Shakti loved playing cricket. He was one of those bunch of kids in school who prioritized cricket over their studies even though they never aimed to become professional players. 

"Will you be there for today's match?" Surya, Shakti's classmate asked.

Every day after school the gang of friends would head to the nearby field and play cricket until darkness surrounded the sky.

"Sure" Shakti affirmed "But first I need to head home. If my uniform gets dirty one more time, Mama (mother) will kill me."

"Sure dude. But hurry up. We won't wait for long." Surya patted Shakti's back once and headed towards the cricket ground.

Shakti rode on his bicycle towards his home which wasn't much far away from school.

It's important to point out here that Shakti never rode on his bicycle like any ordinary 10 year old. He had a daredevil tendency to take both his hands off the bicycle handles and ride with only his legs in every 2-minute interval no matter the traffic.

Fortunately, in all the accidents he had been in due to this habit (a very few minor accidents), nobody suffered any injuries except for himself.

FYI, I am not praising his recklessness. I advise no one to ever try this anywhere.

Shakti's head fast riding came to an abrupt halt when he came across a strangely shiny object. Strange because the pentagonal aqua stone he saw lying homeless on the side of the deserted road was glowing, like a diamond does when met with Sunrays, in the absence of Sunrays.

Though he never harboured any liking for strange shiny stones, he found himself drawn towards it. Getting off his bicycle, he advanced towards the stone.

"Stop" a familiar voice distracted him from his state of partial trance "Don't touch the stone."

The distractor was none other than Ishi, Shakti's classmate-cum-enemy-cum-mocker. She was running towards him with a scowl so deep and a glare so sharp that surpassed all the previous unsatisfactory negative expressions he'd received from her.

According to the propositions of Reverse Psychology, humans tend to do that one particular deed they are explicitly forbidden from doing.

As the tendency was higher in the case of a reckless kid that Shakti was, being forbidden by his supposed enemy increased his inquisitiveness to fish for the stone.

Ignoring Ishi's warning, or mere childish command as he perceived it, Shakti filled the rest of the gap between him and the object of Ishi's interest.

He bent down to observe the stone. It's shiny polished surface egged him to touch it. Following his instincts, he took ahold of the stone in his right hand.

As soon as he thought to turn back and see the look of defeat on Ishi's face, his head started spinning. He wasn't able to figure out how he had landed in the middle of a spiral tornado from the road. The stone fell from his hold. As he bent to catch it, the spiral of tornado came to an end, harshly spitting him out on a grassy field.

Taking some time to recover from the dizzy spell, Shakti glanced at his surroundings to find himself in the middle of an unfamiliar meadow. 

Before he could take a step ahead to enquire exactly where he had been thrown, a bubbly, childish voice came from a distance singing the word "Welcome" in a melodic way.

The pink dot he previously noticed as the source of the voice revealed to be a pink soft toy with rabbit like ears and an upwards-downwards moving mouth that closed and opened like a normal human's, minus the tongue and teeth.

It was holding a rose even with 0 fingers.

Ironic, he thought.

"Welcome to Toy Land. I am Nautch. You must follow me in order to receive answers to the questions that are clouding your mind right now."  It spoke politely like a tourist guide.

For a second Shakti thought he had landed on an alien planet. Though an alien planet of toys, as the name suggests, wasn't something that excited Shakti too much. But if there were any fighter or heroic toys present here, that would be another case.

"So, this place has living toys like you huh?" He decided to confirm before following the little creature.

"Yes, you guessed correctly." It replied cheerfully.

"Well then, lead the way, Nautch."

Shakti got excited with the mere thought of being in a place where toys weren't inanimate objects of play.

Now, a normally functional human brain would first go on alert mode of fight or flight to deal with such an unconventional situation as we are all taught to not follow strangers from the day we were able to understand the meaning of the word 'stranger'. But Shakti being typical Shakti concentrated only on the word 'Toy' ignoring the fact that if those toys were the good ones or not.

Not that the toys were bad. But theoretically speaking, that's what everyone should consider first before assuming all toys are good. (The same goes for all the living and non-living beings in the world and beyond).

After a few cheerful minutes of walking, Shakti finally noticed the beautiful castle (which wasn't fortunately pink, according to him).

He was surprised by the number of toys gathered around to greet him, as Nautch told him on the way. She said that Shakti was to meet the Princess of Toy Land who would brief him of his unplanned journey from Earth to Toy Land. Though not another planet, he was content to have travelled to another dimension. Shakti imagined the faces of his friends when he would tell them about his inter-dimensional visit. They'll worship him.

There were all kinds of toys in the crowd, soldiers, guns and other ammunition, outdoor and indoor games, pretty princesses and princes, soft toys, kitchen and professional sets, builders, Lego toys, fire fighters, police toys, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan as the two kept shouting their respective names and so on.

The only category of toys missing were the superheroes, the ones Shakti was searching for.

In front of the 10-foot-tall water fountain, which stood quite 50 meters before the castle entrance, stood a girl the same height as his, more or less, in a red silk gown covering her toes.

She knows she can trip in this long attire, right?

Then he realized that the little girl was the princess Nautch had mentioned. She wore quite less make-up than all the other princesses around her. Her red hair was a perfect match for her red eyes complimenting her super fair skin. But her pointy ears gave her an inhuman look no matter her beauty, reminding Shakti of an elf he saw in a cartoon a few days ago.

Beside her stood a man nearly 5'5" inches tall in armour that resembled a cartoon character he recognized but failed to recall. His face was the only part of his body uncovered by the armour. He too had fair skin like the Princess, but with brown eyes and hair.

