As everyone enters the control room, they look out the main window and see that their view is completely engulfed by thick, green fog.
"What?! Where did all this fog come from?" Cortex groans in anger and annoyance at seeing all the fog in front of him before continuing to rant to Zam and Zem. "We're lost, I knew it! Why did we have to allow Megumi to let the two of you on our team as a means to distract us and throw us off-course?"
"What are you talking about, Cortex? We're not lost." Zem tells Cortex with pride and confidence, ignoring his ranting. "In fact, this is actually a good thing. The thick, green fog means that we're not far from Gasmoxia. The entire planet is surrounded by this stuff!"
"And how could we possibly be off-course, Cortex?" N. Brio asks Cortex. "Coco's GPS-homing device is pin-pointing the exact location of where that mutant food came from, like a paper clip being attracted to a magnet, or a hummingbird being attracted to the nearest feeder."
"Or Crash being attracted to the nearest Wumpa fruit stand." Coco playfully jokes, prompting a playful laugh from Crash.
As the fog surrounding the carrier begins to dissipate, Zem turns to the group and tells them, "Everyone, welcome to Gasmoxia."
By this point, the fog has completely dissipated, allowing everyone to look out and see the toxic, slimy green planet of Gasmoxia in front of them.
"We made it." Coco says with awe before letting out a chuckle and continuing, "Half a week's worth of travel, but we made it."
As they get closer to the planet, the onboard GPS starts to ping repeatedly, getting Coco's attention.
"Wait, what's that little gizmo of yours doing, Coco?" Zem asks as Coco examines the GPS.
"Well, I entered the data from my lab scan into the carrier's GPS, allowing us to travel to the exact spot where that mutant food originated from." Coco tells him.
"Hmm. Clever child." Zem says to Zam.
"And... we should be arriving at the source of the mutant food right about..." Coco says before looking out the main window, causing her confident mood to turn to confusion as she continues, "...now...?"
Everyone else, sans Zam and Zem, develops similar looks of confusion as they look out and see their destination: Toxic Burger and Nuclear Pizza, which has a road winding its way around the two restaurants for drive-thru orders, almost resembling that of a race track with its many twists and turns.
"Ah, there they be!" Zem exclaims as he and Zam glance out the window to their two favorite restaurants. "My pride and joy! My home turf! Toxic Burger and Nuclear Pizza!"
"Really?" Tawna asks in disbelief as she grabs a pair on binoculars to survey the area. "You mean to tell us that this mutated food that nearly killed us came from a pair of drive-thru restaurants?"
"Oh, not just any old drive-thru restaurants." Zem tells her. "They're the finest cuisine Gasmoxia has to offer!"
"Wait!" Tawna exclaims, as she zooms in on her binoculars. "There he is, that filthy scoundrel."
Getting close enough to the restaurants, the group is able to spot what Tawna was looking at through the binoculars: Pinstripe and Geary arriving at the two restaurants in their own personal hovercrafts, exactly like the ones Velo and his minions used when they challenged Crash, Cortex and their companions to race in his Galactic Circuit, with trailers attached to the rear so they can load their stolen food into them.
Not wanting Pinstripe or Geary to notice them, the heroes park their carrier on a small platform which sits alongside the road just across from Nuclear Pizza; this way, they can easily blend into the environment without being noticed by any of Velo's forces.
As everyone heads up to the roof to get a better look of the situation at hand, Tawna growls, "I swear, if we weren't on a stealth mission, I would take that tommy gun of his and stick it up his—"
Before Tawna can finish, though, Crash takes her hand and leads her up to the roof, saying something to her through incomprehensible gibberish.
Calming down, Tawna replies, "You right, Crash. No use venting about it now. I will have my chance to tear that rat a new one once I get my hands on him." prompting a nod of approval from Crash.
Getting up onto the roof, Tawna pulls out her binoculars and looks through them, where she sees Pinstripe heading over to Toxic Burger and Geary heading over to Nuclear Pizza, just as Velo ordered them to.
Arriving at the rear of Toxic Burger, Pinstripe steps out of his hovercraft, approaches the back door and rings a doorbell, getting the attention of Toxic Burger's mascot, T.B. He approaches the door, opens it and is delighted to see Pinstripe standing outside, as Pinstripe had managed to fool T.B. by telling him that he was Toxic Burger's new quality control specialist as a cover to get inside and steal the food within.
"Ah! Welcome back, Pinstripe!" T.B. happily exclaims as he lets Pinstripe into the building.
"Always a pleasure to be back, T.B., my good... burger man." Pinstripe says to him while eyeing the door to Toxic Burger's stockroom.
"So what's the good word from my new quality control specialist?" T.B. asks him.
Pinstripe clears his throat and starts to lie to T.B., telling him, "Well, you see, Mr. T.B., it's like this..."
