"Queen Beryl!" yelled Jadeite. "I found a new source of energy!"

"What happened to your last source?" demanded Beryl. "I thought you were just going out to get some energy! You said the plan was flawless!"

"It was," said Jadeite. "Here is the energy I retrieved."

Queen Beryl spit out her soda and leapt out of her throne.

"How did you get this?!" she asked in shock. "Is this some kind of trick?"

Beryl took out a magnifying glass and examined the energy.

"Holy mother of Beryl, I don't believe it," said Beryl. "Who gave this to you?"

"I took it with my own two hands, and a little help from a Youma," explained Jadeite.

"I thought you killed all the Youmas," said Beryl.

"I found one lying around," said Jadeite. "Anyway, can Metalia wake up now?"

Beryl's eyes were huge as she stared at the big ball of energy.

"Yes, actually," said Beryl. "She only needed like two successful energy grabs."

Beryl went downstairs and awoke Metalia.

20 minutes later, she reemerged and sat down on her throne.

"So are we taking over the world now?" asked Jadeite.

"No, unfortunately," said Beryl. "Metalia only has 20% of her original power. So she's sending us on some wild goose chase for some crystal or something."

"Uh oh," said Jadeite. "How will I pull that off?"

"Don't worry," said Beryl. "I'll leave that to those other slackers. Meanwhile, I believe it's time for you to be greatly rewarded!"

Jadeite put his arms up. "You're not gonna kill me, are you?"

"Why would I kill you when you actually got energy?"

"I don't know," said Jadeite. "It just wouldn't surprise me."

"Hmm," said Beryl. "I'll get back to you about that reward. On your way out, pass Nephrite at the soda machine and tell him I have a job for him."

"Wahoo!" said Jadeite skipping out of the room. "I finally did it! After all this time! I finally got energy!"

"What was that?" overheard Nephrite at the soda machine. "No kidding?"

"Nope!" said Jadeite.

"Wow," said Nephrite. "Does this mean my vacation is over?"

"I think so," said Jadeite. "Beryl wants you to go do work for once."

Nephrite hung his head and headed to Beryl's.

Jadeite skipped all the way back to his room, drank a full glass of lemonade, and went to bed giddily.


The next morning he awoke.

"I wonder how Beryl will reward me! I hope it's with a smooch!"

Now that Jadeite had some free time on his hands, he headed down to the Negalounge to pass some time.

Zoisite was napping on the sofa.

Suddenly Jadeite spotted something that made his heart skip 30 beats.

He shrieked at the top of his lungs.

"Ah!" cried Zoisite. "What happened?! Are we under attack?!"

"No," said Jadeite, tears forming. "What is this?" he asked, making sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.

"Oh," said Zoisite. "Beryl came by with that earlier. She said she was getting the Nintendo Switch for us all to share as a reward for something someone did."

Jadeite shrieked again. "The newest Nintendo system?! Over 500 dollars of fun!? I can't believe it!"

"Well," said Zoisite. "It's not really that big of a deal. I think we can just spawn money, I mean Nephrite got a car out of nowhere."

Jadeite couldn't stop shrieking however, and Zoisite had to leave.

Finally Jadeite calmed down and turned on the TV.

He switched to game mode 3 and the Switch screen launched.

"Dreams really do come true," he said happily.

He launched Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which came with the system.

"I'm so happy!" he shouted.

Then he got to the character selection screen.

"Oh," he said. "All the characters are already unlocked. No one had played it yet, that's odd."

Then he got to the track selection screen.

"No," he said. "This is exactly the same as Mario Kart 8 regular, except for three characters that aren't even from the Mario franchise! This is ridiculous!"

Jadeite turned off the Switch.

He sat there for five minutes not knowing what to do.

Then he got an idea.

He went to the Nega computer lounge, and Googled how to crack a Nintendo Switch.

He clicked the first link.

"Requirements," he read. "SD card."

He pulled it out of his pocket. "Check!"

