The sun shone brightly through the small hole in Cory's broom closet room. The beams of light landed on his eyelids, forcing him awake. Cory mumbled as he sat up in bed. His room was small, about 5 feet by 5 feet. He had a small mattress on the floor with a single blue blanket and a small pillow he found on the street. Next to his bed sat a shelving unit, on it were his comic he had gotten from Luigi, a couple of rations of bread, and his newly acquired katana of light. To get it onto that shelf, Cory needed to get Newt, who was surprisingly not weak, to lift it.

That proved a bad idea, though, as the sword burned a hole in both of Newt's hands. He was left with one inch in diameter holes in the center of each of his palms. After a bit of surgery, Newt put magnifying glasses into the holes, making his life a little bit better. He often uses his hands now to read and look closely at contracts.

Today was the day Cory was supposed to start his training, but he had decided not to start on this day. Today he was going to creep on girls and see if they wanted to be with him, but first he needed motivation to get up.

A familiar face appeared in his doorway at that time: Newt! He walked into the closet, doing his normal strut walk, and hit his head on the ceiling. He held up his hands to his eyes, looking at Cory through his magnifying glasses.

"Hey, man," he simply said.

"Hey Newt, I need to get up so I can creep on some girls, you in?"

"Oh yeah, man! I love doing that. Who knows? Maybe we'll be lucky today."

"Of course we will, you've got those cool hand implants!"

Cory slowly got out of bed and walked out of his room, out into the hallway of the white house. He followed Newt to the kitchen, where they sat down for their daily meal. Today they were serving bread crust, a classic white house breakfast. There was a hierarchy system in the white house- people who were working had the good food, and everyone else got bread crust. Newt devoured his crust, savoring the taste, Cory merely stared at it, wishing for something more.

As they finished their meal, Cory got a grand old idea for what they could do: go to the mall and look in the food court. All the best girls went to the food court, always with their boyfriends, but still. If one of them even glanced at Cory or Newt, Cory knew that one day they would be married. Last week, Cory actually caught the eye of a real cute girl, who in turn pepper sprayed Cory. It was love at first sight.

They left the white house and began thinking about ways to get there. There were three options: bikes, the bus, or motorized scooters. Obviously they chose motorized scooters as they could ride those inside the mall (not legally, but the mall cops were too slow for them). They grabbed their scooters out of the bushes and began to ride to the mall. On the way, Cory almost got hit by a bus, but he survived due to ninja scooter skills. The boys rode through the sliding glass doors and went up the elevator to the food court.

They chose a perfect spot: out of all walkways, yet still visible from everywhere in the food court. It was also shaded, so they weren't in a spotlight. The food court was a large circular room with many restaurants around the edges. Today, many girls were walking around and hanging out in the court.

"See anyone you like, man?" Newt asked Cory as he looked around through his hands.

"Not yet… wait, yes I do!" Cory said as he pointed toward a girl across the food court, she was tall with very dark skin, Cory's ideal woman.

"Why don't you go talk to her, man?"

"Uh… maybe I will…" Cory sighed and stared at her.

"You'll never get anyone with that attitude, come on, what are you? A shrimp, man?"

"NO I am not a shrimp! I'll do it," the fat, short protagonist walked over to the girl, looking up to her.

"Uh, hey I n-noticed you from over there and uh you're cool," Cory stated, mumbling.

"And you are?"

"Oh, I'm Cory, Cory in the house."

"In the house?"

"Oh no, s-sorry. Cory Baxter…"

"Oh ok, well Cory Baxter, come back when you're 6'2", you're way too short for any girl."

"W-what? B-but that one guy told me to just be myself…"

"Haha! You believed someone who said that? Is it that loser over there with the holes in his hands?" They both looked at Newt, who gave a thumbs up to Cory.

"N-no!" Cory ran away from the girl, back to Newt.

"So did you get her, man?"

"No, she said I'm too short…"

"Nah man, you just weren't being yourself. It's what they want, man"

"Is that what you do?"

"Yeah man."

"That's why isn't it working. How do I get taller?"

"I saw this ad on a website for pills that make you taller, man."

"Can you see where they're located?"

"Yeah, man, just give me a second." Newt pulled a large laptop out of his backpack and began searching, "ah here it is, growth pills. It says doctors hate them, looks like they really work. They are sold behind the mall in a shopping cart in the creek, man."

"Come on, let's go then." Cory grabbed his scooter and rode off down the stairs, closely followed by Newt. Suddenly, sirens sounded all around them, Mall cops on segways began to follow the crew, catching up to them.

"We need to hurry, Cory man"

"I know, let's take this into overdrive!" He flipped a switch on the controls and began speeding off, only to be stopped by mall cops covering the door.

