The sounds of reggae-fueled hard rock filled Mitch's ears as he jammed to Skindred in his Hinobi van. He alternated between drumming the steering wheel and nodding his head in time with the music as he pulled into work, parking the vehicle next to the one belonging to Miko and Five. He killed the engine and stepped out into the morning sun, breakfast burrito in hand and a grin on his face.

"It's gonna be a good day," Mitch said as he admired his reflection in the driver's side mirror. "Oh, who am I kidding? Every day is a good day when you're Mitch Williams!" With his ego sated, Mitch unwrapped the burrito and was just about to take a bite when he noticed a piece of paper on the windshield of the van next to him. He let out an irritated grunt as he pulled the note from beneath the wiper and grumbled, "Dumb solicitors." However, a closer look revealed that it wasn't an ad, or a coupon, or even a religious tract that tended to show up on rare occasions - it was a folded-up piece of notebook paper. His curiosity piqued, Mitch unfolded the note and began to read it as he headed for the Hinobi store.

I couldn't help but notice what you did yesterday. Impressive. Mitch let out a smug chuckle at the opening line, but in the back of his mind, he couldn't help but feel like he'd heard those words somewhere before.

There's just one problem. I know you're trying to find me... and I implore you to reconsider. Those words stopped Mitch in his tracks just as he hit the sidewalk. The opening line may have been a faint memory, but those lines... His eyes widened in alarm and he let out a shudder of recognition as he continued to read.

If you don't... things will get ugly. Not just for you, but for everyone you know. Take care, and think twice. Mitch shook his head in disbelief and reread the closing sentence to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.

Take care, and think twice.

Think twice.

"Oh my God..." Mitch's arms went limp and his legs turned to jelly as they gave out from under him. The fact that he was now sitting on his breakfast burrito didn't even register as he read the note over and over again, shaking his head in shock. "There's no way," he said in a dry, quaking voice. "There's no bloody way that this is... this has to be a joke. That's the only possible..." He narrowed his eyes and collected himself, rising from the pavement and brushing the remnants of his breakfast off his butt as he did so. "Someone's taking the piss, Mitch," he said to himself as he entered the store and headed for the locker room. "It's just a joke... and not a funny one, that's for sure. Just put it out of your mind."

"Okay... what's the joke?" Five's question jolted Mitch out of his pep talk, and his eyes went wide as he gulped back his nerves. Don't let that scrub see you like this, he thought. Just be yourself. The fear on Mitch's face transformed into his trademark smug cockiness as he turned to face Five with a reply of, "Well, you, for one. Two, the fact that apparently someone saw us fighting that glitch yesterday." Five raised his eyebrow in curiosity and asked, "Really? Do you know who it was?"

Mitch let out an irritated sigh and replied, "If I did, I'd be wiping their mind as we speak, noob. Take a look and see if you recognize any of this." He tossed the note at Five, and the paper bounced off his chest and into his hands. A few seconds of reading later, he handed it back to Mitch and replied, "It's probably Ridley. Odds are she stumbled across the fight, saw that it was us, and left this to keep us from looking for her."

"Oh, I highly doubt that," Mitch replied. "The wording is way too specific to a certain game, one that a kid her age shouldn't even be playing." Five tilted his head in suspicion and replied, "How are you so sure?"

"Well, you can't work at a Hinobi store and not have at least a minimum knowledge of their gaming library," Mitch retorted. "Are you familiar with Near Scream?"

"Yeah. Never played it, though. Is this note from the game or something? Where did you find it, anyway?"

"On the windshield of the van next to mine."

"Well, that was the one Miko and I dropped off last night." Five shrugged and added, "You're being paranoid, Mitch. I don't think this is anything we need to worry about; sure, the phrasing was a little strong, but Ridley does have a way with words."

"So do I," Phil added as he walked by. "Namely, 'get to work, you two.'" He took a big bite of his donut as BITT supplied a cheerful, "You heard him, Techs! Time's a-wastin'!"

"You don't need to tell me twice," Mitch replied with a cocky flourish as he stepped into the portal. Five rolled his eyes in annoyance and headed for the help desk as Mitch arrived in Glitch Techs HQ with a superhero landing, touching down next to Zahra and Haneesh. They acknowledged his presence with unimpressed eye rolls of their own as they continued talking to each other, and Mitch responded to that with a sarcastic shrug and a serious question of, "What's the matter, you two? Can't handle all this awesome?"

"Oh, we can handle awesome," Haneesh replied. "You're a totally different story." Mitch narrowed his eyes at the retort as he activated his gauntlet, and when he did, an unread alert message made its presence known by way of a flashing red exclamation point. He groaned in irritation as he directed his attention to Zahra and demanded, "What happened? Did someone forget to lock down HQ last night?"

"Nope," she replied. "A glitch tried to get in the store after hours." Mitch cocked his eyebrow as he asked, "Oh, really?"

"Yes, really. Tried the whole perimeter of the barrier, but it did its job. The security camera did the rest, and all we have to do now is ID the glitch and bring it down."

"Leave that to me," Mitch declared as Zahra headed for the communal break room. He headed in the opposite direction, ducking into the men's bathroom as he tapped the blinking red exclamation point on the screen. After a few seconds of loading, a video began to play. A glance at the timestamp revealed it was from the previous night as Mitch observed a man walking towards the store, only to be halted by the protective forcefield. The Brit's blood ran cold as he watched the man attempt to bypass the security; the camera was too far away to get a decent look at his face as he navigated the perimeter of the barrier with no success. With the direct option thwarted, the man retrieved a notebook from his backpack and left his message before exiting the frame. A message reading GLITCH REPELLED flashed on the screen as the video concluded before returning to the gauntlet's main menu.