"Half a brain," he continued to read.

He tapped his head. "Check!"

"Alright, that's it," he said at last.

He put the .zip file onto the SD card.

"Now for the magic to happen!"

Jadeite put the SD card back in the Switch.


Nephrite, Zoisite, and Kunzite pranced into the Negalounge.

"I'm telling you," said Nephrite. "I can beat you in Mario Kart easy."

"No," said Zoisite.

"Yes," continued Nephrite. "I've been playing Mario Kart since the arcade!"

"There never was a Mario Kart arcade version," sneered Kunzite.

"Wrong," said Nephrite. "Mario Kart GX."

"That's recent!" yelled Zoisite.

"No!" said Nephrite. "You both know too much!"

"Boot that thing up, Jadeite!" called Kunzite. "I call Rosalina!"

"No!" said Zoisite. "You must be a guy!"

"Why?" demanded Kunzite. "It's just a game!"

"It always starts that way," said Zoisite.

"Hey guys, watch this!" interrupted Jadeite.

He launched up the Switch.

"What the hell?" demanded Nephrite. "Why is the background moving and rainbow?! What did you do to our Switch?"

"Don't worry," said Jadeite. "I just cracked it."

"You cracked it," said Zoisite in disbelief. "Please tell me you didn't."

"Don't worry," repeated Jadeite. "I'm an expert hacker. I downloaded the .zip myself."

"Jadeite," warned Kunzite. "That system just came out. Surely they will detect any modifications. This is no Nintendo Wii."

"Don't worry," repeated Jadeite once again.

"Hey," said Nephrite. "When did we get all these games?"

Jadeite started giggling, and soon his giggle burst into a guffaw.

They all waited.

"I hacked into the E-shop, so now I can get all games free!"

"Wait, wait," said Zoisite. "That game over there hasn't even come out yet!"

"Yes," said Jadeite. "But it's still there in the E-shop, so I used my expert hacking skills to download it early."

"That's at least $800 worth of games," said Kunzite. "There's no way they haven't caught onto this."

"Nah," said Jadeite. "You all are too dense."

"That's great," said Zoisite. "Now can we play Mario Kart?"

"Sorry," said Jadeite. "I'm installing some homebrew."

"What that even mean?" asked Kunzite.

"Here, look at this!" said Jadeite.

He put in a CD movie, and it started playing.

"Our Switch has a CD player?" asked Zoisite in shock.

"It does now," said Jadeite. "And look at this!"

He hit a button, and strobe lights started coming out of the system.

Kunzite had to cover his eyes.

"Make it stop!" he shouted.

"Alright, alright," said Jadeite.

"Why would that be built in?" wondered Nephrite.

"Hey guys, are you hot?" asked Jadeite.

"No," said Zoisite. "I just want to play Mario Kart."

"Oh," said Jadeite. "Well if you were hot…"

He pressed some buttons, and the fan in the system that was supposed to cool it down if it got overheated started blowing outward.

"Look, it's a fan!" Jed explained giddily.

"We have enough fans," said Kunzite. "You don't have to turn a $500 system into one."

"Nah," laughed Jadeite.

"Listen," said Nephrite. "If you keep this up, our system is going to get bricked."

"Bricked?" asked Jadeite. "What does that mean?"

"It means that Nintendo will make it unusable. That's why they call it bricked; because the only use for it after that is as a brick."

"Fairy tales," scoffed Jadeite. "I have an anti-bricking homebrew. Now who wants to play Mario Kart 10?"

"What is that?" asked Zoisite sadly. "I just want to play Mario Kart 8."

"No no," said Jadeite. "Mario Kart 10 is better! It has 50 more tracks and 30 more Koopalings! Someone made this mod themselves!"

"I'm leaving," said the Shitennou.

"Really?!" shouted Jadeite. "I downloaded all this for you!"

