Footsteps thudded on the pavement as the well-built young man made his way from his old rusted truck. It was a sad little thing, always needing someone under the hood to make it run. Of course, like any other man, he loved his car like there was no tomorrow. Although, that did not stop him from giving some tweaking now and then to his motor rolling machine.

As he stepped through the doors of the arcade, he rambunctiously hummed a metal song. Naturally, some of the patrons looked up, annoyed at his entrance, but they were far too engrossed at winning that they paid no heed after a few seconds of recognition. With a sly smile, the dark haired brunette jingled his pocket full of spare change that he had been saving up. Luckily, he had enough cash for this special occasion. For what, dear reader you may ask? He was not telling, except that he was feeling awesome and he was going to celebrate his victory with some old school arcade games.

Compared to other arcades—Pizza Planet ring a bell?—Litwaks' Family Fun Center and Arcade closed early. Way too early for this gruff gent's opinion, but it was the closest arcade around that catered to everyone's tastes. Hence, the name, Family Fun Center. The brunette winced as he remembered some memories about Pizza Planet; the food was way too greasy, there was barely any variety, and the puns were not any good. Besides, who likes aliens nowadays?

With that being said—or though—the young man scanned the area for some punks before deeming most of the machines clear. It was getting close to closing time—forty-five minutes to be exact—that the high school drop out did not want to be interrupted. Granted, he could have come earlier, but did he really want to be caught up in the crowd? Aside from him, there were very few people milling about the machines. Must have been a slow day, he thought.

Among those present, there was a moppet girl (a regular, he knew) a kid with a blue get up (he was a ladies man) a fat kid and his crony, Mr. Litwak, and some other people that did not need a verifiable description. Content with his lot in life, the man with the yellow headphones headed towards the ladies man. Fortunately, he was at one of the first person shooter games. Also, coincidentally, it seemed that the poor kid was trying to beat his record at being the reigning champ.

And that kind of scared the main character. A little bit. Not so much. But he did need to have some reason to talk to the guy right? Never mind, he was going to talk to the teen whether he liked it or not. What could go wrong?

"Mind if I join," he drawled out as he clapped his calloused hand on the teen's shoulder. With his other, he jingled his quarters—which again, was used for a special occasion.

"God, Sid!" The man named Sid swore that he heard a voice crack when he yelled. "I'm kind of inside the middle of a cybug crisis!" It was true, the screen looked as if the gamer was getting covered in the mechanical monstrosities that were about to consume your soul. Sergeant Calhoun, on the other hand, was cruising through the post-apocalyptic environment with insults thrown at the player.

"You suck, Andy," Sid observed as he leaned against the console. "Why don't you go back to playing with your dollies?" The garbage man joked mockingly. He knew it was a low blow, but he couldn't help but let that little jibe slip past the caverns of his mouth.

"Shut it, Sid," Andy growled as he tried to reach the tower. "My health levels are going down and Madame Sexist over there ain't helping!"

In response, 'Madame Sexist' bellowed," You better not be wetting your big boy slacks on the job!"

Now, despite the fact that his childhood inner demons were quenched by the evils of high school, the little devil thought that maybe… You know, in like a billionth of a chance… That maybe, Sarge's comment was not coincidental. What if she was—

"We toys can see everything… So play nice."

Yeah, the only reason he had to celebrate was that he was allegedly cured over his unorthodox fear of toys. Yeah. Come on, you would celebrate too, you know! Especially after you realize that blowing stuff up was not something you should call a passion in life. But we're getting ahead of ourselves; Davis here wasn't tough enough for Calhoun's regimen of the highest caliber. As seen here in one… two…

"ROOKIE, CYBUGS ARE ENSNARING US LEFT AND RIGHT LIKE A SNAKE CAUGHT IN A PINCER ACTION! FALL BACK!"

Sid innocently whistled as he placed his hands behind the back of his head, smirking at his friend's 'enthusiasm' that he had been cussed by the hot blonde chick. Now what would a good friend do in this situation, you might be wondering? Well, good friends like Sid are one in a million so…

"I bet the girls are falling head over heels for you if you can make Sarge over there overreact like that!" Sid remarked. "That was officially the first time that I seen her break her furious monotone!"

"Furious and monotone should not be together, then it's an oxymoron." The dirty blonde watched the dark red lighting of GAME OVER flash on the screen when he had foolishly let a cybug overtake him.

"That perfectly describes you; stubborn as an ox and a totally moron. You keep on hitting the ones that are coming at you in front, you keep forgetting the sides of your periph and that Mama Dynamite in there isn't going to help you all the time."

Was it just him, or did Sergeant Calhoun give him an extra toasty glare? Maybe it was the way her pixels seemed to arch her eyebrows like so… and she seemed to be staring at him… He shook his head as he tried to rid his scary thoughts and the fact that if he kept on living life like this, that he might just get another psychiatrist to help him out.

Andy glared at him hatefully as he stalked away from the high definition console. Clearly, something was eating at the poor guy and it was up to Sid to figure out what had happened! Either that, or harass Andy til kingdom come. Knowing Sid, he would do whatever benefited him.

"So," he drawled out as he caught up to his angered friend," got yourself a girlfriend?"

