Beams of light broke up the darkness, shining over old arcade games. One of John's connections had dialled Dean's number in a worried tangent over his machines being 'haunted'; strange things were happening at his quaint retro arcade in Philadelphia which had forced him to close shop. No deaths due to the weird stuff happening after hours but the owner was still concerned so they showed up and Allie had to admit she was pretty cool with it considering their general alternatives nowadays, this felt like a goddamn vacation.
"I'm not seeing anything but this brings me back." All the classics surrounded them, unplugged of course but Allie definitely wanted to play. "Yo —- they're only fifty cents! What a steal. This guy's gonna go bankrupt."

Sam stopped walking, throwing an arm out in front of his older brother before Dean could race to start up the machines. If there was one weakness that Dean had it was 8-bit graphics and a joystick (or buttons). "We don't have any change." Not true but it would hopefully deter him.

Dean frowned albeit a bit childishly. So close… right there… Pacman… "Alls, do you have an—" He started but was cut off nearly instantly by her voice.

"No." Allie looked over at Sam and they met eyes, nodding in commitment to their lies. "Spent it all on the jukebox yesterday. And tampons." Good sell. He wouldn't ask if she brought up Aunt Flow.

Sam stepped forward to lead the trio knowing Dean would somehow find a way to obtain the money needed; best to keep him in the middle until he got over it.

They walked aimlessly through the small business for what felt like an hour due to their boredom. Dean finally sighed loudly. "Let's just sit and stake it out all night. The guy had no proof anyway. Maybe some teenagers just keep breakin' in." All Terry, the owner, had stated was things were moving during closing hours. Didn't exactly seem like a case but Allie had made them show up. He didn't know why, lately it was like she needed anything that could be an easy hunt and he wasn't going to refuse her a little breathing room.

Sam nodded in agreement and the beams from their flashlights adjusted off of the machines and onto the nearby pizza area only to be met by the image of a gigantic ape holding a barrel standing in front of the cashout counter. Bad pixel count and all.

Allie gulped. "That is either a teenager in a very expensive monkey costume — or it's Donkey Kong." probably something she had never expected to say but then again most of the time all of her expectations were… beat. The game character wasn't paying any attention to them… it was just… walking around with the object above its head.

Dean's eye twitched with confusion. "Yeah…" He spoke gruffly. "Wasn't one of my favorites." He commented as the monkey stumbled around on thick legs. His overconfidence would be their downfall. Allie had whispered, but Dean hadn't.

The kong made a not-so-graceful adjustment and turned to them, blurry face contorting in anger before strengthening its stance.

Allie tensed. "He's doing it." The thing from the game. She wasn't a high-score champion or anything but she knew damn well when Mr. Kong was about to fuck someone up. "We should run." How were they going to defeat a video game character? If Kong was even real… Her eyes scanned the room for a projector only to come up empty-handed. The materialized animation let out a cry of anger and her eyes widened. Did that happen in the game? She didn't know. "LIKE. NOW. RUN NOW."

The three took off in separate ways, listening as the giant ape came thundering after them. Not smart to split off, they rarely did it but for this - they just weren't coordinated enough! They had no practice with anything close to this! Allie dove behind a wall that led to the boy's bathroom — labelled 'Boys Bay'. She audibly groaned at the title and rolled her eyes, only to notice her own gentlemen had not joined her. "Shit…" she whispered, hushed tone barely rendering the word at all.

Nearby Dean had tucked himself in the small birthday party kitchen. Pizza boxes were strewn about and the silence was cut by the sound of a slushie machine whirring in the corner. Donkey Kong. What were their lives? Goddamn apocalypse was knocking at their doorstep and here they were attempting to hunt a nostalgic ape. "Great. Now I'm alone. Am I the only one that's watched Scooby-Doo?!" Never split up!
He could hear Kong tumbling through the arcade. The sound of items scattering and clanging faded further away and Dean let out a sharp breath. He positioned himself tight against the wall and took a short look around the floor only to catch Sam's eye from across the room.

Sam's jaw tightened at the sight of the character moving awkwardly around close by, smashing into things. The pixels faded whenever he came in contact but soon arrived back, maybe that meant something. He attempted to convey his thoughts to Dean without actually verbalizing anything. "Throw something at it!" He mouthed from across the room, motioning with his hand towards the large monkey.

Dean shook his head, unable to understand what the fuck Sam was doing. "What?" his younger brother looked like an idiot, though, that wasn't any different from usual. Haha. Dean stared at him blankly before furrowing his eyebrows.

Sam grew frustrated with the older Winchester's inability to comprehend him. "THROW. SOMETHING. AT. THE. MONKEY." his head gestured towards Kong vibrantly. His brother could be such a goddamn ignoramus sometimes it was a wonder both of them were still fucking alive. Okay. Maybe they were both just frustrated. Best to cool off.