Mitch played the video again and attempted to enhance the image via zoom, but all that did was pixellate the footage and make identification impossible. He pounded his free fist into the counter and mumbled, "Nerds. There's gotta be something that got a better picture." As soon as those words left his mouth, his eyes widened and his heart began to race as he ran into a nearby stall, shutting the door for privacy as he pulled up the dashcam footage from each Hinobi van in Bailley. It didn't take long to see one that had captured footage of Miko, and Mitch selected that feed. The image projected onto the wall of the stall as Miko walked around the front of the vehicle back towards the store, and thirty seconds of dead air later... there he was. The glitch walked past the van and some more dead air followed, so Mitch fast-forwarded the footage until the glitch returned to view. As he leaned further in and placed the note on the windshield, Mitch paused the video. The figure had long brown hair tied back into a ponytail, a full beard, and a muscular build, but that wasn't what gave his identity away: that defining feature turned out to be the large scar on the side of his neck. Once he recognized that detail, it took all of one second for Mitch to deduce the glitch's identity.

"The Neurosurgeon..." Mitch considered himself lucky that he was standing next to a toilet at the moment, because he felt like he was going to puke. He staggered out of the stall and braced himself on the nearby sink as shock began to set in, all the while mumbling, "Of all the games... of all the characters..." Mitch's heart was hammering so hard he thought his ribs would break. His face was as pale as his hair. His hands were trembling and sweaty. This was the sight that greeted Bergy when he stepped into the bathroom, and the first words out of his mouth were, "Jeez, Mitch, are you okay? You look sick!"

"I'm fine," Mitch insisted as he grabbed some paper towels and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Just a... quick bout of nausea."

"Well, Phil has warned us about those egg salad sandwiches," Bergy replied. "You should know better than to play with fire."

"Oh, please. As if I'd be dumb enough to eat one of those." Mitch tossed the sweat-soaked towels in the trash and left Bergy in the lurch as he activated a portal back to the store. He was a man on a mission as he exited into the parking lot, and once he was outside, he activated his visor and toggled the settings on his gauntlet to uncover glitch residue. The settings took effect immediately, and Mitch was greeted with the sight of a green trail that formed a half circle around the storefront. However, what really captured his attention was the green trail leading away from the strip mall and towards the electrical pole across the street. The trail went cold a few feet in front of the pole, but when Mitch looked up at the wires, another trail of green revealed itself.

"Perfect." Mitch jumped into his van and synced up his gauntlet with the CPU. When he did, the green trails were overlaid onto the windshield, providing him with a direct path to the glitch. He was on the road in seconds as he followed the trail, the path of which took him east towards the outskirts of town. Mitch realized exactly what this meant, and he gripped the steering wheel a little tighter as he continued on. The trail extended for another five miles before it stopped at a pole across the street from a vacant farmhouse; Mitch would have cursed his luck if the trail went cold right there, but as luck would have it, another green path led straight to the house's front door. He parked on the shoulder of the road, activated his arsenal, and headed inside.

The wooden floorboards creaked beneath his feet as Mitch entered the living room of the house, dual-wielding his plixel guns. His teeth were clenched and beads of sweat trickled down his face as he scanned the room for activity, both with his eyes and the scanner on his gauntlet. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, save for two chairs facing each other in the middle of the room. Mitch eyed them with confusion as he headed to the kitchen. A double and triple check ensued as Mitch picked the room apart for activity while mumbling "Keep your eyes peeled" to himself, with the words pulling double duty as not just a pep talk, but a warning.

"Remember, this is how it starts," Mitch mumbled. "The booby trap is in the bathroom. Just stay out of there, keep exploring the house and you'll find him." His hands began to tremble as he examined the dining room, unaware of the presence lurking behind him. It vanished into the power socket as Mitch's search turned up nothing, and he headed back into the living room and up the stairs to the second floor. He kicked the door to the first bedroom open and was ready to fire, but the room was clean. Every muscle in his body was on alert as he whirled around and kicked in the door behind him, revealing another empty bedroom. Mitch entered the room and scanned the perimeter, but then he heard a loud scratching noise coming from the closet. He holstered the gun in his left hand and grabbed the knob, steeling himself as best he could for whatever lay in wait. "One..."

Mitch's heart was in his throat as he tightened the grip on his remaining gun. "Two..."

This was it. Mitch Williams versus The Neurosurgeon. The best Glitch Tech versus Near Scream's most dangerous, devious boss. Time to bring him down. "THREE!"

Mitch flung the door open and began to fire, but all that did was scare the culprit - a small raccoon - out of the closet and down the stairs. All the tension left Mitch's body as he let out a harsh exhalation of breath and turned to leave, saying, "Nerds... just an animal." He had every intention of continuing his search, but as soon as he stepped into the hallway, an arm wrapped around his neck and enveloped him in a chokehold. Mitch let out a grunt of effort and brandished his weapon, but the assailant slammed his hand into the wall and forced him to drop the gun. Thinking on his feet, Mitch readied his gauntlet to fire, but the assailant used their free hand to force Mitch's onto his right knee. Within seconds, he was on the floor as the attacker drove him down, forcing him to kneel on his own hand while the attacker knelt on the back of his calf, keeping his gauntlet pinned down. Brute force was the only strategy left as Mitch opened his mouth and sank his teeth into the skin of the assailant's arm, and when he did, he felt the points of knuckles digging into the back of his neck as his attacker applied more pressure. To make matters worse, they didn't even react to the bite as Mitch began to flail wildly in an attempt to hit something and get free. The assailant just tightened his grip as Mitch's vision began to blur and his strikes grew weaker and weaker. After a minute of struggling, the chokehold did its job as Mitch went limp in the attacker's grip. The assailant put two fingers to the side of Mitch's neck and checked his pulse.

"Heartbeat's normal," they said. "And now... I play the waiting game."