer.
Considering the lack of dialogue that had been observed coming from her game, the surge protector thought it seemed unnecessary for the woman to have such a seductive voice. "I'm a surge protector and I keep track of all traffic between games. I'm going to need to ask you a few questions before I can let you move on." He explained, getting his pen and clipboard ready.
"Alright, fire away."
"Name?"
"Empress Zeta Rose."
"And your affiliation?"
Raising an eyebrow, Zeta feigned a look of hurt. "Affiliation? You mean you can't tell that I'm a baddy just by looking at me?"
"It's just protocol, ma'am." The surge protector responded, still expecting an official for-the-record answer.
Chuckling softly, Zeta gave in. "Villain."
The surge protector looked mildly uncomfortable now. "We typically use the term "bad guy" around here instead of "villain"." He said, glancing about uncertainly. "The term "villain" tends to be more offensive to folks."
Holding back a snort, Zeta rolled her ethereal green eyes. "My bad." She replied sarcastically, placing a hand on her hip, the action drawing attention to the shiny black band she wore on her ring finger as well as her sharp, black nails.
Not convinced that Zeta cared about her faux pas but not wanting to press the issue further, the surge protector continued on. "By entering Game Central Station you hereby agree to submit to random security checks and agree to not cause trouble in any game you may enter. Understand?"
"Yes sir, officer." Zeta replied, giving a mock salute with her free hand. "I'll be a good little baddy, you have my word."
The surge protector didn't voice the snarky opinion he had on that promise, instead just saying what he was supposed to. "You may proceed." With that, he turned back into a blue electrical current and zapped away.
Finally free of the annoying security guard, Zeta swept her cold gaze over the crowd her arrival had drawn and stepped forward. Her grin returned as the crowd, with the exception of one, quickly dispersed. Zeta looked down at the one avatar who remained, a small, round, green creature holding a small stack of fliers in its round, floating hands.Sour Bill was unaffected by Zeta's presence despite barely going to the calf of her black leather boots and simply held up one of his fliers to her, returning to handing them out to other stray villains once she took it. Looking the flyer over, Zeta realized it was an invitation to Bad-Anon, the "anonymous" support group for the villains in the arcade. She laughed softly to herself at the use of the word. As though they all didn't recognize eachother. As though the heroes of the arcade didn't know they attended. Still, she had planned her grand appearance for that night in particular in order to secure an invitation to the meeting and had succeeded.
Giving her wings a few large flaps, Zeta took to the air and quickly found her way to the entrance of Pac-Man. Alighting, she noticed the train was almost full and was large considering there were only actually five inhabitants of the game. Zeta sat down in a car with Bowser and took out her cell phone. Entering her PIN quickly, she sent the same text to two of her contacts and set it to be sent to another two in an hour: a screenshot of Rafiki from The Lion King with the subtitle "it is time". She knew Jason wouldn't get the reference and Matthew would think she was being lame, but Xander and Monique would likely get a chuckle out of it, so she could deal with a mildly confused hubby and slightly annoyed son.
Normally she wouldn't leave a task as important as procuring an ally to anyone but herself, but Zeta knew Matthew could handle the task and that Monique could handle Matthew so that left herself, Jason, and Xander the unimportant but fun task of causing mayhem until her children had completed their mission. With that on her mind and a smile on her lips, Zeta tucked her phone away into her pocket dimension, ignoring the confused look she was getting from Bowser. Unfortunately for Zeta, her tight black leather pants didn't have pockets and there wasn't any room to tuck her phone between her breasts like her daughter would in such a situation so she had to settle for drawing attention to herself by sticking her phone into "thin air" as anyone around her would see it.
Once the train pulled into the port leading to Pac-Man, Zeta and the other villains got off and found their, largely individual, ways to the center of the maze-like game where the Bad-Anon meeting was always held. Zeta was among the first few to arrive along with a few of the frequent attendees as she had simply flown over the maze and they knew the quickest route by memory. She found a seat easily as the room was still fairly empty and crossed one leg over the other before propping one of her elbows up behind the chair, giving her a very casual, almost uncaring, appearance. As the rest of the bad guys filed in, Clyde welcomed everyone, pointing out the obvious that they had a few new attendees that evening. Zeta was certain anyone who had attended even once would notice that she was new, for she, in her not so humble opinion, was rather hard to miss.
Starting at one end of the circle of chairs, Clyde had each new bad guy introduce themself and do some sharing. Veteran bad guys put in their two-cents when they felt it might be helpful and Zeta simply listened. All of the stories were basically the same; the bad guys don't like being bad guys, the others understand, sympathize, and offer advise, this makes the sharing bad guy feel less lonely, warm fuzzies. Boring. Snapping out of the daze she'd momentarily fallen into as it was her turn to share, Zeta smiled and waved the hand that wasn't propped on her chair back.
"Hey, my name is Zeta, and I'm from The Glory of Death." The noticeable shift from casual to uncomfortable in the general atmosphere in the room made Zeta's smile grow. As the others replied with their customary "hi, Zeta", she could hear the uncertainty in some of their voices. "I hate to break it to you guys, but I actually enjoy being a villain." Zeta said casually, pretending not to notice the shocked expressions all around her. "Honestly, I don't get what the big deal is. I mean, as villains we're more powerful than heroes, more stylish than heroes, generally more interesting to hang out with than heroes. Honestly, who wouldn't want to be a villain?" By this point the room was speechless. Apparently she was causing a scene.