Dean stood and threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. Sam was across the fucking room! He could barely see shit. "WHAT?!"

In the time that Dean and Sam had been silently arguing Allie arrived beside Dean. "He's telling you to throw something at the monkey." Her tone was unusually casual despite the situation they were currently facing, a hand on her hip as if it was any other Tuesday. She watched as he jumped in surprise at her intrusion and her head tilted. "Did I… just scare you?"

Dean growled. "You snuck up on me! How did you even get over here?" The damn woman was light as a feather on her feet. Usually, that was a good thing but right now it was pissing him off. He hated it when Allie saw him scared. The thought alone made his chest prick with irritation, feet pushing flat into the floor in an effort to force out some of the frustration.

She shrugged. "I walked." Kong wasn't paying attention and she wasn't going to stick around in the 'Boys Bay', no way. "Boys are disgusting, by the way." Just yesterday she had never been in a men's bathroom before. That had changed. Not a good thing. How could a bathroom smell like old socks and asparagus?
"Are you going to throw something or…?" Allie attempted to get their conversation back to its original destination. Blue eyes watched as Dean threw a pop can at Kong, smacking him between the shoulder blades. The pixels shifted under the dim lighting before restabilizing. "An empty can of Pepsi, seriously?!"

Dean groaned and turned to face her. "Shut up, Alls! What do you want me to do, shoot it?!"
Allie rolled her eyes. "Yep! That's what I meant, you're right! I thought you should shoot it!" Sarcasm dripped from her words.

"You're such a rude woman sometimes!"
"Yeah? Well, I wouldn't have to be if you had a brain!"
"I have a brain!"
"Start thinking then!"
"Shut up, Allie!"

The two went back and forth until the sound of a mildly silenced gunshot rang through the arcade.

Sam twitched with annoyance and ran a hand over his face as he lowered his gun to his left thigh. The pixels disappeared but who knew how long they had? "Can both of you just be quiet!" The two never fucking shut up. He loved both of them to bits but man, their bickering could wear out anyone. "Which one of the games is Donkey Kong?" he hoped that they'd be able to just break the game and call it a night. Now that Dean and Allie had started, they would probably go on for hours. Sam would have to put in his headphones until morning to get some semblance of peace.

They crouched around the arcade in silence while attempting to find the named object. Soon they turned a corner and Dean noticed it in the far side of the business, tucked away. Without a word, he pressed against the wall with his pistol raised and moved beside the Donkey Kong machine. Unplugging it didn't feel like the best option considering the item could have been cursed. That was basically what he was rolling with at this point. Haunted? By Donkey Kong? Not likely. The older brother thought of shooting the cord but stopped at the sound of Allie yelling something. He turned for a moment, green eyes widening at the sight of her in a fighting position against…

Chun-Li.

Like… from Street Fighter.

"Alls…" He started, though the air no longer felt as though it held comedic undertones. Things had transitioned to tense violence as he watched Allie bounce from foot to foot. At least Donkey Kong was unstable on his legs and uncoordinated with… just a barrel. Chun-Li had been designed for fighting skills. That was a little concerning. Dean rose to his feet slowly, suddenly overtaken with a sense of protection over his blonde companion and hyperfocused.

The women circled one another, eyes dark and unyielding. "Guess this makes me Cammy." A short grin and Allie inhaled sharply. "She was always my favourite. How's your dad doing?" She snorted. Okay, not the best retort considering the knowledge behind the reference but still. Not easy to focus when the first famous female street fighter is staring straight at you and about to full-out kick your ass.
Allie pulled from the knowledge she had. Chun-Li was a wonderful playable character but all of her moves were leg-related. Unfortunately for Allie… her own skills from cheerleading and gymnastics lent themselves to frequent leg days. Her upper strength wasn't as formidable but hopefully, it would assist.
The character finally attempted a strike and Alice performed a rather optimal flip. Not bad considering it had been a while! The blonde cracked her neck. "Bring it you thick thighed bitch!" This was kind of a fantasy, actually. Well.. it would be if she didn't get her pussy beat and handed to her.

Soon the two girls were in an all-out brawl. Allie took a furious kick to the tit. That fuckin' hurt! There were some words that she wanted to say but… best not to add them for shock value. This wasn't that kind of entertainment. Finally, Allie had enough as blood began to seep from her nose and drip onto the glow-in-the-dark carpeting. What a mockery! Her following moves weren't exactly classy. College fights with other women also known as 'bitch fights' had given her… experience in winning. Not that she was proud of those memories but sometimes you just had to stick up for yourself. "Alright! Enough of this!" A sharp yell filled the arcade and Allie raced forward, snatching the other woman's hair as pixels fluttered in and out. Soon her fist was colliding over and over again with the character's face, though each time there was any sort of a connection Chun-Li's pixels faded. Thank goodness her health meter showed.

