"And beware, the harder the user throws the blue shell, the harder it beats its wings and the harder it hits!"

Toad and the twins had finally stopped and parked their karts on the side of the road in the grass. Shaded by the big lush tree above them, they had sat down and began to chat about the tiniest details of the game. Toad was seriously considering letting the two twins join their game-it was mostly his and Peach's say anyway. Despite Mario Kart games in general, It was the Toads and Peachs who made the final says about most things. They were both programmed with good decision making- being royalty and the royalty's assistant in a way.

The twins had both sat in their newly rented kart. They didn't want to leave it, since they hadn't sat in one for ages. Ted sat in the driver's seat and dreamily stroked and touched the interior of the kart and rested his cheek on the steering wheel with a big smile like it was his most sacred object that just saved his life or something.

Teddy sat on the back standing platform of the kart, brushing his hands over the back tires and exhaust pipes, not caring it made his hands dirty. Both he and his brother were in ecstasy. Toad wasn't one hundred percent sure they were listening to him, but he could not blame the two. Not being able to do their passion and what they were programmed to do might make a guy a bit clingy to it when they got it back. So Toad just continued and hoped they got anything he was explaining.

"And for most of the shortcuts, you need a mushroom. So only use them if absolutely necessary. If you get the three-mushroom power up, I suggest saving them until you need them. Some shortcuts require more than one mushroom!"

The two siblings just nodded and said "Mmmhmm…" in sync, not looking Toad's direction. They are still all wrapped up in stroking their rental car as a moth would want to a light.

Toad huffed, getting impatient. Thinking for awhile, he finally comes up with an idea.

"Did I mention our players have a few more Mario Kart games in their possession?"

That seemed to get Ted and Teddy's attention. They looked up, with wide, curious yellow eyes.

"Yeah. They do. Each of them has one they technically own- being brothers, you know. The older one has 'Mario Kart 7' for the 3DS, and the younger has 'Mario Kart Wii'." Toad pressed on, smirking, obviously satisfied with the twins finally being attentive, "And we have the capability of going to both of those games-and oooh, they have lots of different karts and tracks there! More power ups too. Hehehe."

Ted looked mystified. "More.. Karts?" Neither he or his twin knew or cared whata 3DS or a Wii was.

"And… Tracks?" Teddy replies with a questionable tone.

"Oh yes! In Mario Kart 7, you can put a glider onto your kart, and pull it out when you're high in the air to collect coins, or find an airborne shortcut! And your kart can pull out a propeller when you're underwater so you don't lose speed, you can even breathe underwater and race in underwater parts of the track in that game!"

The twins were both actively listening now, listening like children to their older sibling tell a ghost story while camping, only much less scary.

"Plus.. Karts are a bit customizable in Mario Kart 7!"

"Oohh.. Cool! Maybe we can go there someday!" Ted said, "I want to make my own kart!"

"Well, err.. It's a bit tough to get to that game. We can only get into it when the younger player plugs the 3DS into its charger overnight. That's the only safe way we can do it. However, you see that Kart of yours?"

The twins glanced at their kart and nodded.

"That kart was originally a replica of my kart. See the resemblance? Blue, got that thing in the front, exhaust pipes right beside the back wheels? We brought that over to the 3DS one day and brought it to the workshop to change it up a bit, just to see what we could do with the workshop in that game. To put it simply, that kart was a test. And it worked. So we're able to make completely custom karts when the 3DS is plugged in overnight, and if we're lucky, while the players are at school."

"That's awesome!" Teddy starts, "We've never tried making anything custom to our karts when TurboTime still existed…"

"Probably because there was nothing we really wanted to change about our karts, bro," Ted states, sighing, but rubbing his hand over the car seat he smiled again, "They were programmed specifically for us and we loved them,"

Toad nodded. "I understand. I feel that way about my kart. Love it to bits-" he looks down so his mushroom hat shades his eyes out of view, "-until some jackass stole it…"

"Well, I'm sure we'll find the guy who stole your kart, Toad." Teddy reassures with a small smile, "And we'll punch him in the face for you."

Toad looks up, smiling a bit. "Thanks you guys. Not sure why you're being so nice to me, we literally just met."

