"He was a total shoob!" Randy complained through a mouth full of french fries. "Stealing my thunder like that."

"Did anyone actually see him steal you thunder?" Howard asked around his milkshake straw. "You said he was invisible, which is totally fantastic, by the way."

"Most brucest thing I've ever seen," Randy agreed.

"And it's not like there were any people left by the time he wasvisible, right?"

Randy stirred his coke angrily with his straw. "Well there was that Vlad Masters guy at first, but by the time the fight was over, he was gone. Everyone else filed out of the way pretty fast."

"See, no thunder stolen," Howard said, stealing some of Randy's fries. "Do you think you could order me a burger?"

"It doesn't matter if none of the people saw me. The point is that that guy, whoever the heck he is, saw me, and then took the robot out like it was nothing. And there was something weird about that robot. Not only was it the first bat-viper that's been out in months, it was like it had some crazy psychic power or something. And then there was that thing the guy used to shut off the head. It kind of looked like a tricked out soup thermos. Are you even listening, Howard?"

"Talk won't get me a burger," Howard said, leaning back in his chair.

There was another collective cheer from the floor of the crowded Game Hole. After the assembly and the bat-viper attack, all school activities, including detention, had been canceled. When Howard and Randy had arrived at the Game Hole together, all the arcade games were open except the DDR machine, which had gathered quite a crowd around it. According to Bucky, some of the kids from Amity Park had already started to arrive and apparently they had some mad gaming skills. Some of the kids had taunted about Randy losing his title as DDR champion, but, in an effort to remain as nonchalant-looking as possible, Randy had waved them off and dragged Howard upstairs to the Food Hole.

From their table, Randy could see the heads of two players behind the crowd around the DDR machine. A boy and a girl, it looked like, both with heads of nondescript black hair. From the bright colors and seizure inducing flashing, the boy was pretty good. Randy wasn't worried, though. He'd held that title since seventh grade, he wasn't about to lose it to some randoms from out of town. Besides, he had bigger problems to deal with at the moment.

"Yeah, okay," Randy groaned and leaned over the side of the table to grab his backpack and an extra five dollar bill. "I'll buy you your burger, but you totally owe - aw, crud." As soon as Randy opened his bag, the light almost blinded him. When it dulled to a light his eyes could tolerate, he saw the Nomicon flashing angrily at him. "Sorry Howard," he apologized. "Bathroom, then burger."

Howard just shrugged and slurped his milkshake while Randy jogged to the bathroom. He shut and locked the single stall behind him sat down against the wall. No way was he going to fall on his face in the Game Hole bathroom. With an anxious breath, he braced for impact and opened the book.

Sure enough, getting sucked into the Nomicon felt like falling into a tornado. The whole thing was a whirlwind of trees and dragons and nameless ninjas that had Randy throwing his arms above his head and shouting, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! It's been a busy day!"

He landed hard on his butt in the middle of a paper woodland. Out of nowhere, one of the ninjas smacked him upside the head. When he turned to see said ninja, though, it was gone. On the ground where it was standing, there was writing in the dirt.

Sometimes we must find teamwork in the most solitary of situations.

Randy crossed his arms over his chest. "Ok I know you're an all-knowing, magic book and all, but you really need to make up your mind on this whole "other people" thing – am I too good for friends, am I working together? This all just seems really unclear."

In normal circumstances, the Nomicon likes to throw him out without warning. This time, though, Randy would later swear that it paused to scoff at him before he was violently thrown back into the real world. Randy wasn't sure if it was the revolting stank of the bathroom floor - which had, inevitably, found his face - or the loud banging on the door that hit him first, but whatever it was had him jerking to a sitting position.

"Cunningham, get out here!"

Randy hauled himself to his feet and turned to open the door. "Howard?"

Sure enough, Howard was standing on the other side of the door, fist still raised as if to knock again. "Come on, bro, you've gotta see this," he said, taking Randy's arm and leading him down to the game part of the Game Hole. Beside the DDR machine sat the out-of-order Jack Hammer game. Or it at least should have been out of order, but the play screen behind the out-of-order sign was flashing and blinking different colors. As they watched, sparks shot out of the back of the machine. At the DDR machine next to them, the cheers of the crowd over the end score of the round drowned out cracking sound of the electricity.

"What's wrong with this thing?" Randy asked.

"I don't know," Howard told him. "I came to check out the DDR match 'cause you were taking forever and I saw this." Both of them jumped when another burst of sparks burst out.

"You don't think Viceroy's fixed the Jack Hammer bot, do you?"

Howard just shrugged. Before they could get another word in, one of the players from the DDR game walked over and picked a styrofoam cup up off of the Jack Hammer game platform. She obviously wasn't from Norrisville; Randy definitely would have recognized her. She had cropped black hair, deep, dark, shades for her make up, and a goth ensemble that favored spiders. She also looked to be a few years older than Randy and Howard, and had a fairly distracting eyebrow piercing. She nodded a greeting.

"Hey," she said. "You guys Norrisville High kids?"

"You bet," Howard responded a little quickly. Randy couldn't help but catch his friend's eyes on her skirt. "Amity Park?" he asked back.

"Yeah," she said. "Me and my friends arrived this morning. We're starting at your school tomorrow." She held out a hand politely. "I'm Sam."

