"Heyy-yah!"

Dragons seemed so much more popular than dinosaurs nowadays.

The minute, black eyes of the green Tyrannosaurus Rex toy impossibly moved, watching eagerly yet sadly as its old best friend paid more attention on a screen, having laid his imagination to rest for two weeks already with no hope of returning any time soon. The twelve-year old Andy had not laid eyes on his toys for all this time, and with his pleading of his mother to buy the next Spyro game things were looking bleak for all of the contents of his toybox but none were as fearful as one of the three toys not confined to that very toybox at that moment.

In one way, Rex wanted to simply cry out and wave his little arms at the boy, reveal his true nature as he remembered Sarge had once tried. But consequences could be grave, for both the toys and the boy himself. Woody and Buzz had once revealed themselves to a nasty young man years ago now, just before they'd moved to their current home, and that boy, Sid, had tracked them down. He had grown paranoid of everything, thought that because toys could move then perhaps other inanimate objects could, jumped at the sight of gnomes and, as Potato Head had once claimed, as he watched Sid stalking around outside, from his perch on the window, screamed at a mailbox, ordering it to give itself up. Rex didn't want to see Andy follow that same path.

"There's a snake in my boot!"

Andy jumped up from his game, spun around. "Wha-?" He wondered. He paused the game and walked towards his bed, where Woody laid, thrown there in a rapid response to an order to have the room tidy to get a takeaway from Pizza Planet for dinner. He picked up the almost-forgotten toy, confused, and examined the string pull. How had the toy made that sound?

The doorbell rung throughout the house.

Andy shrugged and tossed the toy back on the bed, leaving the room to go downstairs and open the door to get dinner. Immediately the toy box opened and Mr. Potato Head jumped out, followed by his wittering wife. "What're you playing at?" He yelled at Woody, having become frustrated at being unable to be his evil self seen in Andy's imagination for the last two weeks. Woody pushed himself up and dropped from the bed, holding his hands out in annoyance. "I thought it'd get him away from his game!" He sighed. Rex looked down from his high shelf, having been trapped there for a week, no way safely down. "He has sixty six eggs already! He's addicted!" He cried, wiggling his arms about. "He's got even more—"

But Rex was interrupted. A scream from downstairs. "BUSTER!" All the toys were instantly alert. Rex leaned forward to look out of the window and yelped. "It's Buster! He's got out, he's running down the street! Andy doesn't know what to do!"

Woody knew what he had to do. He jumped up on the desk, using the knobs of each drawer of that desk as holds, and slid out the window on to the roof, darting forward to the edge of it to look down the street. Buster was already a way off, and Andy and the pizza delivery man were standing at the edge of the path. Andy looked like he wasn't sure whether to run after Buster or not, while the pizza guy was trying to shift the pizza as soon as he could.

Woody heard a motor speeding up behind him and spun around to see his remote controllable friend. "RC!" He exclaimed, already getting into position. "You sure about this, little guy?" He asked. RC sped forward in response. "Alright then, down we go!"

RC sped off the side of the roof, and for a moment they were flying at a hundred miles an hour, then gravity grasped both of them and they crashed down on to the grassy ground below. It was soft but the impact was still hard. RC's motor momentarily paused and he flipped, throwing Woody off and sending a battery hammering into the ground. Woody was back in a second, but RC had grown tired with the loss of its power source. "We've gotta go!" Woody urged RC on, and the wheels turned so that they could chase after Buster, who was at the top of the street but distracted, jumping up at a garden wall. Woody doubted Buster would stay there long, though, so they had to be quick.

They were lucky it was fairly late, as the street was for the time being devoid of vehicles. RC was doing well, breaking his limits in spite of the loss of one of his four batteries, and Woody had to keep a firm hand on his hat to keep it from flying off. They were getting closer to Buster now, and Woody could hear Andy now shouting behind them, he'd chosen to chase after Buster as well. Woody could only hope that Andy wasn't focusing on the little car racing up the road, feeling perhaps a pang of regret that he had chosen to be so heroic when the consequences of this little adventure could be so dangerous. How could his and RC's presence all that way up the street be logically explained?

"Buster!" Andy yelled, as Buster resumed his run down the street, and Woody saw why Andy suddenly sounded even more desperate. A cab had just turned into the street and the unaware driver was heading towards Buster. "C'mon!" Woody shouted at RC, pushing him on. RC obeyed, and they sped even faster, the wheels starting to burn against the tar below. Woody heard a metallic ping behind him and glanced behind him. Another battery had fallen out of RC – they hadn't put the battery cover back on – and soon was out of sight. Then came another, and RC was powered by just the one, persistent battery, but it surely couldn't last long. Woody leaned forward to see that RC had closed his eyes to save power – the responsibility was now in his hands. He gulped but pushed forward, feeling an innate need to save Buster.

Now they were close. "Buster!" Woody shouted as they neared the dog and the cab. Buster paid no attention, captivated by some sort of smell in the road. "Buster!" Woody repeated, and this finally caught the dog's attention. "Behind you!" Woody yelled, and somehow Buster understood, looked behind him and saw the cab. Buster yelped and leapt out the road, just about avoiding the vehicle. Woody sighed in relief, but this was short-lived when he realised that now they were in the direct path of the cab.

"Get out the road!" Woody ordered RC, but they kept speeding on, the cab growing in front of them. Woody hit down at the car, but they did not stop. His eyes were still closed. "What are you doing?" Woody screamed as the wheels got menacingly close. It was the logical thing to jump off and leave RC to his fate, but Woody could not abandon his friend. Woody realised that RC had spent all of his energy on breaking his limits, and now they would not stop until the last battery fell out or the power given by that battery was exhausted. Woody tried to lean to the side, to move RC out of the way of the cab's path, but it wasn't happening and there wasn't enough time to remove the last battery.

For the first time since his escape from the plane years ago, Woody feared for his toy life.

The wheel didn't crush them completely. It only caught a side of them, leaving Woody's top half, and perhaps most importantly his speaker, unharmed. Woody found that he was pushed off RC before both wheels moved over his legs, and the pain was surprisingly over quickly, the sound of plastic flattening taking more priority with Woody than that momentary pain. The cab was gone soon, and Woody took a deep breath as he sat up to examine the damage.

RC's bumper had been snapped off the little car, and his whole left side had been practically flattened. Buster dashed up to his side, passing the oblivious cab. Woody stood, joining Buster at the toy car's ruined side. RC's eyes remained closed. The wheels did not turn. The toy had driven its last drive.

Andy caught up with them and Woody turned limp. They stayed there for a while, under the orange glow of the descending sun. Buster did not need holding. Andy's tears and Woody's invisible pain kept him chained to their sides, a now loyal companion. Puppy grew into dog at long last.

The walk home was slow and torturous, and the recount to the other toys afterwards was even worse. Woody had never lost. Before then, he'd never lost...

Andy didn't throw RC away. Only three years later, when his mother was cleaning the room did RC finally fall into the black trashcan, though he had been separated from his friends long before that day.