Author’s Note: The following stories are based upon the characters featured in "New Kid in School", "Wil Power" and "Arcade Junkie" by Comicality. The original stories can be found at http://www.teenboyauthors.org/comicality/.

New Kid in School: The Remixes (Volume One)
By Cirrus

I.

Tyler didn’t know why he went to the arcade. Actually a lie. He knew exactly why he wanted to go the arcade. But just for a minute he wanted to pretend that he had got there by chance, a chance destination on a random wandering.

But since he had left the house he had known he would end up here sooner or later. The bookshop, the CD store, they’d just been diversions. This was the place.

His eyes blinked as they adjusted to the dim interior of the arcade from the bright Chicago day outside. He waited for a minute, absorbing the familiar beeps, squeaks, grunts and explosions emanating from the myriad machines.

Still fairly empty. Good.

He walked slowly past the machines, dragging a figure across the identical plastic shells. Considering the merits of each as a suitable depository for his coins.

But then he had to admit he was pretending again. Because there was only one machine that he would really play.

He passed the racing simulators. House of the Dead. Time Crisis. Silent Scope. NBA Jam. The Pinball Wall.

There it was. Aliens versus Predator. A little dated now, and slowly pushed deeper and deeper into the arcade, as new games clamoured for attention at the front.

But it was their game. The game that he, Matt and Sam had played together. When he first met them they had been struggling through level three. Over those months, they’d worked together, learning new tactics, mastering the commands, discovering the various weaknesses of the end-of-level "bosses". And the day they’d finally beaten the machine… the three of them, together, before…

He slipped in a coin. The machine game to life. "Press 1P to start".

He could fill his anger rising. He may have only been dimly aware of why he had come here up till now. But as he kicked, punched and gunned down the approaching hordes, his purpose became clear to him.

He wanted the anger. He wanted the hurt. How long had it been since they’d told him? Days? Weeks? Months? He’d lost track. He’d been in a dream. Not anchored, not connected to anything. Empty.

But now, the game brought it back. The anger.

He died. Careless. "Insert coin to continue". He did. The game played on.

More hits. He was playing sloppy. Only on level two. Kid’s stuff. The boss got him this time. He expired again.

Another coin.

He was furious with the machine now. Wrenching the joystick. Slamming the buttons. Each hit, each blow, each mistake, was another insult.

He got past the boss. Not quite sure how – the creature almost had him again. The next few minutes passed by. As badly as he was playing, and wanted to play, the early aliens couldn’t quite stop his character.

It was during this period of tentative calm that he felt someone beside him. A presence. Check that – a small presence. The presence started energetically springing up beside him, trying to get a better look.

"Beat it kid." Tyler didn’t even turn around. There was only the game. His anger and the game.

The kid stopped jumping. But he didn’t go away. Tyler was sure two eyes were staring intensely at the action. He didn’t know how he knew. But he did.

"You’re going to die." It was a squeaky little kid voice.

"I said beat it."

"You’re still going to die."

Tyler turned round to vent his full pent-up frustration at this kind. He saw two gleaming eyes, an insufferably bubbly grin and…

"Insert coin to continue…"

"Told ya," said the kid, matter of factly.

Tyler slammed in another coin, and resumed, staring at the screen. The kid waited quietly for a while, then started to talk.

"You’re not very good. These two other kids play it all the time. I watched them. They beat the machine. Beat it pretty regularly two. No one else plays this game any more. You think there are real aliens like that?"

"God damn it!" Tyler slammed the machine. His coin had disappeared in record time, and the countdown was beginning.

"Are you going to go away kid?"

Nine… eight… seven…

The kid thought for a while. "No," he said simply.

Five… four…

"Then it its time to put your money where your mouth is."

"What? Me?" the kid squeaked, stepping back a pace.

Three… two…

Tyler slotted in two coins, and pressed the two player button.

"Batter up, kid."

"My name is… ahhhhkk!" An alien suddenly slashed out his character. "What do I do? What are the buttons? Help!!!"

Tyler’s hands twitched over the controls, and his character cleared the screen in a dazzling display of martial arts and firepower.