Randy swatted Howard's hand out of the air and took Sam's. "I'm Randy," he told her. "This is Howard."

"The one and only." Howard puffed out his chest. Randy felt embarrassed for him.

"So," Randy started, fishing for conversation. "They're spreading all the Amity kids into existing classes at school, right?"

"Mostly, yeah," Sam said, between tugs from her cup. "Caspar High's a pretty small school. I've had the same English teacher since my freshman year."

"That sounds terrible."

She shrugged. "It's not so bad. If you get used to his patterns, all you have to do to get good essay grades is play kiss up." Next to them the Jack Hammer machine let out a burst of broken, shorted, music before falling silent again. The screen behind the sign was flashing blue.

"What's that thing?" Sam asked.

"A game," Randy answered, earning him a cold "no, duh" look from both Howard and Sam. "But it was only up for about a day a few months ago. Turned out that the thing was controlling a huge robot that was tearing apart the town."

Sam's eyebrows rose and her eyes widened; Randy found her eyebrow piercing to be slightly distracting. "Is random civil destruction normal here?" she asked.

Randy had never really thought about it before. He and Howard had both grown up in Norrisville: where teens turned into monsters and destroyed things, and a mysterious, several hundred year old ninja cured them. It all felt pretty normal to them, but, in retrospect, it was probably far beyond normal for these Amity kids. Oh well, they'd just have to get used to it for a while. I'm sure they'll catch on fast, he thought.

"More or less," he told her, shrugging.

"Most of it wasn't in a very heavily populated area, anyway," Howard added. "Well, the school area was, but they built that thing back up in a weekend."

Sam stopped digging through the ice in her cup with her straw to say, "Impressive."

"The local construction company has a lot of practice." Howard added a knowing look in Randy's direction. Yes, ninja-related destruction was up quite a bit in the last year and he should probably be doing something about that; but Randy doubted any of the past ninjas had the added bonus of robot-funding gazillionaires on their backs, too. He dismissed it with a roll of his eyes.

"Anyway," he continued, "they can't use the game anymore because the robot was destroyed, but they keep it here to fill up space; and, let's face it, that thing looks pretty bruce." Howard nodded his agreement. "Also, Howard begged for them to leave it he could keep his one spot on the Hole of Fame."

"So worth it."

"'Bruce'?" Sam asked.

"Just roll with it."

"Alright." Sam lifted one shoulder acceptingly. "But if it's not supposed to be running," she said, pointing at the fritzing machine, "what is it doing?"

"I'm..." Randy shuffled a hand over his hair. "I'm not sure."

"Hey, Sam!" One of the boys on the DDR machine, called through the crowd. They had started another game, and his eyes were still glued to the screen, feet moving furiously. His opponent, on the other hand, wasn't so much as dancing, as he was making the awkward flinching and stomping motions of a baby giraffe, only shorter. "Come take this from me!" he called again.

Howard raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Mid-game?"

That didn't deter Sam though, because she called back, "I'm on it!" before shoving her cup into Randy's hands and working back through the crowd.

"I don't know, Cunningham," Howard nudged him with an elbow. "With those skills, these guys might beat you yet."

"Still not worried," Randy intoned. "What I amworried about," he turned back to the Jack Hammer game, "is this."

"So it's lighting up and stuff, that's not such a big deal," Howard tried to tell him. "I'm sure it's just short circuiting, or something. Probably does it all the time while we're not looking."

Randy shrugged. "Yeah, probably."

"So...we getting me that burger, or what?"

Distractedly, Randy pulled a five out of the side pocket of his backpack and handed it to Howard. "Go nuts," he told him.

"Sweet, thanks bro," Howard said before jogging to the food counter, but Randy wasn't really listening. The screen had taken to scrolling white text down the blue screen as Randy worked his way around the back. Crouching down, he reached towards the power cable half sticking out of the dark shadows behind the machines. He flinched when sparks flew from the end and jerked the cable. When he finally got the cable in his hands, he pulled it into the light, all the way to the end of the cord.

The thing wasn't even plugged in.

A few moments later, Howard reappeared at the front of the machine. "Hey bro, what are you doing?" he asked past a mouth full of hamburger. Randy wordlessly showed him the unplugged cord. Howard swallowed his burger nervously. "I'm sure it's just...a freak power surge, or something. Is that a thing that happens? I'm pretty sure that's a thing that happens."

Randy dropped the cord and stood up. "I think I should go check out the hole where we left the actual robot later," he said. "Y'know...just to be safe."

Howard looked at his watch. "Well if you do, you're going to want to leave now if you want to make it back before the sun goes down. But I'm sure it'll be fine until tomorrow...why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because whenever one of us says that, is turns out to be something that can'twait until tomorrow." Randy hefted his bag on his shoulder. "I'm going to go check. You coming?"

"No way, man- I mean, I'll stay here and call if someone beats your score. Maybe sabotage a little. But only because you're my best friend."

"I'm not worried about my score, Howard," he called over his shoulder. "See you tomorrow."

"See ya!"

Just before the door shut behind him on the street, Randy caught a glimpse of his best friend approaching the Future Time Radioactive Zombie Punch machine.

(Edited: 1/5/2015)

-Kinetic