"Well, during the past hour or two you've showed us nothing but respect." Teddy says, pointing a finger at Toad when he addresses him, and points it toward himself when he addresses himself and his brother.

"And back at you. You guys are the nicest bunch of homeless boys I've ever met. Even though you're the only homeless boys I've ever met!" Toad says, chuckling. "Now, what do you buys say we have an official race with the other characters from this game? You guys seem skilled enough to tackle Rainbow Road!"

Assuming Rainbow Road was a really tough track, the twins laughed nervously and shook their heads.

"Maybe we should start small to get in the swing of things, Toad…" Ted murmurs.

"Okay, if you insist. But seriously, you guys probably have the skills to be able to stay on the track in Rainbow Road without falling! Heheheh. Now, the simplest track we have is Baby Park."

"Baby Park, eh? Wow, sounds so grown up…" Teddy sarcastically says, rolling his eyes and chuckling.

"Nah, I'm serious. It's a pretty cool track, even being simple. You might like it."

Nodding, the twins slowly heave themselves up and with one look to each other, they switch places. Teddy takes the wheel while Ted stands on the back platform.

"Lets go then, Toad!" Teddy says, grinning and putting his foot down on the gas pedal to roar the engine, but the kart was still parked.

Laughing, Toad gets up and hops right into his kart and starts it up. "Follow me. Right about now the Koopa Troopa and Paratroopa brothers should be out, they'd be more than happy to race with us!"

"Fantastic!" Ted exclaims, holding onto the handlebars of their custom one-of-a-kind kart as Teddy starts it up. Making a sharp U-turn, they turn around and follow Toad backup and over the hills with big grins on their faces.

Meanwhile

For about an hour or so, Turbo has driven around to multiple different tracks and raced through them all, but with no avail at finding his old NPCs. He was beginning to become inpatient. His kart suddenly felt much smaller than it was.

The sky above him had begun to become much darker now, and before him lay Mushroom City. Growling and cursing under his breath, Turbo grinds his teeth with anger. He had gone in a complete circle and found nothing! And its been what? Two hours? He needed to get to those twins or else Sugar Rush would panic. Turbo did not need Sugar Rush on its toes in security right now when he was trying to get back IN to get his stupid disguise back.

And mod knows what would happen if they found their King had gone missing. Turbo bet that there would be twice the Oreo guard security and it would be much tougher to get into that piece of shit code vault that just so happened to be placed in the middle of a soon-to-be heavily guarded castle. It would be hard enough to get through the fucking Surge Protector! If that guy did his job any better, it would be impossible.

As he sped through the streets of the city, something colorful glinted and caught Turbo's eye. Turning right, he finds himself in front of a building. A tall one, and the front sign said in rainbow neon led lights, "Rainbow Road". But that was not the oddest thing. In front of the door was a slowly rotating illusion of a rainbow-pulsating colored star. It created its own light, that mostly protected itself upwards into the sky. Like a spotlight, almost. The star seemed to be put there so in order to go inside this "Rainbow Road" building somebody had to step on it. Looking up, Turbo followed to light the star made, and it seemed to lead what looked like a racetrack in the sky. Literally, there was a racetrack floating high in the sky ,and it was rainbow. The track itself was a rainbow.

From what Turbo could make out at this height, there was a big, vertical rainbow tunnel in it, and the rest of the track was very curvy and twisty and challenging.

Could that have been "Rainbow Road"? Did this star on the ground bring you to Rainbow Road? And if so, how?

Turbo wasn't sure he wanted to find out right now. That track up there looked pretty high up, and he didn't see any railings. It looked like it was designed to make you fall off. And if there was nobody to catch you when you fell… Well, Turbo didn't want to scratch up his helmet and get a concussion THAT badly. He'll save this colorful, high-in-the-sky track for last. Besides, nobody was up there, otherwise he would see them slightly through the floor. He'd look for his twins elsewhere.

Adjusting himself to get himself as comfortable as possible in this kart, that was a bit of a challenge to steer comfortably, considering he had to suck his gut into be able to move the steering wheel to his liking, Turbo took off in a different direction. He thought he saw a sign that said "Baby Park Ahead" back there.

Well, that sounded fine. He hasn't looked in Baby Park, why not now?