//------------------------------// // Two Players...No Co-op Mode // Story: Character Unlocked: Button Mash! // by 4428Gamer //------------------------------// As we drove in our not-so-brand new truck, I had a lot on my mind at the moment. The nice doctor had given so much to two random fools that I was still counting it all up. First he gave me a free check-up, then let us have some dinner (even though I only got mash potatoes...The best mash potatoes ever!), a place to spend the night, and even then he helped us on the way out. Once his wife, who had to be one of the nicest tomboys I had ever met, heard about everything that happened, she even started helping out! She started by clearing out the cheese in my saddlebag and added three more apples that were now resting with the original two I had brought with me. Next, she and the doctor gave us a small jerry can to refill the truck once it ran out of gas. Meaning that we probably had just enough to reach the Florida/Georgia line if we drove straight there without any long detours. Honestly, for all those two did for us, I felt like a jerk trying to take it! I mean, we could’ve been two scam artists for all they know and they were still fine with all they gave away! Connor on the other hand -hoof?- no, hand, didn’t have a problem at all accepting all this stuff. He wasn’t like he was expecting it or anything, he was as thankful as I was, but he didn’t just took it all like it was free loot. That had been twenty minutes ago. After getting a little lost with the backroads, neither of us were paying attention on the way here, we had finally made it to the highway. Sooner or later, we’d have to stop by some kind of rest stop and get a map because the best we could do for directions was ‘Go north.’ As Connor drove, I sat in the passenger seat with the seat belt wrapped awkwardly around me. Since sitting human style was not comfy at all, that left me to sit on my haunches like ponies usually did in the show. So the waist part of the belt was resting along my front legs while the strap was uselessly hanging behind me. It was either that or have it choke me, and I wasn’t in the mood for more punishment. “Hey, uh, can you get the radio? The silence is killing me.” Connor spoke as he kept his eyes on the road. He looked pretty relaxed at the wheel, but it didn’t take much to know that it was an act. “Sure.” I couldn’t tell if it was just nerves, anxiety, or whatever, but I didn’t question it as I just pressed the power button, leaving it on whatever station it was on. “Luckily no one was hurt in the out-of-the-ordinary incident.” a lady’s voice concluded, talking about...Something apparently. “In other news, it seems that more and more individuals are being affected by these unexplainable transformations. As to how many have been effected is yet to be determined, but rumors have it that the number seems to be doubling by the day. “While no one seems to have any conclusion as to why this is happening, it seems that everyone has their own idea. Congressmen Jason Gardner, currently the only government official to be effected themselves, had this to say:” After the news lady paused to wait for the quote, Connor quickly reached over and twisted the knob that worked which station it was on. Making the station change to some random bad pop song. “Wha-Hey!” I glared towards him. “The heck man, I was listening to that!” I shouted, still trying to piece together the bit that I did hear. “Sorry, I can’t listen to that when I’m driving.” He held up one hand in defense as he kept his head trained at the road. I saw him trying to look at me out from the corner of his eyes, but he eventually gave up and kept focusing on the road. “Then why’d you tell me to turn the radio on?” I asked, groaning in annoyance as the only thing on the radio I actually wanted to hear was now gone. “Sorry, I meant the news.” He apologized. “I know that it’s important, but if we leave that on I don’t th-think I’ll look at the road.” He said, accidentally slipping up towards the end. He was starting to look nervous now. As if the guy that I had been forced to follow around had suddenly took a vacation. His right hand was starting to tremble, he was repeatedly smacking his lips and swallowing nervously, leading to him to quickly wipe his mouth before returning it to the wheel. To which he immediately tried to correct with perfection by putting his hands on ten and two. “Uh, makes sense, I guess.” I quickly nodded, deciding to calm down myself. I always worked the photo wall at weddings. And almost every time there were people that didn’t know how to pose, thought they blinked, instinctively put their hands in their pockets, anything that they were worried about, I learned how to spot it.. It was called being camera shy Connor, however, was driver shy. He was just as nervous as a man in front of a camera, and all the tells were there. He was trying to correct himself on every little thing, he kept his attention overly trained ahead of him instead of turning his head even the littlest bit, and his back was so straight you could’ve thought he had a piece of lumber in his shirt. Woah...He must be really freaked out about driving. He looks like a sweating robot or something. Button noticed it too. Whether that was from the memory he saw or if it was that noticeable, I couldn’t tell. It was always hard to tell apart obvious from subtle if you had gotten so used to spotting it generally. “That’s fine. Besides, I get why you wanna know about...Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you earlier, I went ahead and fixed your iPad while you were still in bed!” Connor told me, smiling a little as some of his nervousness washed away. “Fixed it?” I repeated. And not a second later, I cast a glance at him suspiciously. “It wasn’t broken before…” I told him slowly, not quite sure whether or not to be angry of anything. I didn’t want to be mad at him for something that he didn’t do. “What? No, not that.” He shook his head. “I mean I made it better. You didn’t have any internet on it, so I routed it to my parents’ account. Now you have 4G on you iPad.” “Wait, are you serious?” I turned my head entirely towards him in shock, but knowing that he wasn’t going to look me in the eye, I jumped down to the floor ahead of me and reached for my saddlebags that I had sitting in the corner. The rest of the stuff was all in the metal toolbox that was installed in the bed of the truck. The jerry can, Connor’s skateboard, and food. I still had the apples that the Doctor’s Wife gave me in the saddlebag, but they also gave Connor whatever dinner leftovers were left and a small bale of hay for me. Something I had to try later, probably. I carefully pulled out the iPad from my saddlebag and opened the flap