The house was dead silent, with no signs of life to be seen or heard. There were no pets roaming around, no cars in the driveway, and nothing to stop the Neurosurgeon from his goal. He had spent almost an hour keeping a close eye on the activity within, moving from outlet to outlet and room to room to make sure the coast was clear. He had come across three occupants, but they were all holed up in their bedrooms and so preoccupied with their individual gaming sessions that they didn't even notice he was there. That fact gave him an immense feeling of relief as he traveled through the electrical wires towards the living room and the Hinobi console plugged into the wall. The first thing the glitch did when he entered the inner workings of the system was head straight for the hard drive and hope for the best. That hope would not be unfounded, as the owner of this particular console had downloaded Near Scream straight to the system's memory. Perfect, the glitch thought as he accessed the game's code. Can't go into the game this way, though - I'd bleed out in seconds. Gotta see if I can regenerate...
A massive globe with interconnected boxes appeared when he brought up the character files. The code belonging to the game's main characters was housed in a large gold box labeled with their names, while the secondary tier characters had a smaller silver box, and on down the line until reaching the NPCs and their small gray boxes of code. The glitch couldn't help but laugh at the difference as he cycled back towards the secondary character tier and searched for his name. It didn't take him long to find it among the cluster of names, and the only thing stopping him was a password screen requiring four numbers. His birthday in the game was May 23, so he extended a green tendril and entered 0523, pressed the lock button, and once again hoped for the best. After a few seconds of waiting, he got it.
The door to the files unlocked and permitted him access to a room filled with binary code. The glitch headed straight into the middle of the array of numbers, and as he did, he noticed three tendrils of ones and zeros break away from the columns of code. The glitch kept moving forward until the tendrils wrapped themselves around him, glowing green as they came into contact. As the green ball of energy sat amidst the code, he could feel his energy being restored as the code he possessed was reconstructed. Once the code had done all it could do, it retracted back into the array and left the green glitch floating amidst the numbers.
With his mission completed, the glitch exited the hard drive and headed for the gaming system's power source. He turned the system on with little effort, resulting in a chain reaction as the big-screen TV in the living room switched on along with it. The Neurosurgeon couldn't believe his luck as he traveled up the HDMI cable and entered the circuitry of the TV. A bright green flash illuminated the furniture in the living room as the glitch shot out of the screen and took his human form in front of the entertainment center. Once he was back to normal, the glitch looked down at his left leg and moved it back and forth to make sure it was whole, healthy and undamaged. Everything checked out as he moved his attention to his arms, both of which had been restored to their normal, tattoo-laden selves. Flexing his fingers and rotating his wrists produced the desired results, leading to a satisfied sigh as the Neurosurgeon took in his surroundings.
The living room he stood in had spartan decorations consisting mainly of a large couch, an endtable, and a couple of floor lamps to go along with the entertainment center... and that was pretty much it. "Come on, utilize the space," he said to himself as he shook his head. "There's all this room, and here you are clumped together in one area. What the hell?" Heading for the hallway revealed he was in a multi-level, modern home, and he followed the stairs upward to the bedrooms. All the doors were closed, but he could hear the sounds of video games being played and the exclamations of the players within. The glitch put his ear to the door on his right and listened in on what was going on.
"AWRIGHT! Got ya good, bruv! Try again if ya dare!"
The prominent English accent of the speaker was more than familiar to the glitch's ears, and his eyes widened in recognition as he made his way to the bedroom at the end of the hall. Turning the knob and pushing the door open revealed a small army of video game tournament trophies, plaques and souvenirs lining the shelves and filling the walls of the room, and it wasn't long before his wide eyes were paired with a disbelieving grin as he looked at the poster of the Furious Four on the wall. It was all he could do not to burst out laughing once he recognized where he was.
"You've gotta be kidding," he exclaimed as he began to chuckle. "This is too perfect! Mitch's house! I mean..." His thoughts crashed to a halt, however, when he noticed one of the doors in the hallway begin to open. The glitch turned the knob of Mitch's door and shut it in one quick push before slowly engaging the latch, a maneuver which would hopefully leave the resident none the wiser. The sound of silence made him breathe easier as he turned electric and jumped into the outlet at his feet. However, instead of the wiring of the house, he found himself wandering through a massive path of interconnected wires and cables until he reached a dead end... which just so happened to be a backup generator.
What the hell? What's going on? I'm already at 100 percent... but I feel like I'm getting... stronger... more powerful...
Oh yeah. More, please. Just a little more. Just a little more! BRING IT ON!