Kunzite popped his head back in. "Don't use the internet with any of those nonsense channels you downloaded," warned Kunzite. "In fact, don't use the internet at all. You will get bricked in an instant!"

"Coward!" shouted Jadeite. "You're all scared of progress!"

Kunzite left.


Kunzite, Zoisite, and Nephrite came down the next day.

"Maybe Jadeite got bored of his illegal modifications and will let us play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe," hoped Zoisite.

But when they got in the Negalounge, they saw that the Switch was no longer plugged into the TV.

"Where is it?" wondered Kunzite. "I bet Jadeite has something to do with this."

The three of them knocked on Jadeite's door.

It was open so they went in.

Inside Jadeite's room, Jadeite was writing something on paper. The unplugged Switch was on his desk.

"Oh hey guys," said Jadeite.

"Jadeite," said Zoisite. "What are you doing with the Switch?"

Jadeite didn't respond and kept writing.

When they got closer, Nephrite gasped.

"Are you using the Switch as a paperweight?" demanded Nephrite.

Jadeite nodded sadly.

"Why would you do that?" shouted Kunzite.

They grabbed the Switch and took off running.

"Hey!" yelled Jadeite. "Come back!"

When they plugged it in, the screen was blank.

They clicked many buttons, but to no avail.

Suddenly the screen turned blue and a bunch of words popped up.

Then it turned off.

The three of them turned to Jadeite.

"Jadeite," said Zoisite.

"I got bricked," said Jadeite sadly.

"How?!" shouted Kunzite. "You didn't go on the Internet, did you?!"

"Well," said Jadeite with his head down. "You know that Pokemon Stars game that hasn't been released yet?"

"Yes," they all replied.

"Well I tried to do a Wi-Fi match on it."

They all face-palmed.

"That's not all," said Jadeite. "At first they just turned off my internet access, and kept giving me some error code saying it was restricted by Nintendo. So then I downloaded a mod to turn my Switch into an Xbox 360."

They all face-palmed.

"And here we are," concluded Jadeite.

"Wait," said Zoisite suddenly. "Maybe we can get a full refund since we just got it yesterday! We'll say we have no idea what happened and it must be broke!"

"That's foolish," said Kunzite. "They'll know right away!"

"Nah," said Jadeite. "It's a great plan."


That night, they crept into Beryl's bedroom.

"Where's the receipt?" whispered Jadeite.

"She keeps all receipts under her mattress," said Kunzite.

"How do you know that?" asked Nephrite.

"Me and Beryl spend a lot of time together," said Kunzite. "Until that pest Endymion, and now Kenji!"

"Found it!" said Zoisite loudly.

Beryl stirred in her sleep, and they all froze in place in goofy poses.

"What are you doing?" said Kunzite. He turned to Jadeite who was doing the Egyptian.

"Shhh," said Jadeite. "I'm a statue."

They all waited ten minutes until Beryl started snoring again, and then they dashed out.


The next morning they showed up at GameStop.

"Hi," said Kunzite in his Shitennou uniform. Jadeite was dressed up like a sailor, and Nephrite was dressed up like Maxfield Stanton. Zoisite was dressed up like Sailor Moon.

"What are you doing?" asked Nephrite.

"It's the only costume I have," said Zoisite. "I figure it will help us since she's saved many people."

"What do you want?" said the GameStop clerk to the bunch of them.

"I'm here to return this Switch," said Kunzite in an even tone.

"Why?" asked the clerk.

They all exchanged nervous glances.

"Well," said Kunzite. "I do not like the new format. I will stick to the Wii U."

"Oh really?" said the clerk. "Maybe you should have known what you were buying."

"Heh heh," said Kunzite. "Better late than never!"

The clerk hesitantly took the box.

"Here's your refund," he said, and swiped Beryl's GameStop card.

They all bolted for the door.

"Wait," said the clerk.

They slowly turned their heads and saw that he had plugged in the system and was trying to make it work.

"What's going on here?" he demanded.

