The ancient game console whirled like a wind tunnel as Haru and KD sat in front of the TV screen in their room, madly mashing the buttons on their controllers. With her normal, human-sized hands, Haru was using the dual shock controller that came with the console. Meanwhile, KD and his massive mittens had to contend with a jury-jigged joystick controller ripped straight from an arcade cabinet that sat broadly on its lap.

The character sprite of Leifa, a twin-tailed gutter punk in goggles and short overalls, the fighter that Haru was playing, twirled like a helicopter as she executed a spinning kick, hitting the last mutant thug multiple times until it blinked out of existence in a gory explosion of eviscera.

“This is complete chaos!” KD exclaimed. “How do you consistently perform such feats of strength and finesse while I toil with pathetic punches? It hardly demonstrates my battle prowess at all!”

Throughout their playthrough of Atomic Shock III, a side-scroller beat-em-up set in the nuclear wastes of Roentgen, KD had been confined to the ground, executing only punches and the occasional kick whenever he accidentally hammered down on the wrong button. A jealous nerve sparked in the Void Entity every time Haru achieved a flawless combo. Not that she was showing off. She had been wearing out the thumbsticks on her controller for far longer, that was all.

Most of the video games on the shelf were designed for co-op, with at least two players side by side on a couch. However, for most of her life after the Folding happened, and with her mother gone too, Haru mostly played on her own or with an AI companion that hindered more often than helped. It got boring and lonely fast without a Player Two to join in. The satisfaction of a new high score waned. Video games became a way to pass the time rather than having fun. Life went on that way for a long period of time that Haru would rather forget. Then, KD came along. Playing with a friend has been a far superior experience. And the couch was no longer as empty anymore.

“It’s easy, KD. Here, let me show you again.” Haru grabbed the joystick controller to show a combo for Balbizzaro, a heavily-scarred, muscular rat that was created in the lab of Dr. Robius. Once again, as slowly as she could, she pressed the buttons: → + ↘ + → + A. On the screen, Balbizzaro rocketed into the air with a corkscrew uppercut. “Easy-peasy, lemony-squeezy! Now you try it.” She returned the joystick controller to KD.

It eyed Haru for a long moment, then stared at its controller.

“I know you can do it, yo!”

“Of course I can.”

“Yeah. You got this!”

“I do, I shall.”

KD managed to jerk the joystick in a “Z” position, however, its other hand moved clumsily on the AB buttons, resulting in Balbizzaro executing a jumping kick instead. It hunched over, looking defeated. Haru patted it gently on the back.

“That’s okay. At least you know how to do a jumping kick.”

“But I wanted to do that magnificent corkscrew uppercut! To dazzle and strike fear into my enemies all at once.”

“I know, I know. You’ll get it next time. Practice always makes perfect,” Haru said. “Now come on. Let’s go beat the final boss and add Atomic Shock III to our ‘Pile of Victory’, hmm?”

KD perked up instantly. “That does sound appealing.”

The sprites of Leifa and Balbizzaro entered the Nuclear Launch Command, where Lord Lugnut stood in front of the control system about to unleash a second atomic apocalypse. He spun around, clad in his perpetually billowing cap, shoulder pads made of tires, and chainmail shirt fashioned from a series of hexagonal lugnuts.

With his arms crossed, Lord Lugnut announced: You are too late, irradiated scum! I have already initiated the launch sequence, and after the minute finishes counting down, Roentgen will be mine to remake as I see fit!

Leifa stepped forward and jabbed a finger at Lord Lugnut: The only thing that’s gonna need serious remaking is your face after we’re done with you.

Balbizzaro cracked its knuckles: Haha. Human go splat!

Suddenly, a sixty second timer appeared on the top of the screen, including the long red health bar of Lord Lugnut, who started levitating with his psionic abilities. Haru supposed that was how he kept his cap flowing despite the lack of any open windows. Or at least that was her headcanon, anyway.

The fan whirled loudly on the console as Haru launched Leifa into an attack. With a rapid fire of button mashing, the gutter punk girl slid past Balbizzaro, then bounced up as she transformed into a sawblade of kicks, chipping away at Lord Lugnut’s health bar.

KD grunted. Clumsily, its hands tried jockeying the joystick controller like Haru did earlier. However, Balbizzaro jumped and kicked the open air, hitting nothing. A huff of frustration blasted out and it tried again. The console was roaring now.

“Cool it, yo! The console’s going to fry if you keep playing like that,” Haru warned.

Sparks spat out from the console.

“I almost have the combination mastered!” KD protested as Haru attempted to wrestle the joystick controller away.

Then, a caustic smoke coughed out from the old machine. The TV screen went dead. Staring back at them from the black mirror was Haru, frowning, and KD, still as an opossum hound.

Haru dropped her controller. “What the flip, yo!”

KD threw its hands up, its long arms dulating like black snakes. “I was on the cusp of mastering the corkscrew uppercut. I did not mean to tax that pathetic little box to death.”

