After a good night's rest, I slowly opened my eyes, rubbed them out, and saw that my trusty companions were still there, soundly asleep.

I slowly but surely looked at my wristwatch, and saw that it was 9:30 a.m. already, and thus, most likely the best time to wake my companions up for today.

"Gooooood morning" I yawned. "Let's make it another great day to explore this crazy moon!"

Immediately, everyone else's eyes popped open upon hearing me.

"Good morning, Arn" Ness said. "I indeed am curious what else there is to see, other than the Annual Gift Man, that is."

Sherm dabbed the outside of his mouth dry with his comfort blanket before putting it back into his inventory and getting out of Ness's clothes.

"I slept well, Ness" he said, "once again, thank you kindly for lending me your clothes."

"Anytime, my fruity friend." The hatted teenager picked his clothes back up and harshly fanned them out before switching his PJ's with them.

Dog got up, stretched well and put his 'base' blanket away.

"Man, I'm hungry" he said, "I surely do hope that we'll find something or somewhere to eat anytime soon."

"Tell me about it" Sherm said.

I also put my sackcloth back into my backpack before we continued our travels… and were soon stopped by a sign.

This staircase senses fear. There's no turning back if you go forward. Will you give up all thirty or so levels you've gained on your journey, or fail pitifully against the King of Ninja? I believe in you! Climb the stairs where I could not.

"I don't understand this, but we're just going to take those stairs anyway." I adjusted my backpack, crouched to pick Sherm up and then we took the stairs.

"Thanks, man" Sherm said. "I already thought these stairs also looked steep, like back in the Techno Ruins, and I was somewhat hesitant to ask, but this was really thoughtful of you, Arn."

"Anytime, buddy."

Once we were finally up the stairs, I put the tangerine back down and read the next sign that was present, on which the handwriting looked as if it was written by an eight-year-old child.

ha ha you're a loser you actually came up the stairs. yeah that's my brother down there he's a loser he can't even get up the stairs. nice job on not being able to come back ever it's not like there's a teleporter anywhere you know.

"We'll just see about that." I grabbed Ness's hand. "I think that door is a disguised teleporter."

Ness nodded and hummed in agreement, as he wanted to grab Dog's hand, but the latter needed to pick up Sherm with his right arm at first.

Once we were all 'connected', we stood in front of the door, and indeed got teleported to the next room, which looked a lot like a small, informal theatre.

The door next to the one near which we now stood, led to washrooms, to which we immediately went at first, because not having been with washrooms for quite some time has eventually been bothering us big-time last night, even if we let that all go unnoticed.

After the four of us were all ready for today for real, we decided to sit down and talk with the people that were present in this theatre.

"With me around" a policeman/guard said, "no-one will be able to steal the crown diamonds!"

"There are no crown diamonds" Ness said, "are there?"

"I just consider myself good at my job."

We all chuckled somewhat before talking to the next person.

"Well" a blonde man said, "it cost me a fortune to come to the moon and see the famous Ninja Bros., but only one of them has shown up and he's kind of evil. At least the people here are nice."

"Sounds like a rat problem to me" I said with a shrug and a slight smile.

"Oh, you and your so-called 'rat problems'!" Ness said, as he tried to hold back his laughter and poked me in my side.

"Hey, it's just one of my common ways to react, Ness. Kind of like a catchphrase, you know?"

"Ah, I see."

"Oh, oh!" a posh-looking man with a hat said. "What shall I do!? The infamous Ninja Bros. have been captured!"

"Well, we could help." I kindly put my hand onto the man's shoulder. "Have you heard of me?"

"No, but I do know the dog and the tangerine." He aimed his eyes at Dog and Sherm. "Say something cool!"

"Hey" Sherm said, who suddenly wore Dog's shades.

"Wait" Dog said, "where'd the sunglasses come…" He felt his snout with his paws, and suddenly noticed that his mandatory shades were gone. "…what!?" He then glared at Sherm.

"Yeah" the man said, "the shorter and fatter bro is still there."

"With the Ninja Bros. out" another posh-looking man next to the previous one said, "we had to hire the Pirate Sisters. They were killed before entry, but their corpses are widely hailed as a popular comedy act here, so it's not a total loss." He even looked a lot like the other man. A sibling of his, perhaps? He also didn't wear a hat like him.

