Cole glanced up from studying his hands to look around at the other 'villains' filling the room with applause. The BadAnon banner (One Game at a Time) fluttered slightly from the wind.

Across the circle of folding chairs, Clyde (one of the ghosts from Pac Ninja, Cole remembered him) spoke up sincerely. "Nice share, Cole. As fellow bad guys, we've all felt what you're feeling. And, we've come to terms with it."

Cole raised a bushy eyebrow skeptically. "Really!"

A large wrestler raised his hand eagerly. With a thick Russian accent, he said, "Right here! I am Zangief, and I am Bad Guy."

"Hi, Zangief," the circle said somewhat cheerfully.

"Hi, Zangief," Cole echoed a second too late.

"I relate to you, Cole," Zangief continued. "When I hit bottom, I was crushing man's skull like sparrow's egg between thighs." He slapped his inner thigh enthusiastically.

Next to him, Bowser stirred his coffee and rolled his eyes. The other characters were a mix of rolling their eyes fondly, groaning, and mimicking his speech. Obviously they had heard this many times before.

"And I am wondering, why do you have to be so bad, Zangief? Why can't you be more like good guy?" Zangief paused and spread his hands, speaking almost reverently. "Then I have moment of clarity: If Zangief is good guy, who will crush man's skull like sparrow egg between thighs?" He slapped his thigh again and Cole nodded uncertainly.

"And I say, Zangief, you are Bad Guy. But-" Zangief waggled a finger in the air, "this does not mean you are bad guy."

Understanding claps and cheers.

Except from Cole. "Right, okay, yeah... You lost me there."

The decaying zombie on Cole's right stuck out his hands and grunted, "Arrrh. Zombie. Bad Guy."

"Hi, Zombie," BadAnon chorused.

Once again, Cole echoed a "Hi, Zombie" a second too late.

"Zangief saying, labels not make you happy. Good... Bad..." Zombie groaned. "You must love you."

Cyborg (from Cyborg's Justice or something, Cole thought) grinned maniacally from his spot next to Zombie. "Yeah! In HERE!" He made a lunge for Zombie, presumably to rip out his heart and show it to the group, but Cole pushed him back.

"I think I know what you were going to do, and I get it, but that's really gross," Cole complained. Cyborg pouted.

"A question for you, Cole," Clyde said calmly, as if no one in the group had attempted to dismembered each other in the last ten seconds. "We've been asking you to BadAnon for years now, and tonight, you finally show up. Why is that?"

Cole shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know. I guess I just felt like coming."

Clyde waited patiently, seeing that there was more to it.

"I suppose it has something to do with the fact that, well," Cole shrugged again, "today is the 30th Anniversary of my game."

The devil next to Cole leaned over and congrafulated him solemnly. "Happy Anniversary, Cole."

"Thanks, Satan," Cole mumbled.

'Satan' winced. "It's Say-teen, actually."

"Got it. But here's the thing..." Cole sighed, fiddling with his fingers before blurting it out. "I don't want to be the bad guy anymore."

Horrified gasps as the other programmed villains tried to process that. Bowser did a spit take with his coffee, so balls of fire came spewing out. Clyde turned blue and went into his panic routine.

"You can't mess with the program, Cole," Cyborg warned.

Twirling a finger next to his head to indicate 'crazy', M. Bison asked, "You're not going Garmadon, are you?"

"Garmadon?" Cole scoffed in shock. "No! I'm not going Garmadon. Is it Garmadon to want a friend, or a medal, or even just a piece of pie?"

He was standing now, angry. "Is it Garmadon to want more out of life?"

"Yeeeeessss," Zombie slurred.

"Cole, Cole, we get it," Clyde soothed. "But we can't change who we are. And the sooner you accept that, the better your life and your game will be."

"Hey, One Game at a Time, Cole," Zangief offered.

"Now, let's close out with the Bad Guy Affirmation," Clyde instructed.

The group of bad guys stood and joined hands, closing their eyes in near-reverence. As one they recited, "I am bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."

Except for Cole. He stood with his eyes wide open and his mouth shut tight, not saying a thing.