"Awesome!". There was a new note of awe in the kid’s voice.

"That button punches. That button kicks. Third button jumps. If you pick up a weapon, the punch button fires it. If you hit two buttons at once you do throws if you’re standing close enough."

"Umm. Okay." The kid seemed to get the hang of it enough to stay out of trouble for the next few minutes.

"Try a throw on that alien over there. Kick twice, punch once, then hit both buttons at the same time."

The kid followed his instructions, and was rewarded with the sight of his character grabbing the alien, leaping an improbably high distance into the air, and the piledrivering its head through the concrete.

"Wicked!"

"Okay, there are lot of aliens on this level. They’re all going to attack at once, so we need to take them out quickly. Just keep doing."

And then suddenly, both their hands were a blur of activity as the screen filled with battling sprites.

"Banzai!!! Take that, you… uh oh… Erk!!! Eat fist! I got the gun! Chew lead, alien sc- Where did he come from? Yes! No! Yes! Cowabunga!"

Tyler couldn’t help but smile at the emotional rollercoaster his new partner was going through. Every small triumph, every setback or defeat called for an exclamation.

The continued on for another fifteen minutes, Tyler concentrating grimly now, the kid next to him experiencing a lifetime of elation and disappointment in every twist of the battle.

On screen, a door opened.

"You ready kid? Time to take on the alien queen."

"My name is…"

"Incoming!" And then Tyler was issuing instruction as fast as he could speak them. "Duck the acid blood… jump! Jump! Watch out for the face huggers! Low kick, low kick. Now grab the flamethrower. If it flashes you’ve hit a weak spot."

The kid was silent now, just trying to catch his breath and follow Tyler’s orders. And then when it all seemed to be over for them…

It was.

"Congratulations, kid. We won."

"We won? We won! We won, we won wewonwewonwewonwewonwewonnnnnnnnnnn!!" The kid was jumping up in the air, and babbling a mile a minute. "Did you see when-? I thought it had me at-? So many of them- Grenade launcher-"

Tyler couldn’t help it. He laughed. And he couldn’t stop. Tears were running down his face. And the kid was still talking.

"Wilson! Wilson!" An unmistakeably motherish voice cut through the background noise of the arcade.

"Oh mannnnnnnnnnn!" Tyler laughed again as the kid’s face collapsed into a crestfallen whine.

A thirty-ish women wrestling under a small mountain of plastic shopping bags cut through the arcade.

"But muuuuuummmmmmmmm! I just finished this game."

"That’s nice, dear. But we have to go now."

The kid dutifully shuffled after his mother. Tyler turned to him.

"Hey!"

"Yeah?"

"There’s still House of the Dead. See ya round sometime… Wison."

The kid’s face lit with a grin that beamed. Tyler found it impossible not to look at Wilson without a smile breaking out on his face. Even if it was only for a while, for the first time in weeks he felt… happy.

II.

Art class. Ariel looked forward to the last class of the week with an equal amount of terror and anticipation. He stopped before. Took a deep breath. Checklist: Try not to squeak when you see him. Or stutter. Or tremble. Or trip over anything on the way to the seat.

Mentally fortified, he stepped through the door and quickly scanned the room. He stopped, puzzled. Looked around slower this time. He felt his spirits sagging. He wasn’t here. A week of waiting for the one time a week he got to see Randy… alone… by himself, without Ryan or Sam or Matt, and he wasn’t here…

Someone barrelled into him from behind. Unprepared Ariel lurched forward, tried to regain his balance, momentarily did, stumbled, tripped, sprawled, clutched at an easel, stopped…

To his own horror he found the easel sliding away. As he planted himself face first on the floor, he could only listen, mortified, as a thundering cacophany of woodwork around him let him know he’d set off some hideous domino effect flattening every easel in the room.

He weakly looked up to see the art teacher smiling down at him.

"Afternoon Ariel. I’m sure your fellow students are grateful that one of your dramatic entrances has livened up what promises to be another interminable still life session."

Ariel carefully picked himself to his feet and tried to find an unused easel.

"I know you’re looking forward to the next bell as much as I am. But for the next 45 minutes, you’ll be working in pairs on the time honoured bowl of fruit. Smith, if you would pass me the grapefruit rolling under your desk?"