"They've got us surrounded, man," Newt screamed as they began closing in, their mouths foaming with delight as they thought of their next victims going to mall jail for 20 minutes. A distant rumbling shook the ground as something blue approached. It was moving at an ultra high speed, so fast that not even a dog could run as fast as it. The blue thing ran around and took out the mall cops one by one, knocking them off their segways and ruining their uniforms.

"Don't call anybody," It said as it stopped attacking, landing in front of the boys. It was a blue hedgehog that looked similar to sonic, but it was wearing a medallion. He stepped towards Newt and Cory, smirking awkwardly, "Hey, I'm Chris."

He touched his medallion and began to transform into a human. He was short, a little bit overweight, and was wearing a striped red shirt. He pulled out a katana, waved it around, and then put it back in his belt, cutting another hole in his pants.

"I'm here to teach you the art of Japanese sword-fighting." He stared at Cory, still wearing his stupid smile.

"Ah, you're my sensei? Well I'm not ready for this yet, we're going to get growth pills right now so we can get taller and get girlfriends." Cory explained.

"Ok, can I come? I really want a boyfriend- free girl."

"How old are you?"

"35."

"Ok, I don't see a problem, then."

They walked out the door and towards the creek, looking around for a shopping cart. Dawn was fast approaching, their shadows moved along the pavement like long, fluid brushstrokes. The autumn leaves blew through the wind as Cory looked toward the east, his long hair blowing along with them. Finally, they reached the shopping cart where they found a man who only spoke Portuguese. He told them in broken English that the pills will grow them.

"You grow when drink them." He said, "they grown you"

"We'll take them, then," Cory shouted, excited.

"You want? I sell 600 dolls."

The group huddled up, seeing if it was worth that much.

"I really really want those pills," Cory whined.

"Yeah, we all do, man." Newt took out his wallet and emptied it, 1000 dollars.

"I have a couple of dollars from selling useless junk online," Chris said, taking out 100 dollars.

Cory pulled out his wallet, only to find a single dollar.

20 minutes later they were sitting on the bank of the creek with three pills, the Portuguese man moaning in pain behind them.

"Are you ready to get a girlfriend, boys?" Cory asked, excited.

They all took the pills and swallowed them. They began to pace around, waiting for results.

"Maybe it isn't instant, man," Newt reassured them.

They waited for 30 minutes with no results, Cory began to worry that they'd been cheated, even if they HAD cheated the man who sold the pills. He walked toward the river, looking down at the bright green water. It looked good. He reached his hands down and cupped the water, but it instantly turned to dust. 'It must be really humid out,' Cory thought as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve, only to find that his sleeve was made out of steel wool, scraping his face up.

Cory walked away from the creek to a nearby oasis, starving for water in the desert heat. He jumped into the water, feeling the natural chemicals of the oasis fill his bones. To his right was the president, who was shouting at him words that he didn't understand. Cory smiled and waved at him, closing his eyes and enjoying the water. He reached down and grabbed a handful of water, bringing it to his mouth and drinking it. It had chunks of something in it, but other than that it was great.

Two men stepped toward him. They both had boar heads and large muskets. They began yelling at Cory and shouting at him. Angrily speaking to him and talking to him in large voices. Suddenly, everything went black and only a loud ring could be heard by Cory Baxter.

He was in a small room with a pool table in the center, around the room were many objects, and even some people. Cory struggled to walk, and began to drift toward one of the people. He tried to change his route but it was automatic, then he realized this was a dream. As soon as he realized this, everything became clear. The room lost it's fuzzy hue and he could move freely again. One object seemed to stick out more than the rest, a golden statue of some strange being with large arms, but short legs. Cory reached out and grabbed it, only for everything to disappear and the loud ringing noise to come back. 'I've got to wake up, I have to wake up' Cory thought as he tried to escape. Finally he woke up, finding himself in a prison cell with Newt and Chris, who were lying on the ground unconscious.

Later that day, the president bailed them out and showed them the footage of Cory walking to the creek and grabbing sand, then dropping it hastily,grabbing a piece of metal and scraping it across his face. Cory then walked over to a highly polluted part of the creek and began drinking the water, tiny maggots wiggling between his fingers as he drank. Cory had to get his stomach pumped later that day, and stitches were placed in his face, giving him a cool scar.

"Why did you steal pills from a shifty looking figure, boys?" the president asked as they walked home from the hospital.

"We wanted to grow taller so we could get girls." Cory replied, mumbling through the stitches.

The president burst out laughing at the thought of them ever getting girls, "haha, remember boys, only do drugs when there's no cops around."

They laughed as they walked away, the president carrying the remaining pills of the Portuguese man, who was nowt labeled a domestic terrorist and sent over to a torture camp. As he was hauled away, he shouted, "I mean they grow mind, no height. Silly Americans!"