Meanwhile, the man with the hat got up and calmly gave the Awesome Shades back to Dog.

"Thanks, Boris" our canine companion said. "Really, I cannot comprehend why Sherm would even do such a thing."

"So he's still a mischievous boy, I see?"

"Man, I was only just teasing you!" Sherm blew on his friendly rival's hairy ankle. "Can you not stand jokes or something?"

"I can, but you know that I am mandatory to wear these sunglasses, right?"

The teenage tangerine simply stuck his tongue out before jumping twice to get Boris's attention.

"So yeah, Dog and I never really knew each other until yesterday. We only briefly saw each other at Oho Oasis a year ago, but ever since, our paths had never crossed again until, of course, yesterday noon. Now, how do you know Dog?"

"I met him and his friends near the inn in Hoohoo Village, while Ross…" He patted the shoulder of the other posh-looking man. "…and I were just aimlessly wandering around to take nature photos of the waterfall and were just about to head to Hoohoo Mountain."

"Is Ross your brother?" I asked, still questioning the relationship of the two.

"Rather quite, he's my fraternal twin brother."

Ross simply nodded with a smile.

"And as for Sherm, we met him a day later, when the three of us happened to have some coffee at the Starbeans Café, and we subsequently talked a bit about our travels 'so far' back then."

"Say, Boris" Ness said, "somewhere else on the moon, we met this girl yesterday evening, and she also said that she knew Dog and Sherm. Any chance that you know a little about her?"

"I, myself, am not even sure if that person is really a girl or not" I said, as I got a chair to sit down on.

"What do they look like?" Ross asked.

"A flat hat thingy, a magenta blouse and red pants, and they had tons of teeny tiny braids in their black hair."

"Ah, that's Sammy. Yes, they also occasionally tagged along with us on our travels, and they told me and Boris that they also saw Dog and Sherm, but at Gwarhar Lagoon and Chucklehuck Woods respectively instead."

"That's where we indeed were!" Dog said. "My friends and I were just randomly stand-up paddleboarding when Sammy was apparently also there, but swimming on their own instead, before tripping and splatting their banana soft-serve cone into their face." He chuckled about the latter, making me, Ness and Sherm chuckle for a bit as well.

"And I was looking for a little taste of that Chuckola Cola" Sherm said, "that stuff is nice, man! Anyway, I got to taste that on an open day in the woods, where Sammy was also present, by chance. They were also a huge fan of the soft drink, and we had such nice conversations under the enjoyment of it."

"Where are all of those locations located, anyway?" Ness and I asked in unison, before noticing this and both chuckling at each other.

"Beanbean Kingdom. 10 out of 10, I highly recommend it." He shuffled towards a barstool and jumped for a few times.

I lifted him onto the stool, that was just as high as the table we sat at.

Within no time, my companions and I were at the table, and Boris and Ross had served some breakfast for us, which tasted amazing and energised us straight away.

While eating, other people also came to talk to us every now and then.

"Hey, dude!" a man with a keytar said. "I love taking long walks on the beach, rockin' out, and hanging with my ninja buddies. I love the moon!"

"Never saw a beach anywhere on the moon before" Ness said, "but okay, if you say so."

"Neither have I" I said, as I took a careful bite out of my croissant to not splash the strawberry jelly on it all over the hall.

"Man" a red-haired man said, "I like being a ninja." He indeed wore a ninja suit, but not its hood right now. "The Ninja King is lame. I like the Ninja Queen of the Ninja Bros. better."

"If one of them is female" Dog stated, "then they should really call them the Ninja Siblings instead."

"Good point" I said, as I gave my plate to Sherm so he could lick the leftover jelly off of it.

"I'm so afraid" a formal man with glasses said, "sitting next to the black abyss." The black wall near which his table stood indeed kind of looked empty. "I'm scared I'll fall in and never be able to come back. Thank goodness I don't have the Walk Through Walls code on!"

"Then, go and sit somewhere else, if you're scared of that emptiness." I smiled kindly and downed the last bit of my tea.

After my companions and I were done having breakfast, we quickly brushed our teeth in the washroom before continuing our journey.

Through the theatre hall, we went to the next area, which looked like a part of the sewers, but didn't smell like that, strangely. There were two doors, of which one was blocked by a red truck, but this was most likely important for a later part of our journey, so we took the free door at first.

