A/N: Hey, happy year year everyone! I haven't actually written in a while, since I was busy with my games, but I'm making too much progress in Hyrule Warriors, and I wanna do something else so that I don't run out of stuff to do in the game. And by too much progress, I mean I finished story mode. But I haven't 100%ed it yet. Anyways, I've wanted to write this chapter for a while, but I was waiting for the right time to start. I think now is good. Anyways, to the chapter!

Chapter 19: Hunt For The Fourth Wall (Part 1)

Neither Ness nor Popo expected to be battling flying snakes, giant mantises, and an army of tiny Dark Pits when they woke up this morning. That's because they did that yesterday. But that's a story for another time.

Instead, they would be battling flying mantises, giant snakes, and a giant Dark Pit.

Not really.

But today would prove to be quite an unexpected adventure anyways for the two.

It was morning, and Popo and Ness were playing the who-can-smell-the-most-skunk-gas-before-barfing game in the park. They invented Nana and Lucas, but they said they'd pass. They always say that. Wonder why?

Anyways, both of them had just opened their fifth vial when Toon Link ran up to them, a clipboard in his hands. He wasn't wearing his usual attire; he had humongous glasses on, and a lab coat was wrapped around him. Accompanying him was Diddy Kong, with simar clothing.

"Guys! Guys! I found it! After years of research, I've found it!" Toon Link screamed at them. He knocked the vials out of their hands. They flew across the park and landed by Palutena and Zelda, who were soon running away to the nearest bathroom in tears.

"What, what is it?" Ness asked. "What'd ya find?"

"The fourth wall!" Toon Link said. Ness and Popo stared at him.

"Gee... That's mighty fine if you to find..." Popo said. "I never knew more than three walls could exist!"

"No, not that kind of wall!" Toon Link screamed. Pulling out a white board from his whatever, he cleared his throat. "Allow me and my research partner to explain."

Diddy Kong began to draw on the board, in a surprisingly neat fashion.

"Ahem... There are different states of self-awareness that any living organism can have. Most things, such as bacteria and fungi, exist in the first state; the existence stage. This is when an individual only knows to eat and to survive."

Diddy had drawn a bunch of bacteria in the very left of the board.

"The second state are what most animals are in. The Post-Existance Pre-Cultural stage. Individuals in here are able to form relationships with other individuals and develop memories of them. This is a really broad state, but I'm just simplifying it."

Ness and Popo looked on in wonder as Toon Link and Diddy explained the meaning of everything to them.

Diddy had drawn some farm animals on the board.

"The third stage is where we are. The Post-Cultural Pre-Creational Stage." Diddy drew Ness and Popo on the board.

"This is where we realize that we were created by something, yet we do not have the understanding to figure out what that something is, or could be." Toon Link adjusted his glasses. "Now, one may be asking, 'how does one species get to the next state of existence?' Well, there are gateways, called Walls, in faraway lands that have a series of trials in them. If they have advanced mental capacities for their state of existence and they overcome it, even if it's just one member of that species, then the species is moved to the next state of existence."

"My head hurts..." Ness said. Popo agreed.

"Just wait! I'm getting to the good part!" Toon Link said.

Ness and Popo groaned, and kept listening.

"We have discovered the second wall, to get to the second plane, and the third wall, to get to the third plane. For the longest time, it was believed that the third plane was the last plane. Eventually, after centuries of trying and failing to find the fourth wall, that statement became generally accepted. But some, like me and Diddy, didn't believe that. We believed that there was some state more powerful than ours, the state that created the other states through pure imagination. Because for all we know, we could be a figment of someone's imagination! We could just be characters in movie, or people in a story! We called this the fourth state. And we have found the wall to get to it. The fourth wall."

Diddy had drawn walls in between the three groups, while Ness and Popo were busy getting their minds blown.

"Wait," Ness said, "If the fourth state really exists, why haven't we found anybody in the fourth state yet?"

"Well, let me ask you something…" Toon Link pushed his glasses back up. "Have you ever had those moments where you say something that makes no sense to everyone else around you, as if you're talking to an audience?"

"Not that I recall…" Ness said.

Popo yawned. "Can you please hurry this up? We're both confused and just wanna get to the action, and I'm sure that the readers feel the exact same way." Popo gasped, and put his hands over his mouth. "What did I just say? 'Readers'?"

Toon Link nodded. "Yep. In that moment, you had direct contact with the fourth state. you had momentarily broken the fourth wall. We do that more often than you think. There's just something preventing us from realizing it. We cannot fully break past the fourth wall and see our controllers. It's as if someone makes us oblivious to it."

They gasped.

"But how?" Ness asked.

"Like I said, this whole world may just be in someone's mind. We could be living out the will of a movie, or a book, or worse, an online non-canon fiction!" Toon Link slammed his foot. "And I demand to know if that's the case or not!"

"I gotta say… I wanna know now too…" Ness said.

"Me too…" Popo said. "Well, I guess we're gonna have to continue our competition another day!"

"Yeah!" Ness got up. "We're in!"

"Great!" Toon Link said.

"So, how do we get there?" Ness asked.

"Well, there's a number of locations that may hold the wall. Our first stop… Gusty Garden Galaxy."

A/N: This chapter took an unexpected turn… Even I didn't expect to write all this theoretical stuff when I first started it! It just sorta happened. Anyways, I'm really excited to see where I take this, and I hope some of you are too! Until Next Chapter!