"Welcome to Toy Land, human boy. I hope Nautch had briefed you where exactly you are." Her voice was as beautiful as herself.

It took Shakti quite a few seconds to respond to the question she so sweetly asked.

Currently, Shakti's insides were experiencing sweetness overload (the good kind) for the first time in his life.

"I-I am happy, I mean I am happy to be here, Princess...." He thought of how should he ask for her name.

Shakti had never been this nervous in his life in front of a girl, but then he'd never conversed with a girl so extraordinarily beautiful and pretty, minus the pointy ears.

"...Serena. I am Princess Serena. I rule this Land of Toys in the name of my mother who created this heaven. As you might have been told by Nautch, this is an Island floating in the air miles above the primary landscape. My mother, Queen Sh-"

"Wait" a loud, unsweet voice interrupted Princess Serena's next words.

From the castle emerged a girl in a complete black costume matching her neck-length ponytail and black orbs. The only exceptions were her golden-yellow bracelet with a red round pendant on top and the greyish round pendant hanging down her collarbone. Her caramel skin depicted that she was an Indian, perhaps.

Lucky Girl.

He recognized her attire as belonging to one of the characters in his favourite cartoon show, Ben 10.

"You promised to give him a chance. We gave you one. He deserves the same."

Princess Serena oh so politely conveyed her favour of Shakti to the Lucky Girl.

"Technically, I promised no such things. No matter what equality you want to establish Princess, I already know what he deserves. He deserves to go home and forget everything that he experienced from the moment he held this stone."

She showed the same pentagonal aqua stone that had dropped from his grip in the tornado.

"Hey, that's my stone. I dropped in the tornado." Shakti claimed.

"FYI, this stone legally belongs to Princess Serena. It brought you here by mistake instead of someone else. So cooperate with me in correcting this mistake." She spoke scornfully.

"Wait, this stone brought me here" his eyes widened in a surprising shock "Never mind. I won't cooperate with you until you tell me what exactly you mean by mistake, huh? Anyways, you don't seem friendly enough to be trusted." Shakti countered.

"That's exactly why you don't deserve a chance. Not everyone who is friendly can be trusted and not everyone who isn't friendly can't." She spat.

"Who are you to decide if I am deserving or not?" Shakti questioned.

The girl stepped closer, stopping a couple of feet before him. Her stance was intimidating enough for anyone to run holding their tails. Not to mention the content glares she was shooting at him, which reminded him of someone.

She took off the mask covering most parts of her face, revealing the all too familiar face Shakti was reminded of.

The Indian Lucky Girl was none other than Ishi, Shakti's full-time enemy, the one who calls him Bandar (Monkey) all the time, the one who forbade him from touching the stone.

"Chorni (female thief)!" The look of astonishment on Shakti's face was worth watching.

"Am I friendly enough now?" Ishi gave him a devilish grin, one that she always does after defeating him in a not so friendly banter.

"Why- I mean how?"

"You seem to be fumbling quite a lot after meeting Princess Serena" Her grin widened though she was certainly not happy about that particular detail "The sooner you leave the better. I don't want you to know any more than you already do. Wiping your memory will be easier the less you know. Let's go before someone decides your arrival is the perfect time to attack."

"Attack! Who'll attack?" Shakti's brain was facing difficulty making out the meaning of Ishi's partial sentences.

Truth be told, Shakti hadn't expected Ishi to be this strong to literally drag him in a single grip, dislodging his resistance.

As they reached near the fountain, an explosion not much far away attracted everyone's attention.

"Attack. Run to the castle." The one in armour which Shakti finally recognized as a cartoon character named Toy Warrior announced out loud.

"Gosh. You had to jinx it." Ishi blamed Shakti.

"What did I do?" Shakti countered in his defence.

"Nothing. And that's what I expect you to do. Take Nautch, get inside the castle gates, and please, I beg you, please don't step outside to show off your heroism." Ishi said and immediately left him there to fend for himself.

Far away, he saw a giant iron robot taking gigantic strides towards the castle. Behind him followed a couple more of the same structure.

"Shakti, follow me. We must take shelter inside the castle." Nautch tugged at his fingers, trying to drag him.

Shakti picked her up from the yellow brick ground (the one's like in the Wizard of Oz) and darted towards the castle.

One's inside the gates, he dropped Nautch on her feet. By that time almost all the toys were inside the castle gates, except for the soldiers, Toy Warrior, Princess Serena and Ishi.

He glanced towards the army of black robotic iron soldiers following the giant ones.

"What are they?"

"They are bad toys, forged by the monsters who want to destroy Toy Land," Nautch replied.

Her voice held a terrified tone along with her shivering frame which signified how afraid she was.

"Would you mind explaining a little more?" Shakti asked.

Unsure of how to calm the scared toy, he held her in his arms to provide her a sense of comfort. Soft toys love hugs.

"The monsters live in disguise, forging toys with dark magic and sending them to destroy Toy Land and the toys living here. Years ago, Queen Shreena predicted this along with the arrival of 2 heroes from Earth, a Girl Warrior and a Boy Warrior who'll fight against the monsters and protect Toy Land." Her shivering calmed down a bit.

"Girl Warrior! Does that mean Ishi-"

"-is the Girl Warrior, Lucky Girl. One of the fated heroes who'll protect us by fighting with the evil." Nautch spoke this bit very enthusiastically.

Far away, Ishi, now with her mask on, charged towards the giant robots with a sword in her hand.