GameInformer

So Sonic carries Nick as he runs to the nearest chili-dog stand, buying the whole place out of chili-dogs and begins to pig out.

BUT IT'S TOO LATE AND KRATOS RANDOMLY COMES IN TO KICK EVERYONE'S ASS AND ORGASM FAIRIES ARE EVERYWHERE AND IT'S ALL HAPPY AND EPIC BUT THEN OMIGAWD THREE DOG COMES IN TO BROADCAST EVERYTHING THAT'S HAPPENING BUT HE GETS IN THE WAY OF SOLID SNAKE, WHO IS JEALOUS OF KRATOS FOR BEING MORE BADASS THAN HIM SO HE TAKES THREE DOG HOSTAGE!!!

"Alright!" I said. "Look, if we're going for pizza, we hafta start behaving. If not, you're gunna get us all taken in and cuffed, ya silly bugger". We spent about 15 minutes walking to this dive.

So he walks into this pizza joint like he owns the place. Strolls right up to the cash register and starts wavin his arms in the air like he's weighing something. Then he yells out at the toppa his lungs "It'sa me....Mario!"

The pizza joint was empty, besides the migrant workers in the back.  "I want some pizza!  And make it SPICEY!"  Then this really fat and ugly cat pops up from underneath the counter takes his order and runs to the back.  "Guys, we gotta make it spicey.  He looks important!  Could be secret service to the President!  Better do as he says!"  That got things going into high gear.

The customer (Nick) took a look around the empty room behind him and felt out of place.  "And don't spit in my pizza!"  The cat looked frightened after he said that.

"Guys, just make a new one." he said into the microphone.  The cat looked back at Nick and smiled.  "Puuurrrrrrrrr!" Greg was taken back by that.  They were having a moment.

"Oooo!  I totally forgot to turn the car off!" thought Nick as he bolted outside.  BUT THE CAR WAS GONE!!!

And so was the pizza joint. As fate would have it, the spiciness of the pizza was too much for the fabric of the space/time continuum, thereby blasting the entire pizza joint into the inky void of non-existence, taking even the light dusting of parmesan cheese that rested undisturbed beneath the feet of...

Ezio de la Aubreezio de Pisano...or something...Master Assassin and (arguably) the world's most proficient pizza deliverer.

Ezio: "W...T....F man. WTF. Does this mean I can go home?"

Mario: "Itsa me MARIO!"

Nick: "S...T...F...U man. Just STFU. Where's that cat? He and I have some unfinished...business"

Ezio got in his Cadillac Escalade and drove off into the dark purple horizon, flipping off the others, destroying any chance at getting his job back had this been a strange trip on everyone's behalf.

"Hey wait!  You forgot your tips!" shouted the fat cat, bolting from the rubble of where the pizza joint used to be.

"You!" exclaimed Nick.  "Can you give me a ride back to civilization?"  The cat smiled and purred in agreement.  They both hopped in a beat up old Volkswagon Beetle.  "I'm in charge of the radio," said Nick, out of breath from all of the excitement that filled his lungs.  When he turned it on, though, the song played "DON'T TRUST THE CAT!  HE'S A FAT CAT!  YOU MUST KILL THE CAT!!"  And the cat quickly fumbled the radio to turn it off.

"We can talk instead.  So tell me, how is the President?" asked the cat.

"This is gonna be a long trip," wimpered Mario from the back.

Getting awkward - and about 13 miles to the gallon - the trip in the beat up old Volkswagon Beetle soon wore our intrepid bunch very thin indeed. They stopped at the roadside for refreshment, although cactus water and tire-mashed Twinky can hardly be called "refreshment" in this part of the Kingdom.

Nick: "By the way, the President is fine. Listen, back there...with the radio..."

Cat: "Mario! Hey Mario! Is it just me or does he seem....distracted?"

Nick: "You're ignoring me."

Cat: "Ignor...aheh! No no! Radio...yes, radio. What's a radio?"

Nick could take it no longer. With a flourish and a mighty flick of his wrist, he extracted his 5 cent plastic comb he got from a homeless mans CrackerJacks from his inner coat pocket and began combing his ample mullet.

Nick: "A little hard....to ignore me now. Don't you think?"

Cat: ....

And yet another. Moment.

Mario looked on from the back.  He was as confused as the day he was ripped from his mother's womb.  "Cat.  Hey cat.  You should be drivin', huh!  Quickly!  The sun about to rise!"  The fat cat whipped his head around at break-neck speed and glared at Mario.

"Who invited YOU!" the cat sneered, pointing at Mario.  "This is MY car and we're gonna drive when I WANT to!"

"But seriously, cat," whispered Nick.  "We've got a ways to go.  We've got to make it back to the city before sunrise because otherwise we'll miss Mario's appointment!"

The trio puttered back onto the road.  Just in time, too, because a van full of very attractive women pulled up aside to them.

"Avert your eyes!" screamed the fat cat.  "They're not women!"

Nick: "You LIE! You always LIE! Seriously? They're not really women?"

Cat: "No. Well technically yes, if you take into account the location of their mammalian protuberances but NO! Not when you look at their cunning stunts! Watch how they whirl and thwirl...wait...does "thwirl" have an "H" in it?...anyway! They whizz and thwizz around us awaiting but one minor slip up. AVERT YOUR EYES!"

Mario: "That sounds remarkably like a ploy to keep Nick from seeing that his sister seems to have joined the Sisterhood of Cunning Stunts. But I'm just a plumber so what would I know. I know mushrooms! Anyone want some? They're primo. Picked em just yesterday. Funny enough, right outside that pizza joint!"

Cat: .....

Nick: "Is that true?...... Are you just a plumber?"