At that moment, as Pinstripe begins to lie to T.B., Geary approaches the back door of Nuclear Pizza, disembarks from his hovercraft and knocks on the door. The Nuclear Pizza mascot, N.P., opens the door and sees Geary standing outside with a briefcase in his hand.
"Well, well, if it isn't my most loyal customer, Geary!" N.P. exclaims as he sees Geary outside. "I take it you're here for your routine sanity inspection?"
"You know I always am, Mr. Pizza!" Geary replies.
"Well, let me just let you in here and we can get started!" N.P. says as he unlocks the door and escorts Geary inside, knowing that he can trust Geary as he had done several routine safety and cleanliness inspections for the restaurant in the past.
"So, what's the latest news from your end?" N.P. asks as Geary starts his inspection. "Anything exciting happen since your last inspection?"
"Well..." Geary says as he tries to come up with a good enough excuse to trick N.P., but at the same time, wanting to be honest with him, since he knows that N.P. trusts him.
Finally, Geary comes up with a good enough excuse for N.P., telling him, "Well, you want to know what I heard?"
"What? What did you hear?" N.P. asks, curious.
"I heard that Toxic Burger is going to branch out to other parts of Gasmoxia." Geary tells him.
"What?!" N.P. replies in shock. "They are?!"
"Yeah, and what's more, once they're done with Gasmoxia, they're going to spread out all across the galaxy to try and put you out of business." Geary continues.
"They're WHAT?!" N.P. shouts in a rage.
Meanwhile, over at Toxic Burger, Pinstripe is in the process of lying to T.B. However, unlike Geary, Pinstripe has come up with a much more blunt and direct way of making T.B. furious.
"He did WHAT to my family?!" T.B. roars in anger.
"Yes, that dumb slice of pizza kidnapped your family and is holding them hostage at his place." Pinstripe smugly tells T.B. "You would not believe what he's charging as ransom."
"What?" T.B. growls with seething anger. "What exactly is that three-armed freak demanding for the release of my family?"
"Simple." Pinstripe replies. "He wants you to shut down your restaurant so he can expand his Nuclear Pizza franchise all across the galaxy."
"What?!" T.B. shouts in annoyance and anger. "And why exactly should I give in to his demands just like that?"
"Because if you don't, he'll kill your family, bake them into a pizza and serve them to his hungry customers." Pinstripe smugly tells him.
"He'll do WHAT?!" T.B. roars with rage. "Why, that little...! I'll teach him some manners!"
As T.B. storms out of the building and towards a ladder up to the roof, Pinstripe chuckles to himself and says to himself, "What a moron."
Moments later, T.B. storms up onto the roof of Toxic Burger, while N.P. likewise storms up to the roof of Nuclear Pizza.
T.B. then pulls out a megaphone and shouts to N.P., "Hey, Pizza Face! Where do you get the gall to kidnap my family and hold them for ransom?"
"What?!" N.P. shouts through his own megaphone. "What are you rambling about? I never kidnapped your family!"
"Oh, sure you did!" T.B. continues to shout. "You're already thinking about killing them so you can serve them to your customers, am I right?"
"WHAT?!" N.P. roars. "WHY would I want to resort to cannibalism? I would never do that! In fact, why are YOU trying to branch out to the entire galaxy and put me and my restaurant out of business anyway?"
"I could ask you the very same question, you walking talking heap of carbohydrates!" T.B. shouts. "Are you wanting to branch out to the entire galaxy just so you can have your precious CTR TV sponsorship?"
"You know what? Maybe I DO want to branch out and get that sponsorship!" N.P. continues to shout. "At least it'll keep you from getting it, you disgusting glob of trans fat!"
Looking out the window and seeing the two mascots arguing with one another, Pinstripe pulls out a walkie-talkie, activates it and says to Geary, "Okay, Geary, they're distracted! Now's our chance!"
"Right, Pinstripe!" Geary says, talking to Pinstripe from his own walkie-talkie. "Let's get to work!"
With that, the two of them pull out large sacks and make their way to the two restaurants' stockrooms. Inside, they see several boxes labeled 'PRE-PREPARED FOOD. WARNING! NOT TO BE CONSUMED BY EARTHLINGS'. They each take the boxes down from the shelves and start pouring the contents into their sacks. Afterwards, the two head outside the restaurants and dump their cargo into the trailers attached to their hovercrafts. Once they finish dumping, the two of them head back into the restaurants to gather more food.
"Wait, I don't understand." Tawna asks in confusion as she watches the two of them continue to steal food through a pair of binoculars. "Why would Pinstripe and Geary steal food from these two fast food chains?"
"Yeah, I know he's a merciless, sadistic jerk, but he's not one to do anything illegal like this in broad daylight." Cortex says.