The generator emanated a dim green glow that steadily increased in luminosity, and by the time it reached its peak the machine was fully engulfed in a blinding light. It was at that point that the Neurosurgeon jumped out of the generator with a loud thunderclap, resulting in an electrical surge so powerful that it blew every fuse in the house. The building was plunged into darkness as a cacophony of protest came from the trio of bedrooms down the hall. The glitch stepped into the hallway as the doors opened, and it didn't take long before the occupants turned their heads towards the source of the green light bathing the walls. None of them had a chance to react to the intruder in their midst as a massive jolt of electricity coursed through their bodies, sending them tumbling to the floor. The Neurosurgeon lowered his arms and let out a low, sadistic chuckle as he left the trio lying where they fell, heading back down the stairs to the living room. He passed a mirror on the wall on the way, and his curiosity got the better of him as he turned to look at his reflection.
The first thing he noticed was his eyes - no longer the familiar piercing blue they once were, with the whites, irises and pupils nowhere to be found. Instead, the familiar glitch-green hue stared back at him, with the entirety of both orbs possessing that color. Small jolts of electricity jumped from one part of his body to another as if he were a living Tesla coil. When he clenched his fists, the tattoos on his arms began to glow their respective colors and increase in luminosity - once they reached their peak, a brief flash ensued as his fists became engulfed in flames. Unclenching them stopped the glow and doused the flames, but before he could explore the extent of his new abilities any further, he heard a phone begin to ring.
The phone rang and rang as Mitch drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for any of his siblings to pick up. "'Use the communal phone during gaming hours,' they said," he groused as he exited the drive-thru of Mama Miyamoto's. "'It'll be easier,' they said. What a load of bollocks." The familiar smell of tomato sauce and garlic bread wafted through the van as the opposite line kept ringing and Mitch grew more and more irritated. After two minutes of waiting for an answer, he let out a frustrated grunt and moved to disconnect the call, but at that moment, the other line picked up.
"FINALLY! Took you long enough to investigate that mysterious ringing noise! Just wanted to let you know I picked up some food from Mama Miyamoto's, and I'm on my way home. I should be there in about... five minutes or so."
"Italian food, you say? Sounds delicious." All the blood drained from Mitch's face as the voice on the other end of the line spoke. There was no mistaking that smug tone or the gleeful malice dripping from his response. When Mitch opened his mouth to respond, the words caught in his throat as he choked out, "H... h-how the hell did you find-"
"By total accident," the Neurosurgeon replied. "Miko and Hector did a number on me, so I had to heal up. This was the first system I found that had my game downloaded onto the hard drive... and then I found the backup generator."
"Son of a..." Mitch's heart began to pound and panic set in in as he sped up, weaving through and around the traffic in front of him as sweat beaded on his forehead and began to soak through his clothes. Anger soon took hold alongside the panic as Mitch yelled, "I swear to God... if you did anything to my brothers or sister, I'll tear you apart! If I find one cut or scratch on them, it'll be paid back tenfold, you hear me?!"
The glitch responded to his threat with a dismissive laugh and a declaration of, "Oh, really? Because my little power boost from your generator says otherwise. If you hurry, I can give you a free demonstration. I already gave one to your siblings, and they can attest it was a total knockout!" He glanced back at the unconscious bodies of Mitch's siblings before he broke into mocking, triumphant laughter - laughter that resulted in a furious, guttural scream on the other end as Mitch slammed his fist into the console on the dashboard. The force of the blow both hung up the phone and cracked the screen as he made a hard left turn onto Spengler Street, fishtailing the van as he did so. Mitch wound up perpendicular to the sidewalk, a position he quickly corrected with a turn to the right and a foot to the floor as he raced towards his siblings' house.
As the building appeared in front of him, he could see that all the lights were off - a detail that further cemented how wrong the whole situation was. Mitch felt like he was going to vomit as he pulled into the driveway, jumped out of the van and leapt over the gate in one smooth motion, landing on his feet and tearing to the front door of the house in record time. The entrance was unlocked, allowing Mitch access to the darkened den as he slammed the door behind him and dual wielded his plixel guns. His eyes were wide and his face was drenched in sweat as he exclaimed, "YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM ME, YOU BASTARD! WHERE ARE YOU?!"
The sound of a phone ringing answered his demand, a noise that caused Mitch to whirl around and blast the endtable the phone sat on to smithereens with his guns. Once he approached the splintered wood and realized his mistake, he cursed under his breath and activated the reset ray on his gauntlet, restoring the table to its original state. Mitch placed the phone back on the repaired piece of furniture as he continued his canvassing of the house, but once he saw his siblings' unconscious bodies laying in the upstairs hallway, everything changed. The plixel guns fell from his hands as Mitch ran to their side, mumbling a devastated, broken mantra of, "No... no... no..."