"Okay gang, see you next week," Clyde broke the silence. The circle split up, bad guys trickling out the door and talking enthusiastically. Zangief grabbed a leftover donut. Bowser refilled his coffee before he left.

'Say-teen' put an supporting hand on Cole's shoulder. "Hang in there, Cole."

"Hey Zombie, don't forget your hatchets," Clyde called. Zombie moaned and waved his hatchets around to show that no, he didn't forget his hatchets.

Cole quietly followed Zombie out of the Pac Ninja ghost pen where Bad Anon was held. But as the other villains exited to the trains, he hesitated. Quickly, he ran back through the tunnels and filched a pair of cherries before heading to the train cars.

Zangief patted the spot next to him encouragingly and Cole perched on the seat. Slowly at first, then quickly, the train chugged down the graffitied track of Pac Ninja's power cord to the arcade's power strip.

The 'villains' hopped out of the cart, ignoring those who ran away from them, and entered Game Central Station. Cole trailed along behind them, pausing still in the outlet to look around.

Characters bustled this way and that, talking excitedly. A voice came from overhead, the Grand Central Announcer. "Ladies and gentlemen, please do not leave personal items unattended. Unattended items will be confiscated. Report any suspicious activity to the Surge Protector. Last call for Tea Tapper Wagon, departing in outlet two. Tea Tapper Wagon, last call. Soul Train to Dance Dance Ninjago now boarding in outlet twelve. All aboard the Soul Train, outlet twelve."

Cole broke out of his happy reverie and stepped out of the outlet, hefting the cherries. A buzzer sounded as the air turned red momentarily and a shimmering blue man with a clipboard and sparking hair appeared before him. Cole groaned. Surge Protector.

Without looking up from his clipboard, Surge Protector said in a bored monotone, "Step aside sir, random security check."

Cole snorted in annoyance. "Random, my behind! You always stop me!"

"I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir," Surge Protector continued blandly. "Name..."

"Lara Croft!" Cole shouted.

"Name..." Surge Protector repeated, not buying and still not looking up.

"Kirby Morrow?" Cole tried.

"Name..."

Cole sighed and mumbled, "Crush it Cole."

"And where are you coming from?"

"Uh, Pac Ninja! Duh." Cole pointed up at the flashing sign above him that plainly read 'Pac Ninja'.

Surge Protector made a note of something. "You bring any fruit with you?"

Cole looked down at his cherries and quickly hid them behind his back. Bouncing on his toes, he replied, "Nope!"

Surge Protector finally looked up and blinked owlishly at him. Not finding anything at fault, he looked back down at his clipboard. "Okay then. Where are you headed?"

"Fix it Jay Junior," he sighed.

"Anything to declare?"

"I hate you," Cole deadpanned.

"I get that a lot," Surge Protector said flatly. "Proceed."

Cole walked through the console, head and shoulders above the majority of other characters. People moved out of the way as he came near, whispering fearfully. A tiny angel boy grabbed a matching girl and pulled her away, whispering, "Bad Guy coming!" A small character burrowed into the ground before Cole could get a good look at it.

Cole sighed and bit into a cherry. As he passed by outlet after outlet, Sonic appeared on the PSA screens in the middle of Game Central Station.

"If you leave your game, stay safe. Stay alert. And whatever you do... Don't die," Sonic narrated. "Because if you die outside your own game... You don't regenerate. Ever. Game over."

Cole happily ignored the signs as he rarely left his game. He was ignoring everyone and everything. But then he came upon a group of gameless characters. It was the Q*Bert gang, holding up signs that read, among other things, 'Out of Order. Please help!'

Cole sighed, glancing back over his shoulder. He went down on one knee and gently put down his uneaten cherry. Q*Bert beeped questioningly, nudging the cherry with his nose, and his friends crowded around.

"Here you go, buddies. It's fresh. Straight from Pac Ninja's." Cole's voice wavered slightly and he sighed, knowing that his stomach would soon be protesting this decision. "Hang in there, guys."

Cole left the Q*Bert gang to chatter about their 'good luck' and went through the entrance to Fix it Jay Jr's. A buzzer sounded as the air turned red momentarily and Surge Protector popped up. "Name?"

"Argh!" Cole shouted in frustration.