There was this twilight zone-like area in which we soon found ourselves. But we didn't have much time to admire it, as we got jump-scared by a Sweet Ninja Dude soon after our arrival.

The Sweet Ninja Dude is really good at dodging, which is a huge disadvantage for the physical attacks, so we mostly had to stick to PSI in order to win the battle. Oh, and he gave me some useful equipment after his defeat, too, so my defence is a little higher now.

Other enemies we saw and fought were the Ninja DUDE (who could dodge just as well as the Sweet Ninja Dude), the Shuriken (not the item, but it did drop one of those after defeat), the Déjà Vu, the Bouncerguard, the Dragon Warrior, the Laser Gun, and the Dark Waffle (also not the item, but the same story as the Shuriken applied to it regarding this).

In the distance, there was this odd-looking statue, which Ness immediately recognised.

"Wait" he said, "isn't that the Mani Mani Statue?" He pointed at it.

"No, we probably shouldn't fight it" Sherm said, "as I think it causes some sort of inescapable paradox."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

There were also a few regular people around here who seemed to be willing to have some small talk with us.

"I hate pirates so much!" a punk guy with slightly purple skin said. "I do like being purple, though…"

My companions and I somewhat chuckled at the statement.

"Man…!" a young, blonde teenager with a Shy Guy mask said. "I really need to go to the bathroom, but I have no PP!"

The four of us now laughed even harder.

"PSI points are not even related to what's in between your legs!" Ness laughed.

"There's a bathroom in the theatre" I said, now in a serious tone. "The left door on the side across the one from whence you entered."

"Thanks…!" The teenager quickly went off to the assigned bathroom with his hands covering his 'front stuff', like pre-schoolers often do.

"Turns out I am occasionally a good help for non-companions, too."

Ness, Dog and Sherm chuckled at me in a friendly fashion.

A little further away, a science-y guy with headphones was randomly shambling over the streets, in the style of some dance.

"What is love?" he asked in a sing-song voice.

"A miserable little pile of secrets" I replied.

"Baby, don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more…"

"I don't think he heard you" Dog stated.

"Oh, shut up, of course he did." I chuckled a little while saying this.

Soon, we fought another Laser Gun, and you know what's funny about that enemy? Upon defeat, it does the Doomsday Countdown, but subsequently forgets what comes before 7, and explodes early.

Suddenly, upon fighting one of the next enemies after we all had gained significantly more strength, I started feeling a little sick. I randomly missed my (mysterious) Mum, thought of brains and started craving those, and really missed my home back on the island.

"Don't you have a brain in your backpack?" Ness asked, suddenly knowing my craving by using his telepathy.

I groaned sickly as I sat down on the middle of the streets and got the Metroid-style brain in a capsule out of my backpack. For some reason, it angrily chirped at me, so I just decided to leave it as it was.

We subsequently entered a hospital… or, uh, hostssal, as the sign literally said, even when one does not feel sick. However, it didn't look too much like a hospital, more like a small cave with a cat-shaped present as the only important thing there.

"Great" Dog sighed, "now we were tricked and have nowhere to heal here."

"We should go back to the theatre soon" Sherm said, "as I saw a bench there, on which we can all rest."

"Not a bad idea."

Ness wanted to open the cat-shaped present, but I wanted to put a stop to that.

"I am supposed to open that present, Ness Lastname!" I retorted.

"Oh yeah?" the hatted teenager asked sceptically. "How sure are you of that?"

"A full 100%."

"But your inventory is full and mine still has a free spot!"

"Fine, take it, but make sure to hand it to me once I have at least one free spot in my inventory."

Ness blew a raspberry at me and put the item, which was a stuffed cat, into his inventory.

Straight away, I devoured a Dark Waffle from my inventory for the sake of that cat.

"Arn, I'm so sorry for suddenly arguing with you just now." Ness had some tears in his eyes as he handed the stuffed feline to me.

"No, I'm sorry. You see, I'm currently zombified, and thus, a little more irritable. Don't worry, though, I cannot infect any of you with this, so I can still hug you without zombifying you, too." I sat down on my knees, and hugged and comforted Ness. "There, there. Cry as much as you'd like. Of course boys and men cry, don't listen to those who say that they don't."

"So you're zombified?" Sherm asked. "How come? Haven't seen any zombies around there that had bitten you just now." He jumped onto my right knee, apparently eager to hear my life story.