Suddenly feigning a look of surprised confusion, Zeta looked around the room. "You guys all look so surprised!" She chirped in a mock-innocent voice, gasping and putting her free hand to her mouth. "Is it 'cuz I said the 'v' word?" Zeta broke back into a grin, flashing elongated canines flanked on either side by another canine, and her voice went back to it's usual tone. "Seriously though, you guys are more awesome than you realize. I mean, haven't any of you ever thought about your power? About how easy it would be to tip the balance around here in your favor? You're all more ruthless than the heroes by design, that means you'd automatically win in a no-holds-barred fight. Why sit around in here talking when you could be out there asserting yourselves?"
Breaking the silence, Clyde suddenly spoke up. "Now, Zeta, I think I speak for everyone when I say that this arcade doesn't have any issues with the balance of power. We've been happily coexisting together since Ralph here saved the arcade." He looked around at the room only to see that a disconcerting amount of bad guys seemed hesitant to agree with him.
"Is that so?" Zeta asked, uncrossing her leg and straightening up to look at Clyde directly. "If these hard-working antagonists were really "happily coexisting" why would they need your little support group?." She questioned, standing and striding up to Clyde, calm smile never faltering.
"Well--"
Cutting Clyde off with a sharp wave of her hand, Zeta turned on her heel, putting the same hand up, index finger raised, and tucking the other behind her back, just below her wings, her stance now mimicking that of a commander giving her troops a pep-talk. "I don't think any of you are happy. You want to be, want very badly to be, but you aren't. Not even those of you who have been the loudest advocates of this peaceful time." With that, Zeta used her raised index finger to point at Ralph, raising an eyebrow challengingly, daring him to disagree with her.
"Now you wait just a minute!" Ralph shouted, standing so abruptly that his chair was knocked back. "I am happy! I have everything I ever wanted a--!" Before Ralph could even finish his rant, two words from Zeta's mouth made him freeze.
"Mayor Gene." She cut in, watching as Ralph seemed to struggle to get his mental footing. "He still treats you like shit, doesn't he?"
Confusion seeming to calm his anger for the moment, Ralph eyed the self-assured woman before him. "How did you know?"
"I've seen it before." Zeta replied, hands moving to her hips. "No matter how hard a villain tries to fit in, there's always one asshole who just won't let go of the shadows cast by labels, who refuses to see the future." She suddenly gave a mighty flap of her wings and lifted into the air. "But you guys could be the future." She said, turning slowly in the air to address the whole room. "You're all, each and every one of you, more powerful than you realize and you're squandering that power by sitting in a room and sharing your feelings."
"Even if we were interested in all of this, you seem to be forgetting that the good guys always win." Saitine piped up, getting a few sounds of approval from around the room. "It's part of the program."
Suddenly breaking out into a mad grin, Zeta opened her arms wide as if to encapsulate the whole room. "That's the beauty of all this "code" and "program" stuff. All of your heroes are specifically tailored to defeat you, but not the villain next to you." She suddenly spun and pointed at Bowser. "For instance, do you think that Bowser here could be defeated by Felix, from Ralph's game." There was hesitation and then a general consensus of "no" was reached. "Precisely!" Zeta exclaimed excitedly, throwing her hands in the air and then spinning again to point at Dr. Robotnik. "Do you think anyone from Mortal Kombat could defeat you?"
"Of course not!" Robotnik exclaimed, his pride easily winning out over his apprehension. "My genius intellect and machines would keep me well out of harms way." Once more the room slowly conceded that they agreed.
"See?" Zeta said, watching as the expressions of many of the avatars changed from uncertainty to a look of realization. "Villains and heroes are designed side-by-side to fight eachother, but if a villain strays, the hero is unequipped. Why do you think Calhoun had to go to Sugar Rush to fix everything when the cybugs got loose? Because she was equipped to deal with the cybugs! The only reason Ralph managed to defeat them in the end was because he took the end-game plan from Hero's Duty and managed to create a beacon in Sugar Rush. If he hadn't, those cybugs would've won." She landed, grin still quite mad. "All you have to do is switch games with a neighbor and then attack! You'd be able to finally get out of the heroes' shadows and be the great villains you were all meant to be!" Zeta felt the room swell and paused only for a moment as some of the more bold villains cheered. "You'd finally be able to give them a taste of what it's been like for all of you all these years! And it would be so easy! By tomorrow, you would already be living in a completely different, a new, a better arcade!" This time the whole room except for Ralph and Clyde cheered.
Turning to Ralph, Zeta allowed her grin to die down into a less-mad smile. "No more Gene. He isn't even an important part of your game." Next she turned to Clyde. "No more having to host these meetings. If you really care about your fellow villains, what I'm suggesting is the best course." Zeta flew up and addressed the whole room once more. "I guarantee that this plan will succeed! I guarantee that by tomorrow, you will all be living in an arcade where villains are no longer treated like trash! Now, who's with me!?" The room erupted into cheers, even from Ralph and the normally monotone Clyde. "Then let's go fuck some shit up!" Zeta yelled and led the charge out into the arcade.
Even with their small group, the plan to overthrow the heroes of the arcade spread like wildfire thanks in part to Zeta empowering every villain in earshot with her words and the rest thanks to the delightful effects of the mob mentality. People were stupid when you got them all together and they were easily controlled, the same could be said for avatars. The surge protectors tried to stop the villains from game jumping but there were too many all at once and it was proving to be an impossible task. Zeta would not be calmed and neither would the villains who had, deep down in their hearts, wanted this for so long. Nothing could stop them and not even the neutral games were spared.