Cole grunted, shifting his weight as his right hand slipped momentarily. He took a deep breath and steadied himself. Then, he strained to reach higher and continued climbing.
He had shed the heavy samurai armor as soon Nya had walked away and ran to the back of the building. Sizing it up, Cole had found a decent climbing path to the top.
It had taken the whole day but now he was at the top. Cole heaved himself onto a narrow ledge. He peered through a window and his mouth dropped.
A sea of metallic snake eggs led to a short staircase. Up a few steps was an elevated platform in the middle of the room. Floating above the platform was a shiny golden medal, the Medal of Heroes.
Cole whistled in amazement. "Wow."
Down below, the samurai were returning to their starting positions. The game announcer was saying calmly, "Attention, the arcade is now closed. All characters are free to go. The arcade is now closed."
"Did you get a load of Dareth today, sis?" Kai said, laughing and swinging his sword around carelessly. "He was even flightier than normal."
Nya stopped and tilted her head to to the side, listening intently. "Shut up!" She barked at her troops.
Silence. Kai stepped up next to her, at attention instantly.
Nya squinted at the game's entrance tunnel. She twirled her daggers expertly, calling back, "CySnake on the loose."
A strange sound came from the tunnel and a shadowed figure appeared.
"Attack!" Nya yelled.
The samurai charged the figure but he sprang into action, bouncing and dodging. It was immediately obvious the figure wasn't a CySnake but the samurai were all too revved up to care.
Within a minute, Kai had tackled the figure, pinned him down, and sat on him proudly. "You want me handle this guy?"
Nya groaned and walked over, pulling her brother up. She studied the small man who had invaded their game. He was dressed almost entirely in blue and held a gold hammer to his chest protectively. His eyes were huge and scared.
She leaned down to the man's face, bopping him on the nose with the butt of one of her daggers. "Nice jumping, tiny. Start talking."
"I'm Fix-It Jay Jr., ma'am," the man stammered, pushing the weapon away from his face, "from the game, Fix-It Jay, Jr! And-"
Jay froze. Moving the dagger handle had given him his first real look at Nya's face, and it was having quite an effect on him.
"And? And what?" Kai asked suspiciously.
"Jimminy jamminy..." Jay murmured, absolutely starstruck. "Look at that high definition. Your face! It's amazing..."
Nya blinked, unsure how to respond. "Uhhhh. Flattery doesn't charge these batteries, civilian." But she blushed and helped him up, sheathing her weapons.
Kai wasn't too happy with the way this little man was staring at his sister. The samurai poked him in the ribs. "State your business."
"Oh. Right," Jay remembered, not looking away from Nya. "I'm looking for my colleague, Crush It Cole. He left our game!"
"Not our problem," Kai said nonchalantly.
"Cole abandoned his game. How do you not see how serious that is?" Jay said desperately.
"Like this." Kai tapped a finger on his chin mock-thoughtfully. "Huh. That doesn't seem that serious."
Nya punched him in the side and he staggered around, groaning exaggeratedly. "Uh! Ow! Help me!" Each samurai Kai got close to gently shoved him away and chuckled, until eventually Kai collapsed in a heap, gasping melodramatically. Nya laughed.
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, right," Nya said quickly, turning back to Jay. "I haven't seen anybody since this morning. Sorry."
"Well, Q*Bert saw Cole come in here," Jay said slowly.
Kai scoffed from his spot on the ground. "Impossible. Nothing gets past us."
A crash resounded through the game. All the samurai turned towards the tower. A shadow loomed on the top floor, made huge by the tower lights.
Jay raised an eyebrow triumphantly. "Is that nothing?"
Cole punched the window one more time clear out the glass shards left behind. He stepped through the makeshift door, brushing off his hands.
"Okay, let's see," he thought out loud. Studying the maze of eggs, he saw a possible route.
Cole took a step forward on tip-toe, wobbling slightly. He took another step, and another. "Nice little eggs... Excuse me..."
There was a solid clump in front of him. He couldn't walk through. Cole crouched, then leapt over them, eyes squeezed shut and-
His feet found solid ground and he fell forward onto the steps. Cole straightened and looked back. He had cleared the last eggs. "Yes!"
Cole climbed the steps and stood beneath the medal. Something clicked under his feet and a huge holographic samurai flickered on in front of him. More smaller holograms surrounded him, watching respectfully.
