Later...
Atop of a building, Aaron's looking down at the street geared up.
He looked up it then down it, then back up it, then down it, then saw the car and the Techs' vans coming up behind it. The car was shooting wildly at everything in sight.
When Aaron saw it, he smiled and said, "Quick stretch *stretches*, and here we go." before running as the three vehicles sped by.
He ran straight past the two vans and somersaulted over the G-6155 Interceptor and ran backwards in front of it. He dodged left and right from the car's gunshots.
"Missed me! Missed again! Missed me a third- Okay, this is getting boring."
Aaron backflipped and as the car came, he landed on the hood. He casually stepped over to one of the guns on the side and reached down and started pulling it out.
"You don't mind if I rip your guns out do you? *yanks out gun* Who am I kidding? You're a car. You don't care."
When he yanked the gun out, the car started glitching a bit. With both hands, Aaron crushed the gun and it turned into electricity and went into his gear. He went to the other one and did the same thing.
The car was then swerving left and right on the street. The car suddenly let out a smoke screen, which made the Techs' vans come to a halt.
"Time to put on the brakes."
He looked ahead and saw a speed bump coming up. Smirking, he faced his back to the street ahead, and when the Interceptor hit it, it flew Aaron in the air, flinging him over the car and behind it. He used his new grapples and grabbed the back of the car as his feet made contact with the ground.
He was pulling the car, anchoring it as the wheels kept spinning. And with a swift yank, he pulled the car towards him, and with his gear, he gave a punch that made the glitch into nothing but pixels, which then went into Aaron's gear.
"*claps* Whoo! I call that a workout." He pressed a button on his visor that made a screen of Phil appear. "Yo, Phil, the Interceptor's outta action." "Good work, kid. Not bad for your first glitch." "Third. Third glitch."
Hearing tires approaching behind him, Aaron said, "Hey, Phil, before I potentially get reset or something, could you tell your team who I am before they get out. Not in the mood to explain myself and for them to not believe me." "Sure, hold on."
Aaron said to T.A.R.I., "T.A.R.I., how's the arcade looking?"
"EVERYTHING LOOKS OKAY. I FOUND OUT THAT THERE'RE AROUND SIX GLITCHED GAMES IN THAT ARCADE. ALL OF THEM ARE MIDWAY TREASURES'."
"Got it. Phil, send the Techs the location, I'll meet 'em there." "Alright."
Aaron ended the call and ran towards the arcade, almost making the vans go over when he ran by.
Aaron was waiting outside the arcade, tapping his foot impatiently. The main downside of being so fast is the fact that it takes so long for people to keep up.
At that moment, in came the two vans from earlier, two Glitch Techs came out of one, two out the other.
"Took ya long enough." he said with a smile, "Name's Aaron; new on the field, but not to stuff like this."
The boy that came out of the second van said, "Hey, I'm Haneesh. *gestures to everyone* This Zahra, and over there are Five and Miko."
"Nice to meet you all. Now, shall we?"
Aaron was leading as everyone else followed him, he opened the door and everyone got their gear ready, expecting something to jump out.
Everything looked alright. It was dark, but luckily, their gear could emit some illumination.
"Okay, there's six glitches around here. Hopefully they aren't as bad as the Interceptor."
"You mean that car?" Five said.
"Yep. This old arcade's full of games from the retro age. The Interceptor from a game called Agent Chaser. It's based off a popular agent movie, but they couldn't get a license to it. The only reason I know that is because I used to play retro games when I was little. The reason I got into the later games. *points to arcade console* That's it right there."
Said console was next to an elevator and had a glitching screen.
"ON YOUR LEFT!"
Hearing the voice, they all moved to avoid some rapid fire coming from a doorway to their left.
They got up to it, and hiding behind it, they saw that the blasts were coming from a robot of some kind.
"Bototron: 2084'" Aaron said, knowing the game it was from, "You'd have to play as that robot and blast the N.P.C.s as the waves progressed. This guy only needs three hits, these characters in these games don't have a lot of lives. He's quick though."
As if to prove his point, the glitch moved around, ready to shoot anything that would move.
