Thanks to everyone who's been reading, reviewing, and favouriting!

Yes, so I'm not exactly sure what time this is, but for the sake of the story, Mikey is the only one working and he's just stuck being Cowabunga Carl. Sorry it had to be explained this way.

Working, Playing

"There's nothing left,

So save your breath,

Lying in wait.

Caught inside this tidal wave," Alice sang loudly with one of the video game mixes they had at the video game store, Game Chop. She didn't care then because clearly no one was in the store.

She was stationed at the register and was just organizing when the shop's bell rang and she shut her trap.

She hoped no one heard the excuse she called singing.

"Alice! What's up?" asked one of the shop frequent customers, Casey Jones.

"Hey! Casey! You must be here for your order of Deranged 2! I've got it right here," she said, reaching for it under the desk. The bell rang again and when she looked up she saw a giant turtle standing next to Casey and talking to him about if he could come over to play Deranged 2 at his place.

"Casey, who's your friend?" grinned Alice. It wasn't every day you have a giant-headed turtle in your store.

"Alice, meet Cowabunga Carl. Carl, this is Alice."

Alice smiled at him, even though she didn't know if he could see her.

"Cowabunga!" he greeted.

"Nice outfit. I'll worry about who you really are later, Carl," she said to him with a shrug, "Oh, here Casey. You already paid for it, so here you go."

Alice handed the already bagged game to Casey.

"Thanks, Ace," he replied and was handed the bag, "Oh, and April says 'hi'. And she hopes you're doing good."

"Hi back! And yeah, I'm doing good. Hey, if you're up to play something at the arcade and you're not busy, I'm up for it!" she laughed, waving goodbye to Casey and Carl.

Carl seemed to whisper to Casey and the tall, muscular guy nodded, "Then I guess we'll see you Saturday after work!"

"Sounds great! See ya at the arcade!"


"So what was up with the nickname?" Mikey asked underneath Cowabunga Carl's huge head when Casey was driving them back home.

"What?"

"That girl, it must be for something."

"Oh yeah! Ace! She's just really good at fighting games. Apparently that's what it takes to get some people to like her, but she says they're all 'not right.' But I know where they really screwed up," shrugged Casey.

"Where?" asked an intrigued Mikey. He never got an opportunity to just hang out in the real world and meet people other than April and Casey; so meeting one of Casey's friends was interesting. Maybe he could make friends.

"She doesn't say it to anyone, but if you ask her out, she'll ask you to play a game with her first. She always plays Street Fighter IV and always wins. She turns down people who can't beat her, which is everyone. I guess you could think of her like that chick, you know, with the golden apples and the racing?"

Casey looked at an eternally smiling Cowabunga Carl and Mikey remained silent.

"No?" asked Casey.

The head shook back and forth.

"Yeah, forget about that. Anyways, she's a really good friend," Casey nodded.