"Congratulations, samurai," the giant hologram proclaimed. "It is my honor to bestow upon you the Medal of Heroes."
"Wow," Cole said again.
The medal slowly began to float down to him. As it did, Cole closed his eyes.
He imagined having his own penthouse party, being on the dance floor surrounded by Nicelanders who are actually nice to him. He saw a cake with a handsome Cole on top, wearing his Medal of Heroes and being hugged by the Nicelander figurines. He saw Gene outside in the brick pile looking longingly up at the party through binoculars and crying.
The medal landed around Cole's neck gently. "No way. Whoa! Whoa ho ho!"
"Ten hut!" The giant hologram yelled. The other holo-samurai snapped to attention as heroic music began to play. "History will long revere your courage and sacrifice."
Cole started proudly down the steps, smiling and waving to the holograms.
"You have etched in the rock of virtue, a legacy beyond compare," the samurai hologram continued.
Cole laughed, delighted. "Thank you. Thanks guys. At ease!"
The giant samurai just kept talking and talking. "You are the universe's greatest hero."
CRACK! Cole froze and looked down. His left foot had landed on a stray egg. A thin web of cracks spread out over the egg.
"Oops," Cole said slowly. He leaned down for a closer look. (In the background, the holo-samurai was still expanding on how perfect Cole was.)
The egg split in half and a tiny purple snake crawled out. It blinked cutely and stretched its metal wings, testing them and hovering in the air. Then it attacked.
"...The living embodiment of all that this corps represents," the giant holographic samurai continued. "Bravery,"
Cole screamed as the snake attached itself to his head and clawed at him.
"Integrity,"
He was rolling around on the floor, cracking more eggs as he tried desperately to get the CySnake off his face.
"Grace under pressure,"
He stumbled around randomly, releasing tons of baby snakes from their eggs. He accidentally stumbled right into an escape pod.
"And above all, dignity."
Cole shrieked like a little girl as he sat down heavily in the escape pod, flailing as he tried to pull the CySnake off his face. A harness snapped on over him and the doors closed. A voice announced, "Escape pod activated."
The pod's engines fired up, the entire game rumbled, and Cole and the baby snake went rocketing away, smashing into each other. "Get it off me!"
Kai stood up, brushing himself off. He looked up at Cole barreling down towards them and gasped. "Incoming!"
He and the majority of the samurai dove to the ground and covered up. Nya and Jay were too busy staring at each other and looked up a few seconds later.
Time seemed to slow down as the pod nearly ran over Nya and Jay. They stared in at Cole and the Cysnake. Cole and the Cysnake stopped their fight for a second and stared out at them.
Then things sped up again. The escape pod flew out the game's door. The samurai picked themselves up and stared after it.
"CySnake," Nya breathed.
"Cole!" Jay yelped.
Seconds later, the pod blasted into the terminal, spiraling like an out-of-control bottle rocket off the floor and walls. Characters all over the place looked around in terror. Cole tried desperately to pry the snake off of his face. With a loud 'pop!', it let go.
"Yes!" Cole cheered. "Ha ha!"
The CySnake shook itself and promptly doubled in size.
Cole's jaw dropped. "Oh no."
The snake jumped back onto his face as the space pod rocketed into the black tunnel of another game. The darkness suddenly turned pink. Globs of pink goo stuck to the window and blocked the ways.
An announcer's voice stated calmly, "Engine Failure. Engine Failure."
Cole screamed through the snake as the pod bounced wildly through a candy-coated country before crash-landing and skidding to a stop at the edge of a cliff. He slammed forward onto the dashboard and something beeped. Cole managed to pry the CySnake off of him long enough to get a quick glance at the dash. The eject symbol was blinking red.
"Okay, that's bad," he observed a moment before he and the snake were catapulted out of the ship and through the air into a thick forest. "Whoaaaaaa!"
Cole managed to grab the top of a tree and hold on, stopping his flight.
The CySnake continued on and slammed heavily into a nearby tree with a sickening crunch. It fell into a green pool and sunk limply, bubbling.
Cole laughed, exhilarated by relief. "So long, sucker!"
He tried to wave jauntily but his hand couldn't quite separate from the tree trunk. Cole looked at it. The 'tree' was actually a giant, sticky candy cane.
He carefully pulled his hand away and turned around slowly, seeing for the first time where he had ended up. Cole gasped.