"So, who wants to take him?" "On it." Zahra went in and went blasting at the glitch with her gauntlet.
"Hey, check that out." Looking where Five was pointing they saw what looked to be a knight on an ostrich in the next room through the doorway.
"Hey, that thing's from Clashers. It was one of the few games that involved flying that didn't take place in space. You'd have to play as that knight while hitting the other knights with your sword off their giant buzzards."
To prove his point, the knight's ostrich took flight, then came down to land.
"I got this." Haneesh went on to deal with the knight.
Aaron noticed a staircase in the room, and lead Five and Miko towards it.
They were now in the next room that had a racecar glitch driving in a loop in the room's bottom level. On the middle level, was a doorway that had a warrior, wizard, valkyrie, and an elf. Near the top level was a spaceship, moving back and forth behind a boiler and some piping.
In that order the games they came from were called Raceway, Dungeons, and Space Supporters.
"So, Aaron, what do we- Aaron?" Five said, seeing that Aaron was gone. He and Miko heard punching and looked on the second floor doorway, and saw Aaron fighting the group of four glitches.
"...I really like this guy." said Miko.
The two looked at each other and nodded before heading to deal with the ship and the car.
To make a long story short, they did it.
Everyone fought a glitch before fixing the damage each one caused. They all then met back at the elevator.
"THE LAST GLITCH IS SOMEWHERE ON THE ARCADE'S ROOF. BE CAREFUL THOUGH, I DON'T KNOW WHAT COULD BE UP THERE."
"Hey Aaron, who is that?"
To answer Zahra's question, Aaron pressed a button on his visor which showed a projection of T.A.R.I..
"T.A.R.I., meet the group. Group, meet T.A.R.I.. She's my Turbo Artificial Rapid Intelligence system." "HI, EVERYONE."
After everyone said hi, all five of the teens went into the elevator and Five being the closest one, pressed the up button after Aaron closed the gate to it.
Midway from being to the top, Miko said Aaron, "Cool arm." "Thanks. Made it myself." "How'd you get it?" "Uh, complicated story."
The dialogue was interrupted by the elevator shifting and it coming to a sudden stop.
"Okay people, let's not make any sudden movements." Aaron said.
*BASH* A crack suddenly appeared on wall behind them.
"Scratch what I said, sudden movements!"
The crack became a huge hole in the wall and something big, brown, and hairy peeked it's red eye inside the hole making everyone but Aaron scream. The thing's face moved away before thumping was heard and it going away slowly.
"Out of all of the games in this arcade, it had to be one of my favorite retro games."
"And that would be?" said Zahra.
"I'll explain in a second. Okay, elevator doesn't work. T.A.R.I., does my grip function on my gear still work?"
"IT DOES."
Aaron jumped up and to everyone's surprise, he clung upside-down to the ceiling of the elevator.
Using his feet, he pushed open the ceiling hatch by swinging through it.
Seeing the state of the elevator shaft, he said looking back through the hatch opening, "Jammed, we can't go back down. Only option left is to go up, but the pulley's broken."
"So we're stuck?" Haneesh said.
"Who said we're stuck? Make room, then hold on!"
Aaron jumped back through the hatch and fists first, he went through the floor leaving a hole. He stuck to the elevator shaft below the elevator, and with the enhanced strength and speed from his Meta Gear, he pushed the elevator back upwards.
When they were at the top, everyone shook at the impact, the index and middle finger on Aaron's robotic arm glowed blue, and he traced them along the edge of the elevator, sealing it in place.
While doing so he said, "We have now reached, the top floor. Camping gear, office supplies, produce, and berserk gorillas."
Everyone laughed before stopping after realizing what the last thing he said was.
Five said, "'berserk gorillas'?"
"Yep." Aaron said, coming back through the hole, and leading everyone through the now open elevator, "That thing we saw was a King Kong-like gorilla from my favorite retro game called 'Berserk!'. You'd have the choice to play as the gorilla, a lizard monster, or a bipedal wolf creature, and play as them razing a high-rise city.
Not only can those things wreck the whole city, they can also destroy vehicles and eat and/or massacre people."
"...And this is your favorite, how?" Five asked again.
