As soon as we arrived in the theatre and quickly greeted all of our acquaintances there, we sped back to the battle zone, where we fought a Dark Waffle quartet, a Dragon Warrior, and another Gammaraid. However, in comparison to my last battle against the Gammaraid that apparently had no item, I didn't break down: I was simply disappointed this time.

"We should go and look for more of those in the meantime" I suggested, "I'm convinced that they're rare as ever, if they carry an item that special."

My companions nodded in agreement, and we suddenly stood eye-to-eye with a Ninja DUDE and even an old enemy, the Ninja Chakram. We especially took the latter out easily, as the human ninja enemies still refuse to stop evading our attacks.

A few more ninjas, a Laser Gun, some Bouncerguards and two Déjà Vus later, we finally stood in awe of another Gammaraid.

"And now, you shall have that item!" Ness shouted in some sort of Tarzan style as he attacked with his baseball bat in full force. "I won't let you disappoint Sherm this time!"

"Neither will I!" I said as I sent a force of PSI Ice towards the enemy.

Dog used his Flea Wave Smash and some Dynomite, while Sherm finally demonstrated his newly-learned PSI Darkstorm power, which immediately landed a critical hit.

It took a little longer than we spent with the previous Gammaraids, but just before Sherm and Ness struck with the last hit, Dog sneakily stole an item from the enemy, but kept its appearance a secret until we won the battle.

"Hey, Sheeerm" the mutt said in a sing-song voice. "I got a little something for you…!" He revealed the item, which looked like a… citric blade, to describe the least.

"Yahoo!" Sherm cheered, as he took his only usable weapon in his possession.

I grabbed Ness's hand and Dog's paw, and we made a circle, because I suddenly felt so happy for our fruity companion, that I couldn't help but make a circle, sing and dance.

"3 hoorays for Sherman" the three of us sang on the melody of Jolly Good Fellow, "3 hoorays for Sherman, 3 hoorays for Shermaaan! He has the Citric Blade!"

"I've got the Citric Blade!" Sherm added on the same melody, "I've got the Citric Blade!"

We were all left laughing in joy and happiness, while some background people suddenly applauded for us.

"Wow, never thought we'd all be praised on the fact that only I got that unique weapon."

"You guys are great battlers!" the teenager with the Shy Guy mask said. "If you're looking for a more challenging challenge, then go to that hotel over there, I'm sure you won't regret it!"

"Is that hotel haunted?" Ness asked. "I'm not even kidding! Arn and I were in a haunted department store yesterday, and it was Luigi's Mansion all over again, just except for the fact that the haunting was caused by someone who wasn't King Boo, and that most of the enemies there weren't ghosts either."

"'Haunted' isn't the correct word here, but 'containing some evil entity' is more like it. In any case, go for it! I know you guys can save EB No Matsuri, and I'll see you there tonight!"

"Alrighty!" I said, as me and my companions entered the hotel, which was erroneously spelled as 'gotel' for some reason.

At the counter, there were two people: a punk guy who sold foods we didn't need because we had enough of those already, and a balding, formal man who looked like he was somewhere in his forties, and like the manager of this hotel.

"Vell, at least be sure to fight all zee enemies 'ere" he said. "Zee creator put a lot of time et lasers een zem." He had a thick French accent.

"We're already strong enough to take on the next few, man!"

"Très bien, zen. Good luck!"

"Thank you kindly" my companions and I said in unison, while I couldn't help to add a good, hearty "monsieur" to the end of my own spoken sentence, which made us all chuckle a little, even though I did mean it.

Next up, we went to one door where a bellman in a green uniform stood. His eyes looked like they said that he was already expecting us.

"Now!" he said in some sort of army tone, before switching to a 'ready-to-rumble' tone. "Arn! Ness! What's his face! Sherm! Are you ready for the END!?"

"Not especially" I said.

"I like not ending" Dog said.

"I like knot ending too" Sherm said, making me, Ness and Dog chuckle, of which the bellman didn't quite approve, sadly.

"Okay screw you guys you get teleported." And with a sleight-of-hand-like trick of his, my companions and I found ourselves in yet another hallway, which looked a lot like such in a palace.

"I feel anticipated, man!" Ness said, as he seemed to swivel around restlessly.

"Tell me about it" I said, as I tried to breathe deeply to keep myself calm and cool.

"Welcome to infinity, dear mortals" a formally dressed blonde man said. "Well, actually, it's infinity minus one. We couldn't afford the real thing, sorry."

"Infinity minus one?" Dog said. "That's not even a thing, and I'm saying this as a maths master back in middle school!"

I nodded in agreement, even if I haven't been the best at maths back in my own school days.

On a sofa, a Bouncerguard sat, but rather than picking a fight right away, it first stopped to talk to us.