He arrived at Audrey's side with a powerslide and began shaking her shoulders in an attempt to wake her, all the while turning his head in every direction lest the Neurosurgeon once again take him by surprise. "Audrey, it's me! Wake up," Mitch begged as he felt a lump forming in his throat. "Speck! Ruf! Oh my God... come on! COME ON!" The repeated jostling of his sister began to bear results, with Audrey letting out a groggy groan as she came to. When she opened her eyes and looked into her baby brother's panicked, tear-filled ones, a motherly instinct took over as she asked, "Mitch? Bruv... you all right? What's wrong?" He responded by turning his head back down the hall towards the stairs and wielding his gauntlet, not caring that he was exposing his siblings to the true nature of Hinobi's tech support program. "God dammit... show yourself right now," Mitch demanded as he felt a wetness on his cheeks. "Where are you?! WHERE ARE YOU?! WHERE ARE YOU?!"
"Mitch! Bruv! BRUV! LOOK AT ME!" Audrey sat up and grabbed Mitch by his shoulders, and when he turned to face her, the devastated fury in his eyes gave her pause as she reassured him with, "There's nobody here except us!"
"No, Audrey: he's here! I know he's here!" Speck and Ruf began to stir as Mitch's panic continued unabated; he charged into Audrey's room and checked the perimeter, only to find it was clear. He repeated his action with Speck's room and got the same result, but before he could move on to Ruf's, he felt a trio of hands grab hold of him and pull him back as Speck exclaimed, "The hell's gotten into ya, bruv?!"
"Just calm down," Ruf demanded. "We're all okay! We don't know what happened, but we're all okay!"
"Some fuses blew, is all," Audrey insisted. "It's a quick fix; nothing to worry about!"
"LET... ME... GO!" Mitch used a quick burst from his rocket boots to break free of his siblings' grip and launch himself towards the generator room. Once he entered, it wasn't long before the smell of singed carpet filled his nostrils, and when he looked down, he saw a pair of shoe prints burned into the fabric. His jaw and his fists clenched as Mitch began to tremble with rage, and it wasn't long before that rage was released with a roar that echoed through the house and sent a chill through his siblings. They could only watch as their little brother stormed out of the generator room with fire in his eyes, marching right past them without a second glance and descending the stairs. He headed into the kitchen and began to scan the perimeter, screaming, "SHOW YOURSELF, YOU BLOODY COWARD! WHERE ARE YOU?!"
He kept repeating those three words over and over again as he checked every remaining room in the house. His siblings followed him the whole time, making sure to keep their distance as his search continued. The demand for the Neurosurgeon to show himself became less angry and more desperate and broken over time as Mitch descended the stairs to the basement, illuminating the darkened space with the flashlight on his gauntlet as he made his way towards the fuse box. He made frequent perimeter checks as he kept repeating "Where are you," with the words growing quieter and quieter until they trailed off completely. When he reached the fuse box, Mitch was barely holding himself together as he opened the door and inspected the fuses within. Audrey's intuition had proven right: all of them were indeed blown. Luckily, there was a box of spares resting on a shelf nearby, and the house began to light up as Mitch replaced the old fuses with the new. Once he was done, he shut the door and performed one last scan of the basement area.
There was nothing to be found.
"What the...? How? How?!" Mitch let out a frustrated scream accompanied by a full-force punt of a nearby garbage bin, sending the receptacle flying from one end of the basement to the other. "Bringing my family into this?! You absolute bastard! You absolute... bastard..." Mitch put his hands to his face and took a deep breath in an attempt to remain calm, but the sound of his phone ringing jarred him back to reality. Miko was the one calling, and when Mitch answered with a terse "Yeah," her response was a concerned, "You okay?"
"Far from it. The Neurosurgeon... attacked my siblings."
"Looks like we have that in common," Miko replied with distaste. She gave him the rundown of everything that had happened to her, and as he listened, Mitch covered his eyes with his free hand and shook his head in frustration. "As far as I'm concerned, screw those free days off," Miko declared. "Five and I are back on duty as of right now."
"What about your sister?"
"Lexi's holding up a... heck of a lot better than me," Miko admitted. "I don't know about you, Mitch, but I think it's time to pull out all the stops."
"Yeah. One way or another, this ends now. I'll get everything squared away with my siblings, and then I'll meet you back at HQ. Deal?"
"Deal. Take as much time as you need." Miko hung up and left Mitch to his task as he trudged up the stairs, stopping in front of his siblings. The concern on their faces was unmistakable as they took in the exhaustion and weariness in their baby brother's eyes. Speck was the first one to speak as he asked, "Bruv... you okay?" Mitch replied with a sad shake of his head and a choked, "No. I'm so far from okay right now that..."
Audrey opened her arms and beckoned him with a soothing, "C'mere, bruv. It's alright." A faint smile appeared on Mitch's face as he walked into her arms and let her embrace him, a gesture that was soon echoed by Speck and Ruf as they turned the solo hug into a group effort. Mitch's arms remained slack at his sides, but he let out a sigh of relief as the hug did its job. Ruf patted him on the back and said, "Hey, whatever this is, you'll get through it, yeah? You got this."
I hope so, Mitch thought. For your sakes.