"Neither have I" Dog said, who also sat down.

"Strangely, it didn't even originate that way." I somewhat chuckled nervously. "It started during a sudden zombie apocalypse in which my parents… you know, made love for the umpteenth time, because both of them were a little slow in their organs to develop new humans with. When they finally succeeded but didn't notice this just yet – as it always went that way with having babies in the poor neighbourhoods back then –, it eventually turned out that my father was bitten in his lower back by one of those zombies shortly before the whole 'love' happening, which also resulted in his mental state deteriorating throughout the weeks."

"Oh dear" Ness sniffed, "that doesn't sound too good. Is your father dead now?"

"No, don't worry, I'm convinced he's still alive and well. How, you wonder? Well, because he and my mother eventually went to a hypnotist, who hypnotised my father to be a normal human again, out of which he'll only snap if a certain long and difficult word is said. I, myself, don't know that word, but my mother does, even if she'll never say that word until hell freezes over."

"Hehe, good one. I certainly don't hope that their friends happen know about that word nowadays, though."

I rubbed the teenager's back some more.

"Eventually, maaany weeks since my father was sorta reborn as a human, my mother discovered that she was pregnant with me, and both my parents were so happy that they finally succeeded for real."

"I see" Sherm said, "but now I'm kinda wondering, were you born zombified or healthy?"

"Healthy. The entire time of me being unborn went very well, and my arrival also went very smoothly." I petted the tangerine's head. "I was quite the difficult baby, though, but that was just the typical me. I first became zombified when I first went to pre-school at the age of 3, where I was suddenly in an 'unsafe' environment without my mother, and often mistaken to be sick by the teachers."

"Did you also crave brains back then?" Dog asked.

"I think I did? I honestly don't remember much of my time at that age, except for that first ever and sudden zombification episode, that is. But the first time I ever ate brains for real was back in 9th grade, when we had to dissect brains during biology class, which suddenly triggered my zombification and caused me to devour my assigned set of brains, rather than dissecting them. That even caused me to have an unfair F while I really cannot do anything about my zombification episodes!" I laughed, and my companions laughed along with me. "So yeah, you could say that I got the zombification episodes from my father, but I'm still a regular human otherwise."

"I see" Ness said. "You, apologising and telling your story, made me feel a lot better. Again, you're one of the best companions I've ever had on this amazing journey."

"Yeah, I agree" Sherm said.

Dog also nodded and smiled in agreement.

"C'mon, we should get you rested."

We all went out of the 'cave', and suddenly stood eye-in-eye with a new enemy that none of us ever saw before, the Gammaraid.

However, during the battle with it, I eventually lost all of my battling motivation, and broke down when it didn't drop a special item either after its defeat, even if I could feel that it secretly had one.

"I'm so sorry, you all" I sobbed. "It's just the zombification combined with the fact that this weird thing had no special item, contrary to what I felt."

"A special item, you say?" Sherm said. "Well, then we should just keep on looking for those Gammaraids after resting you up. But for who should that special item be, then?"

"For you."

"Interesting."

The four of us went back to the theatre, where I was immediately parked on a bench near the door to that sewer-like hall.

"Real men don't cry" a random, youthful visitor malevolently laughed at me.

"Yes they do!" I retorted so loudly that they could still hear it all the way on Earth, as I subsequently hid my face in my hands and let loose of another weepy wave.

Ness, Dog and Sherm joined me on the bench to heal up by themselves, but also to comfort me.

"I know I shouldn't say this" Ness said, "but I'm sorry you feel that way, even if you cannot do anything about it." He handed me a packet of paper tissues so I could blow my nose and dab my tears away.

Dog simply rubbed my back in such a way that it felt like a comfortable massage, of which I approved to the fullest.

And Sherm 'hugged' me by rubbing his cheek against the back of my left hand, and subsequently kissing it gently.

"Aw, you guys are so sweet…" I yawned, as I slowly felt myself drift away from my awakened state. "Thank you so much for supporting me in a tough situation like this."

"Anytime, Arn. Now, I see you're a tad tired, why won't you take a little rest?" Sherm grabbed his pocket guitar.

"Not a bad idea…"

I closed my eyes for real and listened to Sherm's gentle guitar melodies until I fell asleep once again.