“This was supposed to be some low stakes fun time. For Haru and KD to just hangout and relax.” She tipped her head forward and rested her chin on her knees, saddened.

“Sorry, Haru. I got carried away. Mayhaps the pathetic little box can be salvaged so we can resume playi—”

The console erupted into flames. The scent of burning plastic and cheerful memories filled the room. Scrambling, KD lunged forward from the couch and quickly smothered out the fire with its hands. Haru ran out of their room, coughing madly. A minute later, KD emerged with the melted corpse of the console, the controllers still dangling from the wreck. Haru burst into tears.

The crying could not be helped. It felt like an essential form of bonding had been lost. Haru and KD shared few interests other than venturing into the city ruins. Sitting silently with a book was far too boring, and boardgames were too complicated with the myriad of rules. Gaming was by far the most effective way of having fun together. With that tether of interest gone, there was a chance that KD could eventually get bored of her and leave her all alone again.

“Oh no, oh geez.” KD floundered on the spot as tears continued to spill onto the floor. “This can be mended. There has to be a way. Perhaps Trash Wizard can help us!”

Haru sniffed hard and wiped her nose with a long sleeve. “Maybe. I did get your controller from him.”

“Precisely! I’m certain that smelly old man can conjure up a new pathetic little box.”

“Yeah, maybe...”

KD knelt down. “Hop on! Let us journey to the Trash Kingdom to find out.”

Haru wiped away the last of her tears and nodded. “Let’s go, yo.”

Calling the place a “kingdom” was overly generous as far as descriptions went. In actuality, the Trash Kingdom was a pre-Folding landfill where people of the city used to dump their junk or anything that they deemed undesirable. That being said, the heap of old world trash had undoubtedly transformed into something.

The high wall that wrapped around the whole landfill was constructed from cars and other metal junk pressed into large rusty bricks. The only way into the Trash Kingdom was a drawbridge repurposed from a billboard advertising a smiling face holding up a tube of toothpaste. In addition to the wall was a moat filled with whirling wood chippers that pulped anybody and anything unlucky enough to fall in. Haru held tightly onto KD’s horns as they approached the moat.

“Pass no further!” A gravely, croaky voice filtered through an electrical garble announced from atop the wall.

Standing there, an old man with a megaphone and his staff wore a faded orange traffic cone as a crown and a black trash bag as a tunic. His scraggly grey beard covered in the odd grit and grime hung down to his porcine belly. And obviously, the concept of a shower appeared to elude his grasp because he stank so much of trash that it reached them on the ground. Haru wanted to rip off her nose and throw it into the woodchipper moat. KD was indifferent, probably.

“Smelly old man, fix this pathetic little box for us!” KD held up the melted console.

Trash Wizard held the megaphone up to his mouth. “Take no more than ten paces to put your item on the dumbwaiter. Any more and you will be DISCO’d!”

Haru dismounted from KD’s shoulders and placed the hunk of drooping plastic on the carriage. Then, the dumbwaiter whirred to life and delivered it up the wall. Trash Wizard appraised the item for a moment, sniffing it, licking it, staring at it with a laser focus. Then, with a shrug, he tossed it into the moat. The sound of metal chewing through plastic was like murder to Haru’s ears.

“Come back with something that is actually useful,” Trash Wizard said.

“How dare you, smelly old man!” KD shook its fists.

Haru patted its arm to calm it down. As callous as that was, it was how Trash Wizard operated when it came to trading.

“Do you have a console, Atomic Shock III and controllers to trade with?” Haru asked.

Trash Wizard stroked his gnarly beard. “I do.”

“What do you want for it?”

“A Wave Wobble Modulator.”

“O…okay. What does it look like? Where do we find that?”

“It’s a pyramidal device that makes a warbling sound. Impossible to miss if you have two brain cells to rub together. There’s one in the ruins of—” Something had caught his attention.

Having crossed more than ten paces was a cockroach. The hairs on the old man raised like a thunderstorm. With his staff, he pointed it at the cockroach and screamed at the top of his lungs, “DISCO!”

Suddenly, the air electrified, the hairs of Haru’s nape stood up, and a red hot column of laser beam shot down from orbit. The world went stark white for a moment. A searing heat wave enveloped her whole body. When Haru regained her vision, only a black scorch mark remained of the cockroach.

“Such power…” KD muttered under its breath.

“As I was saying,” Trash Wizard continued, “You will find it in the ruins of the old Alderwatch Institute of Technology, in the science department. I would go if I could, however, as you can see, my kingdom is under siege from all sides.”

“Uh-huh.” Her vision was still perforated with spots. She blinked several more times until it finally cleared. “Anyways. If we get that thing for you, do we have a deal?”

“I swear upon my pile of trash that you have my word.”

Haru looked up at KD with a big, broad smile. “What do you think, shall we beat up Lord Lugnut?”

It nodded vigorously like a bobblehead.

“Then we have a deal,” Haru said to Trash Wizard. “We’ll get your Wave Wobble Modulator.”