Ariel found an easel, and steeled himself for another period of hiding from his fellow students. First Randy… then this!

"Gosh, Ariel, are you alright?" There goes Plan A out the window. He turned to the speaker, a girl, quite pretty in her own way.. he tried to remember her name.

"I should have looked where I was going only I was trying to get my pencils out my bag, and I looked up and one minute you’re heading straight ahead, so I look down, and then next minute you’re not, and then, oh my god, I am such a klutz, and who would thought twenty three easels would make so much noise?"

Ariel wasn’t quite sure how to respond to this verbal barrage, so he nodded. The girl started to sort through her pencils and paintbrushes.

"I wonder where Randy is today? He’s usually in this class."

Jenny! The name came to Ariel in a flash. She used to be a friend of Randy’s or something.

Jenny started sketching out the fruit bowl – great wide pencil sweeps on the paper, against the small, carefully observed detailing that Ariel had started to apply to one small corner of the sheet.

"You usually have lunch with him, don’t you? Was he there?"

Ariel racked his brains. Randy at lunch? Unpleasant memories came flooding back from chemistry. By the time he’d finished cleaning up the mess, the cafeteria was all but empty.

"I’m… I’m n-n-not sure. I didn’t s-see him."

"Maybe he’s sick. Perhaps I should go and see him after school?"

Now that she’s suggested the idea, he wondered if he should do it himself? But then what if he went over and Randy wasn’t sick? He might wonder why Ariel was over there. And what if Ryan or someone else was over with him? They might not want to be interrupted by someone like him.

He suddenly realised that Jenny was still talking.

"-something serious. Cause if we had the make-out I know Sally Summers is dying to invite him, only she wants to invite every boy she hasn’t already kissed, but if she doesn’t Carol Ann might, although she’s not that pretty, or even Mae Lin, and she’s perfect, but she doesn’t seem that interested in boys at the moment, and if it’s infectious, none of the other boys might come, or they would and then we’d all be dying of some flesh-eating disease…"

Ariel’s brain slowly churned through the Jenny’s stream of consciousness monologue. Most of the torrent of words had slipped by, safely labelled, "not important" but there were several crucial words that required clarification.

"M-m-m-make out party?" In spite of his best efforts there was an audible squeak to his stutter. But Jenny didn’t seem to notice.

"Yeah, well…" Jenny blushed a bit, "Don’t tell anyone okay, because it’s just an idea, and nothing’s settled, and it could all change, but the girls are thinking of holding a make-out party."

"What is a-?"

"Shhh. Not so loud." Jenny’s voice had dropped to a loud whisper. "Well the idea is that the girls will all invite one boy to the party, and then make-out with them all night. Only the invitations will be secret, so none of the boys will know who they’re going to make out with until they get there."

The sense of Machiavellian conspiracy in the whole project seemed to give Jenny a particular thrill. Ariel decided it was just another part of the incomprehensible enigma of women (particularly the teenage variety), and filed it away with the many other things about life that completely mystified him.

But Jenny wasn’t finished.

"Imagine it – you can invite the secret crush you’ve had for years, and they’ll never know until they’re at the party, where there yours alone to make out with."

Randy’s face suddenly flashed before Ariel. And he suddenly understood very well what the appeal of a make-out party was.

Jenny started to dab paint on their combined creation. Ariel sucked in his breath. Time to say something.

"S-so, who are y-you thinking of inviting?"

Jenny gasped, choked, whirled around, knocked over their water container, whirled back, knocked a paint pot flying (spattering paint across their still-life in the process), tried to grab the paint pot with her hands, lost her brush and palette in the process, stepped forward, slipped on the paint palette, crashed into the desk, and paint pots flew everywhere.

At his desk the art teacher lowered her glasses, bemused. The rest of the class just stared. From the multi-coloured puddle she was sprawled in, Jenny answered Ariel’s question.

"Umm, n-no one. N-no one… at all."

Ariel knelt down beside her, ostensibly to help her clean up the mess.