"Alright," said Kunzite. "I will come clean."

"No!" yelled Jadeite.

"Not that clean," Kunzite whispered.

He walked back over to the counter. "You see," he said. "It was like this when we got it. Perhaps it was a factory error."

"Perhaps," responded the clerk.

"We did not think you would believe us," continued Kunzite. "And you would think we did this. However we did not. Because there is no way we could make this happen. As you can see, there is no damage to the outside of the system, and you can see we have not taken it apart either."

"Yes," said the clerk.

"So," concluded Kunzite. "I'll be leaving with that refund now."

"Well," said the clerk. "The thing is… I found this SD card still inside."

Kunzite slowly turned around to Jadeite, and Jadeite shrugged sadly.

"And," continued the clerk. "When I put the SD card in my computer, I could see that there were some kind of files to turn this Switch into an Xbox."

"Huh?!" said Kunzite, acting very shocked. "How did that get there?!"

The clerk reached out his hand, and waited for the GameStop card back.

Zoisite shot a beam, taking the GameStop guy for a ride through the wall.

Zoisite dashed out, and then dashed back in. "Run!" he told the others. He dashed back out, and the other Shitennou followed suit.

On the way out, Jadeite snatched the entire display for the newest PlayStation and dashed ahead.


The four Shitennou stood before Queen Beryl.

"So, I take it you wanted to talk to us about that magic crystal thing?" asked Nephrite.

"Actually," said Beryl. "I went to play some Mario Kart 8 Deluxe today, and in the Switch's place was a PlayStation."

"Yes," said Jadeite, owning up. "After hours of playing, we all came to the consensus that the Switch was over-rated, and swapped it out for a PlayStation. So I hope you don't mind we borrowed your card."

"Ah," said Beryl. "That all makes sense. But there's one more thing I'd like to know."

"And what is that, m'queen?" asked Kunzite.

"How do you all explain this?"

Queen Beryl pulled out her ball and turned on the news.

The headline read, "Local band of goons try to return bricked Nintendo Switch, and then assault the employee and flee the scene with a PlayStation."

She showed her crystal ball to them one by one.

On its screen was a newscaster.

"This evening," began the newsman. "A group of four hooligans, consisting of some sort of sea captain, local hero Maxfield Stanton, Sailor Moon, and some guy in a goofy outfit, all were accomplices to this catastrophe."

"Yes," agreed the newswoman. "Further, reports say that the man in the goofy outfit had ugly bleach-colored hair, and a stupid cape."

"Excuse me, your majesty," said Kunzite.

Beryl watched on her ball as Kunzite murdered the two newspeople and then returned to her throne room covered in blood.

"Sorry for that," said Kunzite. "I had to use the bathroom."

"What is the meaning of this?!" shouted Beryl. "Why did you brick my Switch!?"

"Hey," said Zoisite. "At least we made Sailor Moon look bad. Another job well done for the Negaverse!"

"Yes," agreed Kunzite. "Good thinking to go disguised as Sailor Moon!"

"Thank you," said Zoisite.

"Can I go now?" asked Nephrite. "I mean, Jadeite was the one who bricked the Switch anyway."

"Quiet, all of you!" shouted Beryl. "I am very displeased."

"Ah," said Zoisite. He shot an energy beam at her and started to run away, but she tanked it with her crystal ball and retaliated with a blast twice as strong.

Zoisite was dead before he hit the ground, as was Jadeite.

Nephrite and Kunzite were injured, but made it out with their lives.

But Beryl wasn't going to drop it.

She took off on her feet.

Nephrite turned around. "She's actually following," he said in shock. "What do we do?"

"I've got this," said Kunzite.

Kunzite ran over to where they were rebuilding one of the Negawalls.

At the base of the wall was the bricked Nintendo Switch, being used as a brick.

Since the Switch was weaker than the other bricks which were made of concrete, Kunzite easily removed it.

The wall toppled over, ending Beryl.

FIN