"Attention shoppers," Honest Freeda croaked over the intercom. She hacked hard, covering the microphone as she cleared her lungs. "It has come to our attention that you have been found worthy of the Honest Ed's Reward Room. We have many such rooms, but this one has been selected specifically for you."

She had to supress a snort as she watched Alex leap into the air and cheer while he sprinted down the winding hallway, sliding and having fun with it. Nina had been right. The boy was both endearing and damn fast.

"There's just…one condition for gaining access to the Reward Room." She paused for dramatic effect, just enough time for him to skid to a stop as he finally entered it. The large tiles wobbled under his feet and startled him. "You may keep anything you can carry out the exit. Buuuut—wait! Wait, damnit, Alex. STOP! What—what are you doing?"

The damn boy was taking his shirt off.

Covering her mouth to supress another laugh, she put her serious, mean Boss voice back on. "You only have two minutes to exit the room. If you—,"

Alex had already started sprinting. Honest Freeda sighed. Nina had warned her about the boy being cheeky too. Chuckling to herself, she pushed herself back in her rickety desk chair and kicked her feet up, taking a bite of a summoned chocolate bar while lighting another cigarette.

Her eyes were glued to the screens following Alex and didn't notice a little black speck tear open in one of the unused hallways. A little mouse head poked its head in and looked around before pulling back. The little tear into her Domain remained. No one ever went down there, anyways. What was the point of watching that screen?

"If you don't exit the room in two minutes, you will be sent to the Sorting Room. You do not want to be sent there. No one ever makes it back." She finished her warning over the speakers but couldn't keep the laughter out of her voice.

"Thank you!" She heard him yell while snatching his first reward before gliding down the aisle.

Holy shit, holy shit, holy BLOODY SHIT!

Explosive excitement almost caused Alex's heart to explode as it crashed into the Buff. The Reward room was unbelievable. He knew Honest Ed's was essentially a giant thrift store, but the amount of stock in the room was mind boggling.

Rows upon rows of antique video games stretched to the ceiling. Actual cartridges, plastic cases, and real box art of all sizes organized by systems long since unavailable for purchase unless you were a loaded collector. To his left, entire aisles were sorted by system. He tried not to ogle the Nintendo and Sega sign on the console aisle, as well as the wall of Playstations looping Timesplitters Two on CRTs. Controllers hung in in tangled clumps. Movie and game posters curled on the walls and filled every nook and cranny.

There were even statues. A giant, jacked monkey wearing a red bow tie danced over a small elfish man in green posing with hands on his hips.

"OH, YOU'RE COMING WITH ME."

Shirt already off and plan already formed, Alex flashed forward with the longest [Phantom Step] he could muster. His free hand gripping his shirt slapped against the green hero's head while the other held the warm pizza. Immediately he launched another.

Alex whooped as he, the pizza, and the statue blinked across the entire room, sliding with a well placed [Planar Skating]. At the end of the combo, he ended up right in front of the exit room with his well-gotten gains. Little Link was coming with him.

Thank the System [Phantom Step] works with anything not living.

It took more Essence to transfer big things, but he would gladly use it all for this glorious opportunity of priceless bounty. Looking at the remaining Delivery time to get a check on how much was left, he placed the pizza box next to the statue before he shot off toward the video games at a full sprint.

[Deliver the Pizza to the Customer – Time Remaining: 24:01]

Alright, a minute forty five, give or take.

Quickly he made his way to the first aisle, and sparing a moment to tie a knot on the belly side of the shirt, began to toss games into the makeshift branded sac.

"You, and you. And definitely one of you," He looted the Game Boy game section first, tossing in a copy of Emerald and Crystal and Advanced Wars. Can't forget Aria of Sorrow.

"Oooooooh, you're coming home with Papa," he drooled as Mega Man Five, Leaf Green, and even the dirty copy of Toxic Crusaders made its way into his bag.

Spinning, he worked through Gameboy Advanced and Colour. Fire Emblem and Metroid Fusion, and oh my good googly moogly there was even Wario Land Four. Every single one of the games was worth their weight in gold. Except the price of gold tanked when the System came. When his shirt sac was a quarter full, he darted over to the Sixty-Four section.

Alex hyperventilated as he frantically searched through the larger cartridges for the best finds. He'd drooled over forums for years and watched hours of videos online, hoping that one day he'd be able to afford a working console and some games. Time to put those fast fingers to work.

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Golden Eye was easily spotted, and it went in after Mario Sixty Four and Ocarina of Time. It took him precious seconds to locate Mario Party Two and Perfect Dark. When he'd grabbed a dozen of his dream titles, his shirt sac was about half full. With about a minute and twenty left, he [Phantom Stepped] out the aisle towards the Playstation and Xbox section.

He made quick work of those, slotting thirty games into the stretching shirt. It filled up quickly, and time was running out. Leaning his head out of the aisle he saw he needed to make a decision.

"GameCube it is. Sorry Sega."

Alex stuffed his shirt to the brim with as many games as he could from the GameCube aisle. Luigi's Mansion, Tales of Symphonia, Paper Mario, of course Mario Kart, and he didn't dare forget Tales of Symphonia. He wasn't even thinking anymore. Just letting his hands snatch.

He glanced at the timer to make sure he had enough time to make another grab.

[Deliver the Pizza to the Customer – Time Remaining: 22:42]

"Crap! Crap!" He shouted and sprinted out of the aisle like a skinny Santa, [Phantom Stepping] to his initial statue haul.