If Andy had a glass of whatever in his mouth, Sid would have been sadly drenched… And then Andy would have filled his mouth with the mystery liquid and drowned him in germs. Naturally, Sid mused sadistically, the late bloomer ain't blooming.

"What, come on! I'm still with Stacey—"

"You broke up with her two months ago, remember?" In his peripheral vision—seeing that he walking forward to the Whack-a-Mole—he saw Davis turning a beetroot red. "You seriously need to grow some—"

"There are children present."

Was it just him, or did some of the avatars stop what they were doing to follow with the conversation?

"—confidence. Geeze Louise, you are such a prick when it comes to cussing, aren't you? No wonder Calhoun doesn't like you!" Sid made himself swallow as he saw that the characters from the games seemed to be doing whatever they were programmed to do. Yet, he couldn't stop the feeling that…

"She's an computer animated person within a game, she doesn't feel anything," Andy emphasized.

"Yeah, well," Sid muttered," I said the same thing about your toys and you chewed my head off for suggesting such a thing!"

His neck hairs prickled and stood stark upright. They were eyeing him and whatever he was saying.

"Sid, we were kids. I was a child back then and so were you, right now we are fully grown adults—"

"With the exception of one person that is not me," Sid artistically added. Nonsense, he thought. It's just the dump's fumes finally getting to me! Whoever heard of a video game trying to takeover the world? (Images of Spy Kids flew through his mind at an alarming rate). That, however, did not stopthe pit stains to start forming under his jacket.

"—and video games are just video games and toys are just dolls. Do I need to spell it out for you?" Andy looked really dorky as he used his hands to illustrate the air quotes about video games being NOT alive. Like Sid was not going to brainwash him into thinking that there was a government conspiracy authorized to play with the minds of children and cause them amounts of sue distress when they were not looking. No way.

"Silly Andy," the garbage man snarked condescendingly as his voice began to lower," they are alive. They have been alive, will stay alive, and they will destroy us." Now, he knew that something or someone was trailing them.

Andy gave him an unmistakable look of disbelief followed by a series of covering his face maneuvers. Obviously, the blonde kid was actually following his advice for once and was calling the FBI!

. . .

Or, he could be laughing at him. Either way, Sid thought that he probably made contact with Davis' thick brain for once. (He hoped so. How was he supposed to defeat the leader of the toys without the nerd's expertise?)

"Aren't you going to compliment my genius for once?" He crossed his arms as he waited for the shorter man to answer.

"Sure," Sid's eyes began to light up," when you suddenly realize that you need some more appointments with your psychiatrist." Andy's tone was so dry that the older man could have sworn that he saw some video game characters laugh behind their hands. But that wasn't possible was it? Was it?

"But today I'm free! I'm set for life!"

"Ri~ght!"

"You don't believe me, do you?"
"You still act like a petulant child who won't give up a grudge so easily."

"DA—"

"Sid," Andy began with clenched teeth," There. Are. Children. Present." Embarrassed with his companion's less than exemplar behavior, he gave a girl with a pink shirt a small wave and bashful smile. The girl in question gave him thumbs up and turned back to her game with the wreck-it guy.

"Dang straight," Sid pointed out with much macho as he could muster. He sighed as they turned around from the racing games and back to where they started, Hero's Duty. Just for how long they were walking? And how long was Sid going to feel claustrophobic with all those pixelated eyes on him?

"Ten minutes before closing," Mr. Litwak announced as he came by.

That was convenient.

"Sid, we have been through with this before," Andy said exasperatedly as he placed four quarters in Sugar Rush," my Woody toy did not terrorize you, he does not 'demonically' posses my other toys, and toys do not act like human. Period." The blond massaged his temples as he waited for the other man to retort. Or, at the very least, apologize for his rudeness and finally acknowledge that Andy was going to leave for college in a week.

And that he still needed to pack and get his toys donated or something. But that's a whole new story (that's actually a movie).

"Sid. Sid," Andy repeated quite forcefully the second time. He looked to the side in concern as he saw his brunette pal's face pale in what seemed to be terror. "Er, you okay? Dude? Sid?"

"The avatars…" Sid breathed out. "They're, they're alive! They're laughing at me!"

"What do you—"

"Taffyta Muttonfudge! She-she—"

"Boys, are you having—" A kind grandfatherly voice cut in pleasantly.

With an inhuman screech, Sid wretched himself from the screen and ran out as if his pants were on fire. Now, if you were Andy, would you run after comfort the older gent, or call his doctors for some knock out pills? As the would be college student began to contemplate these ideas, his friend started the loud engine of his old truck.

There was a lot of screeching too.

Oh. And since they were basically in he middle of nowhere, police sirens weren't that particularly soft.

Andy dumbly stared at the screen as he watched his first place stats show up and the telltale music of Japanese music fill he ears. Just why, he wondered dismally as he bemoaned himself. Why, did he have to be such god chums with a weirdo!

"Is your friend going to be okay," Mr. Litwak asked.

"Oh yeah," the blonde nonchalantly said as he exited the chair. "He just needs to rethink his life a little bit before doing something stupid."

Mr. Litwak looked unconvinced.

"By that, I mean he needs to realize that inanimate objects are not plotting to destroy him."

As Mr. Litwak ushered Andy Davis outside, the video game characters snickered behind their hands.

"Oh man," an unknown avatar chuckled," he's definitely onto us!"

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