"I find carnage and destruction different when it comes to gaming. When I play games like that, (scary tone) there's no such thing as 'safe' *chuckles*...
(normal tone)...Anyway, enough mumbo-jumbo; where's this glitch at?"
They all spread out and looked around. This building was surprisingly tall for an arcade.
They found nothing...yet.
Looking at the glitching arcade game that was beside the elevator, Aaron thought out loud, "Sucks being the only one here without something to shoot with."
"IT'S OKAY, AARON, WE CAN FIX THAT. I HAVE THE DATA FROM THE WEAPONS OF THE GLITCHES YOU DEFEATED. AND FROM THE INTERCEPTOR, WE CAN MAKE YOUR OWN BLASTERS. I HAVE MOST OF THE DATA DOWNLOADED, BUT I'LL LET YOU DESIGN THE BLASTERS."
"Sweet! Thanks, T.A.R.I.."
Aaron pressed the symbol on the back of his cybernetic hand, and a holographic screen appeared. On it showed the G-6155 Interceptor's guns.
A bit of customizing with his normal hand by dragging and pressing on the screen a few times, and now they were a pair of dual blasters [Imagine two Alien Blasterers from AQWarriors but in blue].
He pressed the symbol on his arm again, making the screen disappear, and in seconds the blasters formed in Aaron's hands.
"T.A.R.I., I owe you one. *twirls blasters on fingers*" "ANYTIME, AARON.
*gasps* AARON! GET BACK!"
Aaron jumped back just in time to avoid a giant gorilla hand that almost grabbed him. The animal in question pulled itself up to show it's upper body before roaring, making Aaron cover himself. The Glitch Techs came over right as it came out it's mouth.
"Spread out and shoot it!"
Everyone did just that, and it was working...for a while. Right now, it's at a bit more than half health.
The berserk monster roared again before punching the building with it's huge fists, making the arcade crack and start to crumble.
They had to go. Now.
Everyone ran to the side that wasn't about to fall to the ground, but-
"Wait, where's-?"
Aaron looked back and saw Five and Miko still shooting at the glitch.
"*sigh* I got 'em." "Aaron, you don't have time!" Haneesh was cut off by Aaron speeding towards them. "Oh, right. Maybe you do."
The two Techs that were in danger, didn't even notice they were in danger until the stone they were standing on started to fall apart.
They tried to run, but they couldn't in time, and they fell with the rubble they were standing on as they screamed.
Aaron caught them just in time with his grapples. He pulled them up, but heard Five say, "Aaron! Throw us at him!"
Aaron caught on. They were gonna knock the glitch off the building.
"Okay! Hold on!"
He pulled them up, and spun around on his heels as quick as you could imagine.
"Three! Two! Now! *lets go*"
He threw the two at the glitch and Five blasted it in the face, then Miko brought out her hammer and whacked it in the face.
It was already at less than a third of it's health from the shooting it was getting, but from those two blows, all it needed was one more hit.
Aaron got into running position, cracked his neck, and smirked.
He sprinted forward, jumped up, and gave the glitch its final blows: first came a flashkick in the jaw, then he pulled himself towards it with his grapple, and with the other hand, he gave it a strong shockwave punch in the face.
That hit knocked it clean off the building!
When it hit the ground, it changed to normal: a silhouette of a man, before disintegrating into pixels and electricity.
Seeing the glitch be defeated made the five of them cheer.
After fixing the damage the glitch caused, and capturing said glitch, the five of them met up outside the arcade.
"Nice work out there, Aaron." Phil said, through the call between him and the Meta Runner.
"Eh, it was nothing, Phil. When you play games like these for a while, you kinda know what to do. And I'm universal, you know that. I'll play almost anything."
"Mhm. Your mom told me. See you later, kid."
"See ya. *ends call*"
As Aaron walked away to leave, he said to the Techs who were about to get in their vans, "To be continued?"
"You bet!" "Later, Aaron!" Haneesh and Miko said.
"See ya!" he then sprinted off.
"Whoa, he is fast." Miko said.
Aaron looked back and smiled as he kept running. This sure was the start of something.