"Hey" he said, "you know I'm always ready for a fight, but when I'm picking up chicks, that's a whole 'nother story." He turned to an attractive-looking lady that sat near him. "So, baby, tell me more about this '.pkhax'…"

"If you liked this hack but can't beat SimonBob" the lady said to me and my companions, "check out the topic on the forums at .net in the PKHack section. Alternately, you could talk to Radiation on .pkhax on dynastynet. He's a jerk, though."

"That's a coincidence" I said, "some guy called Radiation called me yesterday! And he indeed was kind of a jerk, for not even letting me say bye to him before hanging up. Furthermore, he did sound like a nice guy, though. Regarding the rest of what you spoke of… I don't think I really got it."

"That's alright. But SimonBob is someone important soon, so please keep that in mind."

I shrugged, and my companions followed me to a small office, where an elderly man sat at a desk. To Ness, he looked familiar somehow.

"I… am not Monotoli!" the man said. (What a peculiar name, Monotoli.)

"You definitely are" Ness said in an annoyed tone. "You're a loser, Monotoli." He briefly turned to me, Dog and Sherm. "That's a long story that I'll save for later…"

"It wasn't my fault! …it was totally the Mani Mani Statue!"

"We killed that."

"Get out or I'll call security."

That tone of his even gave me the chills down my spine, so my companions and I hurried out of the office, through the next doors, which led to a bigger theatre hall than the one we first entered.

Several people were sitting in the seats, still watching an empty theatre until a possible show could begin.

Compared to the previous theatre hall where we were, this one seemed livelier, as the sound of people talking was more present than ever, and occasionally even enriched with the sounds of laughter, coughing, a weeping baby and even the cheering of the most enthusiastic people. Man, how much I missed being with dozens to a few hundreds of humans present in the same space.

"Nice job coming this far, losers" a bratty-looking blonde teenager said. "Too bad you can't beat ME!" The look on his face suddenly changed. "Ha ha, just kidding. I'm wicked with a bo staff, though."

"As you can see" a blonde youngster with a white 'I heart" shirt said, "the bugs in this hack are getting more and more rampant. This wasn't a ninja's doing… this was… something else."

"The ninja chapter is almost over at this point, I guess" I stated. "But that's okay, I'm always in for something new, too."

"Oh" a blonde young lady in a yellow dress said, "so you're skipping school too, right?"

"None of us is at school anymore, little lady! I'm 25, and my companions are still teens!" I suddenly thought a little. "Wait a sec, I think you just misheard me. I just said that 'I'm always in for something new, too', not that I'm 'skipping school too', you silly goose!" I burst out in loud laughter.

"Sorry, my bad. I shouldn't just eavesdrop on strangers, only to mishear their sentences." The young lady giggled sheepishly.

In the shadiest corner of the hall, a suspicious-looking girl stood, and she looked like she was offering strange cakes of sorts.

"Better not trust her…" I whispered to my companions as I pointed at the girl with my eyes. "I think she wants to trick us."

Ness, Dog and Sherm all said something in the way of "no, we indeed shouldn't", before the four of us headed to the next door near us.

"The boss has gone pretty crazy, lately" the blonde, formal guy next to that door said. "Also, it's EB No Matsuri tonight, and I don't hear a crowbar or hacksaw anywhere. What's going on?"

And as soon as I wanted to say that I didn't know what was going on, the guy did a familiar sleight-of-hand thing, like that bellman not too long ago, and my companions and I found ourselves somewhere else once again.

In the room, which looked like a locker room of sorts, a demon-like entity was present, as well as someone familiar… again, to Ness, at least.

"Isn't that Lucky from the Runaway Five?" he pondered.

"Never heard of that or him before" I said, as I approached the Blues Brothers-like man. "Good day, sir, how can I help?"

"This SimonBob guy wants to kick it with a tasty groove and be totally sweet" the man said. "We're ninjas, so we can appreciate this kind of thing, but SimonBob just seems a little shady…" He wore a pin button on his chest that sported the letters AGM.

"Psst, I think this may be the Annual Gift Man, but in disguise…!"

Ness and Dog immediately inspected him, and especially his face.

"Hey, you're right" the hatted teenager said. "But we'll keep this a secret between the four of us, alright?"

Dog, Sherm and I nodded in agreement.

The evil entity was still glaring at us, like it already did once we arrived. It made me feel restless, so I breathed deeply for a little while before finally having the courage to speak to it.

"Um… hi?" I managed to bring out.

"Ha ha ha ha!" the evil entity laughed just as evilly as he looked. "You guys are dead! Also, I'm innocent."

"First of all" Ness stated, "I want to say that your faceplate is the crappiest thing I have ever had the displeasure to behold."

"No it's not!"

"Secondly, I want to know how we even got to this place anyway."

"Spaceship" I said, "duh. Why do you think we went to collect all the pieces?"

"Arn, we used a teleporter, remember? The pieces ultimately meant nothing."

"That means… they're still here! Wooooo! I didn't even notice! Scary!" Of course I was kidding when I said this.

"Okay" Dog said, "can I say something?"

"I haven't gotten one line in the entire game, guys" Sherm said while secretly winking at us, meaning that he's lying to the entity right now.