Soon as he arrived just outside the exit and next to Link, he realized he couldn't just dump the games onto the floor. How would he be able to pick them back up and leave with them? Groaning, he dropped the shirt-sac beside the statue and shot off again. The games were only half the price. Without the hardware, they were just shiny rectangles he'd be forced to drool over.

He zoomed down the aisle and snatched a Game Boy classic, a cobalt Colour, and a purple transparent Advance while he kept moving. Cradling them under one arm, he exited the other side and spun to get his hands on some of the larger systems. And then he droze.

The dusty systems were easy enough to spot, just waiting to be picked up. He grabbed a purple Cube and a PS Two mini. Backwards compatibility and all that. He was a professional forum lurker after all. Thankfully they both had cords still attached he could plug into a tv. Spinning, it took him precious seconds to locate a cracked Nintendo Sixty-Four. Hopefully it would work. Or hopefully Mary felt like busting it open. The controllers though, were a nightmare.

Dozens of them were tangled in heaps and hung on giant hooks. None of them seemed to match or were organized by any rhyme or reason. Just clumped, taped, and tossed on the hook for someone to sort through. Barely balancing the systems in one arm, he looped his arm around the giant cluster of controllers that looked best. At least he could see a playstation one and a couple gamecube controllers. No Nintendo Sixty-Four was spotted, but maybe it was jammed in the depths of the controller nest.

Hefting it like a giant sac of potatoes, as the cluster of controllers must have weighed eighty pounds, he shuffled the precariously stacked goods in his arm out the aisle.

"Don't drop it. Bringing home the goods. Just bring it home." He grunted through gritted teeth as he checked the time.

[Deliver the Pizza to the Customer – Time Remaining: 22:09]

With Unending Persistence still running and just a few seconds left, he reached deep and went to activate [Phantom Step]. From the amount of weight he carried, it sucked off a massive chunk of Essence, but he flashed forward with a hammering heart while activating [Planar Skating]. Coming out of the port and gliding, the ground began to shake beneath his feet.

The tiled floor trembled harder as dust shook loose from the ceiling and games began tumbling off the shelves. The air groaned as his feet shitted. Looking down for a moment, he realized the floor felt loose.

"Five seconds." Honest Freeda's throaty voice chimed in from the intercom.

"I only need FIVE SECONDS!" he shouted back, hoping Honest Freeda heard him.

He reached his pile at the exit door. The statue, pizza, shirt-sac waited right in front of the exit, before coming to terms with what he'd just yelled aloud. "Not like that. I only mean—" He stopped himself. "Never mind!"

There was no way he could carry it all out in his hands. He stared at it with a heaving chest and sweat running down his back.

"Oh this is might hurt." he said as he fell forward onto the pile of good.

His body connected with the goods, and thankfully his elbow clipped the edge of the pizza box. The floor of the Reward Room collapsed under him just as he activated the most difficult [Phantom Step] he'd ever activated. Unending Persistence fought against his stretched Core, and despite being filled with a fusion reactor nerd energy, his Essence bottomed out.

Thankfully, due to the upgrades from Nina and Lord Loopy, and his own development, Alex did not crack his Core or overexert himself. It still took every bit of energy to teleport all the goods in one final push.

Thousands of videos games fell into the endless pit below as he, and all the goods, shot through the unspace and out the other side of the door.

He landed hard on his stomach and his skin skidded across the concrete floor of the other side of the exit.

"Guh. Worth it." Alex groaned and turned onto his back. The last bits of the Unending Persistence roared through him, giving him just enough energy and Essence to fire both arms up into the air and cheer, shirtless and sweating, in a hallway of a Silver Grade Dungeon. He and the video games had made it. And thank goodness the pizza didn't plunge into the endless depths to the Sorting Room.

Honest Freeda celebrated herself from her Security Room mixed with an Office Lair. She'd caught so many people in her various Reward Rooms. The antique toy one always got them, as did the Endless Aisles of Luxury Goods. It was nice to see someone make it. She didn't want to see Alex's body shoved into a [Fabric Ant] forever.

Shaking her head at the boy her old friend Nina had hired, she reached over and picked up the intercom microphone. He'd proven himself worthy. And since she was hungry there was no need to play it out. Clearly, he'd make it through the Canned Goods and the Shoe Room. She didn't really feel like making him go through the Bins. Those were deadly as anything. Just a giant room of Relics and dozens of Mimics waiting to eat some brains.

"Leave the games, you can grab them on your way out. [The Motivator] will help. Bring me my pizza, I haven't had one of Nina's in ages. How is that old crone anyways? Still mean as hell?" Honest Freeda laughed and pushed herself out of her chair for the first time in five years.

And in the Annex, the thing that was not a cat pushed itself through into the backyard where Emilio waited. He knew it was coming, of course.

The birds quieted down and for a moment, an ascended fat grey tabby with green eyes and more Skill Levels Titles than most neighbourhoods combined, observed the thing up close. Grunting, he untucked his beans and stood to his full height.

"Meow?" He asked, hopeful for a moment as he [Deeply Analyzed] the creature.

His very advanced Analysis Skill listed a laundry list of information, but it was the fact that he couldn't smell even a speck of pheromones that convinced him.

This was not a cat. It was an abomination wearing a cat's skin. An affront to the nobility of his species.

Then the Monster known as [Pushkin] stepped out of the shadow and into the light of the moon. And Emilio owned everything the Moon's light touched.

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