Back at the house, after quickly going through the bought games, kids still weren't hungry yet and were quickly becoming bored/anxious. Lawrence happened to be passing by, curious about the kid's lack of activity.
"We bought games, beat them already, and the rest are Candace's.", Phineas explained, tapping his foot impatiently. "Can't think of anything else to say..."
Another tear at his heart as his step-dad took a moment to think over the situation.
"Well boys, there is my old video game system up in the attic if you care."
"You mean those arcade machines?", Phineas asked.
"No. I mean the Nintendo!", Lawrence smiled.
Up in the dusty old attic, after looking through quite a number of boxes, Lawrence finally pulled out an old suitcase. He laid it on its back, unzipped it, and opened to reveal an odd white gray box with black wires rolled up neatly beside it and dozens upon dozens of gray games with colorful pictures next to it.
"Ah, your Mum and I used to love to play this thing when you were younger, boys.", Lawrence sighed wistfully to himself. "Though I could never quite get the hang of it. Anyhow, feel free to use it. Just be careful and use the rubbing alcohol to clean them with a q-tip, alright?"
He left them to explore and after learning how to set it up, the kids sat down to start up a game. They cleaned it carefully and thoroughly, but after putting it into the machine and hitting the "power" button on it, the screen took half a second, then turned green, and then turned blue. Green. Blue. Green. Blue. Red. Blue. Green. Blue.
"...Is this a joke?", Phineas asked Ferb who only shrugged.
Candace happened to come by at that moment, seeing what was going on.
"Is that the Regular Nintendo?", she asked.
"Yeah. Um.. Is this how it's supposed to work?", Phineas asked curiously.
"Um. No. That means it's not working.", Candace said, coming over. "Surprised you guys aren't making another game that you could just jump into or something."
Phineas sighed, knowing this bet was going to indeed be quite painful to him. He quietly, and temperamentally, explained how they were taking a day off, though Candace found it hard to believe.
"Can you help us?", Phineas asked, earning a shrug.
She sat down to try to help them get it working, blowing into the game and beating the back of it a couple of times. Checked the wiring. But nothing worked.
"Sorry, Phineas. Guess it's not working.", she finally said, getting up. "Later."
Phineas stopped the quiet, colorful madness, took the game out, and tried other games. The same result would happen for many. A couple began to work but were quickly doomed to the same blinking demise. Some just remained to be black on the screen. Some suddenly showed a jumble of different colors and some damaged audio but after going through the whole stash, only a handful of games worked. One about an elevator. One about an evil alien attacking a small group of islands and the sequel to it. Another about a couple of dinosaurs blowing bubbles and ITS sequel with rainbows. There was a game about a mouse, running from cats on a train. It suddenly blinked out and stopped working. There was a game with a pink balloon with feet, eating all the stars or something. And there was finally one game that sparked interest. The cover had a stone gargoyle with bright red glowing eyes and the cement on its tail breaking off to reveal red flesh underneath entitled in neon green old-styled font, "Shadowgate". They popped it into the machine. It began to work and the little pings and dongs for the music seemed to catch everyone in the mood.
"Spooooky, eh Baljeet?", Buford teased the nerved child.
"C-cut it out, Buford. It is nothing.", Baljeet tried to reassure.
They played the game and found it was something of a logical, problem-solving game telling the tale of a hero in medieval times defeating the evil warlock. After getting used to the controls, the gang tried to keep calm about some of the graphics in the game that included a skull in the wall and eyes on the ceiling for a split second. When they made a bad choice and "died", the sudden appearence of the Grim Reaper startled most but Phineas kept himself focused on the time and was uninterested in the game. But as the story progressed, the group asking several different questions about what their possibilities were and what might have been the best choice in how to handle a fire-breathing dragon guarding a handy spear or what to do about a shark swimming in the pool where a skeleton was holding a key, Phineas became more intrigued. The game would reset once in a while, but saving the progress was available to their advantage and it acted right after a quick blink so progress was slow, but surely made. The kids had come to where a library was found in the game. Phineas clicked on a book to read and everyone became enthralled as they read the fast-written words, revealing the defeat of the warlock. But just as the items needed to be used began to be listed, the game suddenly shut off and was shut off for good.
"OHH!", everyone groaned, sounding like disappointed football fans.
"NO!", Phineas yelled angrily at the TV. "Why does it keep doing this? These darn games are so old, why am I even questioning their malfunction? They keep resetting EVERY TEN SECONDS! I have to save every time I go into another room!"
As he spat at the game, cursing it's age, everyone became very aware of how far Phineas is being pushed by this. While he seemed to grow more and more angry the more and more he got into the game, to suddenly see the normally happy boy yelling in frustration at the TV, now cursing the Japanese for not having better equipment to make it function right, Buford began to slip away from the room.
"I...think I'm gone now..", he began to say, walking to the door.
As he reached the door out, Phineas suddenly slammed it shut from behind scowling dangerously at the bully.
"...SIT!", he hissed and the single word sent the bully running back to his seat.
Phineas stormed back into the room and put on a different game.
"...I'm sorry.", he said through gritted teeth, earning a shaky nod from the friends behind them.
"...Hey Jeet?", Buford asked quietly, leaning closer. "Do you have any underwear I could borrow?"
The first one with the aliens attacking the islands was placed into the machine and they played until finally lunch was brought up, 5 minutes into the game.
Lol! Raise your hand if you recognize any of the games mentioned! XD If you do, we'll give you a text-owl!