of the black case so I could get to the screen. I never had set a password for it, so I unlocked it mindlessly and looked up to the top corner of it where I spotted the internet symbol showing all three bars. “You weren’t kidding, uh, t-thanks man.” I noted before testing it out further. I started by switching on one of the online games that was only on the iPad. It came out back in August so even though I never spent any money buying anything, I was leveled up well enough. Woah, what’s that game? “Clash of Clans. Came out last month.” I answered automatically. “What?” Connor asked, spending little time glancing over at me. “Huh?” I blinked at him. Recognizing how he sounded like he was in two different places at once. Or wait… “Button?” I called out, trying to figure out just where to be looking. Yeah, that was me. “So you were talking to me back at the ranch!” I yelled, making Connor flinch slightly. Luckily, the wheel didn’t jerk badly, but I still felt the truck flinch along with him a tad. “Ah! Dude!” Connor yelled, now very worried. “Sorry, my bad!” I apologized, all my anger now acting as fear. Normally, I was easy to tick off and had unlimited ammo when it came to sarcasm. But for right now, that ammo was wet gunpowder. Hey buddy, you got two Caraaaaazy~ Minutes to get to- “Not. Helping. Button.” I gritted through my teeth, going back and forth from angry to terrified. It was a really weird feeling to tell the truth, but for some reason I went back and forth between the two emotions pretty quick. Ahehe...Sorry. Anyway, how’s the game work? “Well, you build up a base, make an army, and send them out after someone else’s base. The game’s always online, so someone could attack you at any point. As long as you destroy half their stuff or take out their town center, you win the war.” Cool! I wanna play! “Wait a second, are you actually talking to Button right now?” This time, Connor did turn to look at me. His attention was still on the road, but every few seconds, he looked towards me. “Uh...Sure, I guess so.” I answered with a shrug. “I don’t know how though.” Really?! Thank you! “Huh?” “What?” Don’t worry about figuring it out though, I think I have an idea. “What do you mean, you have an idea?” I asked, glancing up and around in confusion. “I didn’t say anything.” Connor shook his head, turning back to the road once he figured out the answer to his own question on his own. “No, not you, I meant Button.” I glanced back up. “Button, what did you say just now?” I said I think I can take over. “Take what now?” I gulped, not sure what Button meant by that. Take over. You said that I could play but you weren’t sure how, right? “Uh...I think I was talking to-” So I think I figured it out. You know how I’m spectating, right? “Y-Yeah, you were telling me that…” I said cautiously, not liking at all where this was going. Well, it’s kind of hard to explain, but whenever I’m spectating, I’m kinda separated from all those games I play around in. “You mean my memories?” I corrected, raising an eyebrow. I wasn’t sure on whether or not him seeing my memories as ‘games’ was a good thing. Well...Not like before. I can actually control what I’m doing. So I don’t think those are memories. Still, I’m not messing with those now. So, you ready? “Uh, I’m not sure if it’s going to wor-” Aw, come on, it’ll be fine! Besides, my Mom used to let take apart my game systems all the time! “...” ... “...” ...What? “Were you able to put them back together?” I asked, rolling my eyes as he left that question unanswered. “Wait, put what back together?” Connor asked, hopelessly out of the loop. Oh. Uh, well...I did say my Mom used to let me take them apart, right? “Let’s not do this.” I concluded, shaking my head no. There wasn’t a chance I was letting Button do something to me...Er...Us, I guess. Zeke, don’t worry, I know how to do this. It’s pretty obvious anyway, here, watch. “No, I meant that I never said that we should try and switch-GAH!” Whatever happened next, I couldn’t recall at all. All of a sudden, my head began throbbing as if a headcrab had attached to my head as nearly my entire head was crying out in pain. It wasn’t just the back of my head or the front, it felt as if my whole head was about to burst from the inside out. Not only that, but the pain was nearly too much to take. My eyes were forced shut and I couldn’t help but throw my head in every direction possible as if to try and stop whatever was going on. I heard someone yelling something at me, maybe my name, but I couldn’t keep any focus on it. It became impossible to focus on anything else. Heck, I couldn’t so much as feel anything by this point. All I knew was that my whole body was jerking and twitching over and over and that I couldn’t tell any of it. It could’ve been a few seconds or minutes until I managed to open my eyes slightly. The tree line was now more ahead of us then to the right where it was originally, I think Connor was doing something about the wheel, and the time on the radio. 11:54. When I switched on the radio and looked at my iPad, It was eleven thirty-something. Fourteen minutes had passed somehow. The pain caught up to me once more as my eyes closed and I stopped twitching. Somehow, I had lasted this long being in so much pain. What I didn’t expect was for the pain to end so quickly. I always heard that pain didn’t last long. That once you bumped your head on the door when you were looking at a picture on the wall, or bit your finger whenever you were eating that potato chip, that pain you felt was only there for that split-second instant, and it was gone. But what happened was something else. The pain all subsided at once, as if it had never been there before. Though at the same time, I couldn’t hear anything that was going on either. Not Connor or Button Mash asking me any questions nor that pop music that Connor had switched the radio to. On top of the silence, I couldn’t feel anything familiar anymore. The seat belt along my legs was missing, the iPad I was carefully holding onto was gone, and I couldn’t feel the same chair I was sitting on. I took this moment to open one eye as carefully as I could, as if whatever happened was just waiting for me to let my guard down or something. When nothing happened, I opened my second eye and looked around. Around me was something entirely different from before. I wasn’t on the highway, or even the truck for that matter. I was in some small-sized...Theatre. The theatre had only one red velvet chair, which I found myself sitting in, and it was facing towards a giant flat screen TV that was up against the wall. And looking over my shoulder, was a clearly marked double door. This being the only exit I could find. “Button…” I called out with a quiet whisper. “...What did you do?”