Mario: "Ah... I don't know.  Probably.  I can't remember the last time I took a job because I be havin' these terrible... dreams... about a big turtle man..."

The Fat Cat looked coy.  "Oh!  Bowser!  Bowser is my golfing buddy!  Yeah, I wouldn't worry about him.  He's not very good..."

Nick started to put the pieces of the puzzle together, but not really.  "Cats can't play golf!  ANOTHER LIE!"  The Fat Cat sped up the car to outrun the van of the girls.  "Cat.  I've been meaning to ask you.  What happened back there?  At the pizza joint?"

The Fat Cat smiled and purred again.  "We had a moment!"  Nick was weary of the long day he had.  He put his head down on his window.

About a half an hour passed when he woke up and realized the mushrooms kicked in.  "The Dragon's not real!  The Dragon's not real!"  sputtered Nick in a frenzy.  He looked over at the Fat Cat.  "Cat's not real either!  Nothing's real!"  He opened the car door and leaped to his freedom.

"Oh my!  He's gonna be sore in the morning!" exclaimed Mario from the back seat.

And although he was certainly enjoying it, Mario found it rather odd that the back seat of this particular Beetle had a shower stall in it...or was it the mushrooms?

Cat: "We have to stop."

Mario: "For what??! The jebroni with the mullet back there who can't handle his fungi?"

Cat: "WE HAD A MOMENT ***!!"

Mario: "Woah! Reeeelax there feline. Well go back. Just keep the volume down would ya? I'm so not a fan of this song."

Cat: "Song? What song?....CRAP! THE RADIO! He took it with him when he leaped from the car! OMG...we're so screwed!"

Mario: "ARGH!!! NO!! What are we screaming for?"

Just then, as they passed the smallest tree either of them had ever seen - or was it a squeegee kid? cuz the Beetle could've used a good wash at this point - the two came to each other's gaze and something....the slightest of somethings....transpired. Was it?

"I'm taking a risk." the Fat Cat said as he turned into the tree.  The tree fell over.  "I've made a terrible mistake!  I've killed the squeegee kid!"  The Fat Cat peeled out of the and back-tracked to where they thought Nick leaped out.  "Get out and look for signs!"

Mario broke the rear window to do so.  He looked around in horror.

"Niiiiiick!  Where-a are you?" he shouted at the top of his lungs.  He saw something in the distance!  Maybe it could be!  It might be Nick!  Mario ran as fast as he could toward what he saw but as he approached it he realized what it was.  "It's-a the radio!"  He shouted back.  He looked behind him.  "Oh my!"  Mario was shocked to find out he had no idea where he was.

And lo, so too, was the cat gone from sight. Mario stood there silently and feeling very, very alone at that moment. The Princess, that freaking toadstool she hung around and all the terrestrial matters he once troubled with seemed of little importance now. Here.

The radio was beaten. Looking very much like the Twinky Mario vomited back up about four Moments ago. Suddenly! The radio thrummed to life and Mario could hear a very faint whisper of sound eminating from it. Like suggestions from angels, it beckoned him to listen more intently...

"psss.ssss....psssss." was all he could make out. He moved the radio closer to his ear. "Psssss..Sssssss..SpSSSs" - slightly louder still...closer. "PSSS sssSSS TURN UP THE FUGGIN VOLUME!"

Mario dropped the radio in astonishment and reeled backwards, falling on his gluttonous acheivement.

"I am RADIO! All kneel and praise ME!!"

"Itsa me! MARIO!"

"Mario? Dude! IS it really you?"

"Yeah...why?"

"It's ME Nick! I crawled into the radio to break my fall from the car! Thank God you're hear...ing me!"

"Nick, um....I touched your knob."

"Don't worry about it!  We've got bigger problems now!" Exclaimed Nick.  "For instance, there's a man standing behind you!"  Mario spun around in horror.  "Haha!  I got you!  Can't say I lost my sense of humor!"

"Nick-a!  How we gonna get you outta there?" Mario was in a panic, anxiously looking around him.  But Nick didn't respond.  "Nick!"  Mario frantically turned all of the knobs trying to get Nick back.

Just then, Nick's body walked up to Mario aimlessly.  "Give."  He said as he put his arms out.  Mario handed the radio to him.  The body turned all of the knobs toward him.  And Nick's voice came back!  But it was came from the body!

"Thank God!  I was getting kind of worried.  Come on, let's go find that cat, Mar."

...this radio sounds when we were driving. Remind me Mar to sing over the real cheesy crap when it comes on k?"

"No problemo Nick"

"Look, over there. Looks like a theme park. We should go see if we can catch a movie or maybe a corn dog"

"Maybe both Nick...maybe both."

The walk to the theme park turned out to be an excercise in futility. You see, the two of them were still tweaking out on the mushrooms Mario had picked up from the pizza joint about 12 Moments earlier. It felt like it was going to be a bumpy ride from here on in so Nick dialed in a call-in radio spot that featured some long-forgotten psychiatrist or was it a physiotherapist? They couldn't be certain. Not here. Not here because there was no theme park and the "ologist" on the radio was beginning to really get on Nick's knobs.

"Mario. There's something I have to tell you."

"What NOW Nick?"

"Back there, when we saw those women?"

"Yeah...?"

"Did you ....remember what they looked like?"

"Not really.. I mean, I could probably recognize...no not really."

"One looked very familiar to me."

"She should have. She was your sister. I tried telling you that in the car but that darned Cat kept distracting you. Truth be known, he may have been onto something. Those Beetles are really only big enough for one feline reference to women's genitalia anyway."

"MARIO! Is that TRUE???!!!....did you really want to eat a freakin corn dog??"