"I believe you," he said solemnly, under his breath. Then his face cracked into a grin. "But thousands wouldn’t!"

Jenny playfully slapped him with a paint-covered hand, and they both collapsed in giggles in the middle of their perplexed art class.

III.

Tommy kicked a stone idly. He was bored out of his mind. Forty five minutes he had to kill until Will was finished with his tutor. At first Tommy had tried to read a book in the library, but the stuff atmosphere had got to him in about a minute, and he fled in search of something that would make the time pass a little faster.

He didn’t have to stay at school. He knew Will wouldn’t hold him to his promise to stay. But somehow that made it all the more important to Tommy that he did.

He wandered out to the sports fields. Even the football teams had finished for the day. There were just a few cones out, and some balls that hadn’t yet been put away.

Tommy looked again. There was one boy out on the grass, running up and down the field. Tommy looked closer. The kid wasn’t running straight lines, but cutting and weaving, spinning, ducking, fending off imaginary opponents. Tommy was impressed – someone was even more desperate to kill time than he was.

He’d seen the boy around before. Pretty cute too, though Tommy was sure he had only feelings for Will in that regard. Pretty sure anyway. Fairly positive. At any rate. He thought.

The kid sprinted back down the pitch towards Tommy.

"Hey!" Tommy said by way of greeting. The boy slowed to a halt. "Matt, right?"

"Yeah."

"Tommy. Got some time to kill. Will’s getting tutored."

"Oh with Ryan, right?" Matt saw the look of surprise on Tommy’s face. "Sam told me. *He* managed to get himself put on detention."

"Bummer."

"Yeah. I’d said I’d wait."

"Want to throw some passes?"

"Sure."

The began tossing the football back and forth. First gentle lobs. Then bullet passes. The left-handed stunt passes, and other creative trickery. That led to running pass patterns. Then onto running plays, each one more complicated and devious than the last.

Matt ground to a halt gasping. "So was that play the right side reverse rollout, or the blue four deep coverage pass?"

Tommy racked his brains for a minute. "Ya know, I have no idea."

Matt slowly recovered his breath. "You want to try some running plays? Running back and tackler?"

Tommy nodded. "Why not? You’ve been doing enough practice for it."

The two lined up opposite each about fifteen metres apart. Matt held the ball on the ground – then hiked it, and broke into a sprint, straight towards Tommy. Tommy moved forward as well, waiting for the break…

Right! Tommy lunged right. But Matt wasn’t moving right at all. He’d planted his foot, and spun the other direction. Tommy tried to correct, but he was grasping at air.

"Nice move."

"It’ll only work once though."

Tommy took his turn, and managed to beat Matt with a stop-and-go move that left Matt grasping at his ankles but unable to stop the score.

After ten minutes, they had to admit they were pretty evenly matched in both speed and deviousness.

Matt lined up the ball. "One more time?"

"You’re on."

Matt started his run, Tommy waited, waited, waited… Matt made his move, but Tommy had anticipated it, and pounced.

His shoulder charged into Matt’s midriff, his arms wrapped around Matt’s back, and still charging he lifted Matt up, then drove him into the ground.

It was an earth shattering tackle.

For a moment they just lay there, Matt struggling to regain his breath, Tommy just lying there on top of him.

And then they’re breathing slowed. Faces inches apart. Tommy looked. The face before him was blurred. He saw bright eyes and soft lips. They’re breath mingled in the inches between them.

His face fell forward a fraction of an inch. Maybe he imagine it, but he thought Matt’s face rose an equal amount.

Down below, Tommy felt himself stirring to life.

Faces. Eyes. Lips. Close enough to touch, to…

The moment stretched, pregnant with possibility.

Tommy felt his pants stretch a little tighter.

And then he was rolling away, and trying to tuck himself in, and he could have almost sworn Matt was doing the same thing, and they were both making they’re excuses practically talking over each "Thanks for the workout… se ya later… do it again… be finished soon… better get back."

Tommy walked away, a tumbledryer of conflicting emotions, confused, excited, and scared all at the same time, overwhelmed by far more "what if" scenarios than his mind could handle.

Tommy wondered just what was in the Pandora’s Box that Will had opened for him.