"Well, Velo needs the food so he can enslave earth." Zem tells the group.
"Really?" Ami asks in disbelief. "This is Velo's master plan? Stealing food?"
"No." Zem replies as he explains Velo's master plan to the group. "You see, Velo's planning on mutating this food and launching it towards earth, where it'll poison all life forms and mutate them into an intergalactic army."
Upon hearing this, Isabella gasps in surprise and says, "So THAT'S what happened to N. Brio not too long ago."
"Yes, but in order for him to mutate said food, he's using Pinstripe and Geary to distract these two mascots and turn them against each other further so they can steal the food while they fight." Zem continues.
"So, what are they fighting about exactly?" Spyro asks inquisitively.
"A CTR TV sponsorship." Zem replies.
Upon hearing this, Megumi gasps in excitement and gleefully says, "A sponsorship! This could easily solve our financial woes!"
"Yes, true, but that's not important right now." Coco tells her. "Let's first focus on stopping this invasion, and then we can work something out with those two mascots down there."
"Well, I guess this does explain why all that food that attacked us consisted of nothing but burgers and pizzas." Tawna says as she hands her pair of binoculars over to Isabella. "What do you make of it, Isabella?"
"I don't know..." Isabella says as she looks through the binoculars before eventually spotting N.P. shouting from atop the roof of Nuclear Pizza. "But I have to say, that mascot pizza is kinda cute."
Everyone then shoots a look of confusion at Isabella as if to say, "Say what?"
"Cute like a little kitten." Isabella sheepishly says before letting out a nervous chuckle.
Suddenly, Crash looks up and spots something which gets his attention. He motions Isabella to look where he's looking, allowing her to see, through her binoculars, Pinstripe and Geary flying away from the two restaurants in their hovercrafts, their trailers stuffed to the brim with burgers and pizzas.
"Drat. Pinstripe and Geary got away." Isabella groans as she watches the pair fly away into the thick green fog towards Velo's mothership. "They must be heading back to Velo and his mothership to deliver all that food to him."
Isabella then sighs as she watches T.B. and N.P. head back into their restaurants, having finished up their arguing. "That poor pizza. I'd hate to see that cute little guy and his friend go out of business because of those two clowns."
"Well, let's not just stand around here saying how cute pizza is." Ami exclaims as she attempts to head inside the carrier to the control room. "Let's go after them!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Ease up on the impulsiveness there, Ami." Crunch tells her as he takes her hand. "Remember what we talked about a few days ago?"
"But we know which way they're going, so let's follow them while we still can!" Ami exclaims, itching for some action.
"You can't." Zem tells the group. "The fog surrounding these two restaurants is so thick, you could easily get lost in it."
"Well, no need to worry about that." Ami tells him. "We can easily track his mothership with our onboard scanner. We'll bring the thunder to him in no time flat!"
"Well, even if you wanted to track him down, it's impossible." Zem tells them. "Velo's been anticipating your arrival since the failed attack on Wumpa City, so he had his Ratnicians install the most advanced anti-tracking software in the mothership's computer system."
"So, you're saying we can't go after Pinstripe and Geary and stop Velo right away?" Liz asks Zem.
"Yes, that is correct." Zem replies.
Coco then ponders to herself for a minute, before telling the rest of the group, "Well, since we can't do anything for the time being, what do you say we all turn in for the night? We had a long trip out here."
"Yeah." Crunch replies while listening to his stomach growling. "It is about dinner time back on earth anyway."
Upon hearing that it's almost dinner time, Crash gets excited as he licks his lips in hunger and anticipation and starts excitedly panting like a dog. Seeing this, Coco chuckles and says to Crash, "Easy there, big brother. We don't even know what we're going to have yet."
"Well, I would head over to Toxic Burger and grab something for you guys, but you would get mutated if you ate the food we have up here." Zem tells the group, wanting to do something nice for them in exchange for sparing his and Zam's lives and befriending the two of them, but knowing that he can't because of the toxic nature of Gasmoxia's food.
"Nah, thanks for the offer, but we have plenty of food that we brought with us in the kitchen." Liz tells him. "You and Zam are more than welcome to eat with us if you'd like."
"Really? Gee, thanks!" Zem says, grateful at the heroes' kind gesture. "You know, me and Zam have never tried earthling food before."
"Well, there's always a first time for everything!" Megumi happily says as she takes Zem's hand. "Come on!"
As everyone starts to head back inside the carrier, Tawna turns to Isabella and asks, "Isabella, isn't it your turn to cook tonight's meal?"
"Why, yes, it is!" Isabella says as she leads everyone inside the carrier and to the kitchen. "How would you all feel about Italian food tonight?"
"Italian? Splendid!" Megumi exclaims as she closes the hatch door behind her after everyone gets inside. "I'll go set the table!"