"Yeah" the entity said, "I got more than him."

"Go" Ness said, as he patted Sherm's backside, and the latter immediately cleared his throat in response.

"This hack really isn't about winter. It's about making fun of it not being about winter, and ultimately making fun of making fun of it not being about winter."

"…point?" Ness rubbed his chin with his thumb and index finger.

"I wish I could wear pants." The tangerine slightly chuckled.

"I wish I could wear pants, too" I jokingly said.

"Well" the entity said, a little louder now, "while you've been talking, I've been absorbing energy from the Annual Gift Man whom I've disguised as my friend Lucky here."

I tilted both of my eyebrows towards my companions, as if saying "I knew it!", and they all nodded in agreement.

"Help" Dog said, stoically.

"Not so fast, SimonBob!" I brought out, already having the feeling that the entity was, in reality, the SimonBob that the handsome lady in the hallway just mentioned. "We've got the power of Dragonmaster Alex on our side – that makes us Jesus, Moses, and Weird Al!" I looked at Sherm as I was a bit baffled about not giving him a special title just now. "And… a tangerine?"

"No" Ness said, "let me do it."

"I wanna fight" the SimonBob said.

"Fine."

"Ya-ha-ha! Here I go!" The evil entity started laughing maniacally, and the only things I could make out from it were "groooahahaha" and "oh-crap-tee-hee", which both sounded very unnerving to me.

My companions and I drew our weapons once we saw that SimonBob had summoned two cohorts out of nowhere.

"I am everything… I am nothing. I consume sandwiches… And I will consume YOU! Or maybe just the tangerine. Is that cannibalism?"

"Nah" I said with a shrug.

"Cool."

"But it is negligence of your very own friend and companion here!" Sherm retorted, "you chicken brains!" He stomped me in the face in full force with his full body.

"Ow, I'm sorry, man, I was only just trying to play cool." I petted the annoyed tangerine's head. "I promise to never say such stuff about you again. Ever. Hereby, I'll try to protect you from his nasty, cavity-ridden teeth."

"Good."

This battle was a long one. Dog started by using his Neutraliser to wear all of the possible PSI effects off, and subsequently used one stick of Dynomite and his Flea Wave Smash.

The cohorts, Apathy and Hatred, were easily taken out, but not before Dog pickpocketed them, as they carried a few items. Not that they represented anything special, though, but still, our smart canine companion just loves to spy on and pickpocket our opponents.

Ness, Sherm and I unleashed the most of our PSI attacks once it was just us and Dog versus SimonBob alone. And in the meantime, we also stole all of his PP, eventually bringing him to an advantage (to us, that is) with his PSI powers. Yup, every single one of it!

To celebrate that, we shared a large pizza we still had in my inventory, and a few physical hits and Flea Wave Smashes later, we seemed to have emerged victorious.

"No!" SimonBob screeched. "It's impossible! I can't be defeated by youngsters yet! AhhhhhHHHHHHhH! Darn." He put his two prominent tentacles up and surrendered. "Heh heh, that was… viewtiful. What do they call you, brave warrior?"

"Viewtiful" I whispered to myself, "that sounds like a cool superhero name." I stopped to speak up. "They call me Arn… Viewtiful Arn!"

"That's rad."

"So" Ness said, "why did you capture the Annual Gift Man?"

"Well, if I wanted to be the best EarthBound player ever, I'd have to take away all the other EarthBound carts, right? Gotta stop circulation. It escalated further. There was only one person left on the planet that hadn't played EarthBound. That person was Arn."

"Oh, EarthBound?" My eyes were still slightly widened since I was suddenly mentioned just now. "I played that game. It sucks."

Ness frowned and slapped me right in the face again, disapproving very much of the fact that I just said that.

"…crap" SimonBob rambled on. "Anyways, all I had to do was put up a sign that said 'NO ONE LIVES HERE GO AWAY ANNUAL GIFT MAN' and then that would solve all my problems, see?"

"Right." The hatted teenager put his arms into his hips. "But why'd you capture him?"

"With that much power, I could update mailbag every day! I could rule the world!"

"Wait…" Ness briefly turned to us. "SimonBob never updates Mailbag!" He turned back to the evil entity. "You're not SimonBob!"

"Mwahahaha! You people are no fools! I'm none other than Mr. Accident himself! Ha ha ha, see you in a place no man will ever find! I'll be concocting my next brilliant strategy of destruction!"

"You're going down! We'll find your place!"

"We may be stupid and random" I said, "but we can kick butt when we need to! Except Dog. He's a weiner." I briefly turned to Dog, who was already frowning because of my statement. "I didn't mean that, of course. I'm only just pulling Mr. Accident's leg…!"

The mutt then nodded in approval with a normal expression on his face.

"Smell you later forever!" the fake SimonBob screeched, as he made pirouettes at the speed of light and then disappeared into nowhere.

Then suddenly, me and my companions were surrounded by a strange white light…