//------------------------------// // Press Start to Begin! // Story: Character Unlocked: Button Mash! // by 4428Gamer //------------------------------// Knock Knock Knock! “Come on Zeke, you need to wake up! You need to leave for school in fifteen minutes!” “Ugh…” I moaned, sitting up from bed after a few seconds of lying there. Why did I actually help them all the way until three o’clock on a school night? I can’t even feel my fingers, I’m so tired. I went ahead and figured I was just really tired, which I was, as I looked around to help wake up a little more. My room wasn’t exactly clean, but I didn’t care much. It wasn’t dirty either, so my parents would let it pass. As I kept looking around, I couldn’t help but notice something else was different. My room and everything in it looked a little...Bigger? I was sure that my eyes couldn’t be fooling me, but rubbing them to be sure I saw it was all the same size. Big. I just shook my head at it all. I just woke up, why else would everything seem a little off right now? So knowing I had to wake up before I got ready for school, I reached over towards my mini-fridge that was right beside my bed. It doubled as a nightstand too with the lamp on top of it, but I didn’t care. I was just after what was in the fridge. Diet Coke. The one thing that woke me up in the morning. Only, something was a little weird about that too. I was able to open my fridge just fine, but getting the can of soda was hard...No, frustrating...No, impossible. I could feel the metal coldness on the end of my arm, but for some reason, couldn’t pick it up. So to help get a better look at it, I literally rolled out of my bed and landed on all fours in front of my mini-fridge to see what was going on here. But at that point, it didn’t take me long to figure that out. Because out of the corner of my eye, I saw my closet doors. They were made to easily slide open, and the whole door itself had a mirror from top to bottom. So it was pretty hard not to see my reflection. Because it was impossible to see my reflection. Right ahead of me reflecting off the mirror was a figure. A small figure that stared right back at me. Copying my blinking, breathing, and jaw-dropped mouth. Because ahead of me was a literal animal. One that had chocolate brown fur, and auburn colored hair with an ever spinning propeller hat on its head. And as I moved my left arm up, it moved its front left arm up. Following me exactly as I moved my arm forward towards the mirror. And as I made contact with the mirror, I saw that at the end of my arm, was a hoof. Identical to the reflection. Of me. I slowly put my hoof back on the ground and slowly closed my mouth. Staring at the reflection for as long as I possibly could before something snapped me out of it. Knock Knock Knock! “Zeke?! Come on, you need to get up! You only have eight minutes before the bus!” “M-mom…” I called out, knowing she could hear me since I didn’t hear her walk away from the door. But I did hear Button’s voice, the exact one from Button’s Adventures, call out in place of my own voice. “I don’t think I should go to school today…” After a slight pause, I heard her groan in annoyance. “Zeke, it’s just puberty! All teenage boy’s voices will get messed up like that! That’s no reason to miss a day of school! Especially since you have a French test today!” “Mère! Parle le français est la moindre de mes problèmes!” I called out. Not daring to take my eyes off the mirror. “Ugh! What are you even talking abo-!” As soon as she opened the door herself, she saw me on the floor. All two feet of me. “Wha...What?...” “Is this reason enough to skip school?!” I asked her with a wide-eyed expression. Of course, the talking part about my whole situation just made her freak out even more. “AH! You can talk! And-and-what did you do to my son?!” She asked me, taking a step back from me. “Mom! I am Zeke! What’s going on?!” I asked, as if she’d actually respond to that with a good answer. Still, what else would I tell her? BARK! BARK-BARK! At that moment, answering my mom’s scream of complete fear, our dogs came running towards my room. An Eighty-five pound Boxer named Apollo, and a sixteen pound black fur pug named Gremlin. Bursting in on the scene, they saw me and thought one single thing. ‘Protect Mommy!’ So not even questioning it, they both scrambled to reach me first. “AH!” I yelled out, trying to jump away from the dogs. Luckily, my mom grabbed Apollo by the collar. Keeping him from ripping me apart like his weekly chew-toy. Gremlin on the other hand… She pounced for me. Stopping behind me as she bit down on my hind leg in a way to attack me. That’s why we called her Gremlin, or why I called her Gremlin to be more exact. She always gnawed at peoples, and Apollo’s, legs in a way of attacking. In a way, she was a little scarier than Apollo. More so to the point where she always bullied him. Too bad I was the next victim. “OW! OW! Cut it out Gremlin! It’s me!” I kept yelling out in attempt to get her to stop. Sadly, that didn’t work out so well as she kept on trying to bite my leg off. So I quickly shook her off and crawled up the dog steps that led up to my bed as best I could. Giving me the higher ground and advantage. Not only that, but I was still her primary owner. So I knew just what made her calm down. No matter what was going on. And the instant she ran up the steps and onto the bed, I called out to her again. “Pizza.” At that moment, she stopped growling and perked her head up at me. Taking a second look at me. “Yes Grem. It’s me! Zeke!” I told her, raising my hoof slowly to try and pet her. But since I was so new to the four leg thing, I fell to the side from the not so stationary bed of mine. This let Grem come near me and sniff my face. And after a good ten seconds of this, she started licking me. “AH! Ew, Gremlin! Stop licking me!” I called out, rolling back up to see Apollo still growling at me with his hackles raised. Good thing I knew how to let him know I was me. “Apollo! Calm your fur!” I ordered. Making him stop growling for a few seconds as he thought it over. I was the only one that ever said that. And Apollo was the only one that knew the command. Still, that didn’t keep him from growling again. “Calm...Your fur!” I ordered again, making him stop again. This time, tilting his head a bit to the right as he heard me say it just like always. Knowing it wasn’t exactly safe, I inched towards the end of the bed carefully. Extending my hoof slowly to pet his face. My mom loosened her grip a bit, but kept a good hold on him. He sniffed my hood just like Gremlin did, then realized that I was Zeke. I guess since I was still in bed when I became Button Mash, my bed rubbed off on me or something and covered me in my original scent. That, or their fur that was all over my covers made them think I’m in the pack or something. “Zeke?... Is that really you?” My mom finally asked, loosening Apollo’s grip further. “Yeah...At least...I’m me in my mind?…” I honestly didn’t know how this worked. All I knew right now, is that I was Button Mash. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But I was Button Mash.