"You must enjoy being beat! Let me remodel your face one more time!" A direct quote from the game and Allie pulled her fist back before offering one last hard pound into the other woman's nose, draining the meter to a perfect end and causing the Chun-Li to disappear. The fight wasn't without its losses though as Allie stumbled back and placed her hands on her knees in exhaustion from being kicked over and over. Blue eyes flashed to take in the brothers as her chest heaved up and down just in time to see them decimating the Donkey Kong machine.

Okay, maybe the machines were haunted. Cursed didn't make sense. Anyway, how the hell were they gonna fuck up these machines enough to make sure they were never used again? By taking nearby baseball bats to them of course! The arcade would look like a smash room by the time they were done with it and Dean was all too happy to let out some pent-up aggression. With the thick wooden bat in hand, his arms forcefully dropped over and over again, knocking the old game to the ground and repeatedly denting its exterior with satisfying thuds. Its screen eventually gave way to the harsh abuse and cracked. Pieces of plastic and metal were spat up into the air and eventually, shavings of wood from the beaten-up bat littered the carpeting.

Maybe he should have stopped at three or four hits. The game wouldn't have been salvageable at that point but Dean continued. His features morphed into an expression of anger, pure disdain. The bat was idly breaking beneath his calloused palms but that factor went unnoticed as Dean continued wailing on the only thing that he could. He hadn't performed this much-misplaced aggression since taking a crowbar to Baby after his father died. Now there was a plan for him to be some giant importance to the apocalypse. His whole life had been parading around as someone else's soldier, whether it was John, Civilians, or Michael himself. God? Angels? All of that shit was weaselling into his psyche and rather than cry about it or lean on anyone Dean went to his immediate setting: anger. Pure rage.

Here they were in this fucking arcade completing a random job while the world pounded down on him with the intent of using his body like a moveable blood bag. A puppet on a string.

Blood oozed and stained into the wooden handle from calloused palms, a result of friction from skin moving haphazardly against the rough timber. Still, within his consuming fury, Dean remained aware and careful of touching the object at his feat, if only to be cautious and not spread any sort of further haunting.

He froze mid-swing at the feeling of a soft hand on his shoulder, fingertips lightly caressing at his collarbone.

"Maverick?" The nickname was gentle as it fell from pink parted lips. Sam and herself had been standing watching Dean slam down on Donkey Kong for roughly ten minutes. Both of the machines had been destroyed a while ago. Really after only a minute or two of effort. Both characters were long gone and the problem appeared to be over. Well, their video game problem at least. She didn't come forward at first because… a part of Allie knew that her friend needed this outlet. The abuse wasn't because of the haunting. They'd known each other too long to believe such a simple reason. A slight pause and her own face softened. "You okay?"

He stilled for a moment and swallowed at the realization of the scene he had just displayed for them to witness. Soon he was throwing the mangled baseball bat on the floor (if one could even call it that anymore). His lips pursed, jaw clenched from the thought of how to approach answering her. "I…" Dean trailed off and ran frustrated hands through his short hair. "I'm fine, Al. The game's broken. Had to make sure it was too far gone." Was that true? Or he was the one who was too far gone? Once a righteous man, now the earth's undoing.

The room was quiet for a few long seconds and Allie sighed, swallowing as she wondered how to phrase what was coming to mind. "Have you ever seen Signs?"

"What?" He spoke in confusion, eyebrows furrowing at the seemingly random question.

"The movie - Signs. It has Mel Gibson." A film about aliens, though the undertones were religious in nature. Allie had taken a liking to the film despite its box office ratings. Mainly due to her own experiences with faith and her…now lack of hope.

"I… No, I don't think so." He replied simply, not quite understanding where his best friend was coming from - especially at such a tense moment.

"In the movie… his character… keeps losing. Just keeps losing. Their family goes through… a lot. Death. Attacks…" A pause as Allie gathered herself. "Anyway. He has a brother. A brother who played baseball. You know, professionally. Best hitter. Retired though. Because… he would always just hit. Just hope for the best. Just try." Why had her next words affected things so much? Where had they come from? She didn't quite know, but it was a show of acceptance for his pain nonetheless, no matter what method he needed to use to get it out.

"Their family gets attacked and he sees the bat on the wall and you know what he says to his brother?"
"Swing away, Merrell." Blue eyes flickered over to his, maintaining eye contact with him in an intense form of connection.
"So, swing away." Her other hand handed him a large axe that Sam had found in the backroom to destroy the Street Fighter machine.

She stepped back and rejoined Sam's side. Together they wrapped the Street Fighter game in a tarp and pulled it outside to trash it, leaving Dean to let out his inner turmoil while he had the chance.