For three years, he had been the last line of defense. His team was gone. Laser Wolf had been lost under the refrigerator during a great carpet battle. Rocket Phil had been traded away for a bag of marbles. But Thunder remained. Not because he was the strongest, but because he was too stubborn to fall behind the dresser.
One night, the Goblins were bolder than ever. They had already wrapped the stuffed bear in a suffocating woolen cocoon and were now climbing the bookshelf ladder toward Lucas’s bed.
"Surrender, Plastic One," hissed the lead Goblin, a tube sock with a horrifying grin. "You are just a thing. A leftover. You have no army."
On a dusty shelf in a boy’s bedroom, surrounded by forgotten puzzle pieces and a dried-out marker, stood Commander Thunder. He was a seven-inch action figure with a cracked plastic cape, a missing left hand (chewed off by a long-deceased family dog), and a painted-on smile that refused to fade.