Mr. Sodeyama led them to the server room. It was comfortable and familiar for both of them. This was the one place that acted as a sort of middle ground for them between the physical world that they currently found themselves in and the virtual world from which they haled. Pit and Luigi watched as Misato warmed the computers and began the program that he had written with such dedication.

"I'll give, Pit," Luigi finally said while they were waiting. "What's all this about?"

Pit sighed and exchanged a resigned look with Misato. "Like I was saying, Luigi, it's no great secret that you've been off lately. You say that you don't believe in your own worth. I am going to try and prove it to you.

"The program that Mr. Sodeyama so kindly agreed to write for me is a simulation. It is a simulation that represents what could have been; a simulation that represents a Nintendo where you had never been created. You don't seem to think your life has contributed great shakes to anything. But this program is going to show you exactly what we would lack today had it not been for your existence."

Luigi was suddenly very uneasy, and he took a step backwards. Pit had walked across the small room and opened a door that was simply labeled Platform. Through the opening, Luigi could already see snow falling as the virtual world described by Misato's program was slowly taking shape.

"And it's not very pretty, Luigi," Pit added, "but I'm not going to let that trouble me. You need to see it all the same."

From the corner of his eye, Luigi caught Misato Sodeyama nod curtly. Pit suddenly leapt forward and grabbed onto Luigi's collar, yanking him backwards, and they both fell into the open simulation.

One hand on the door, Misato looked back in at them and shouted, "Take your time! I'll be waiting." And with that, the rectangle that led back into the real, physical world began to fold itself away into nothing. It disappeared, and there was no proof that it had ever existed. Only the smooth, unbroken boulevard that had been behind it remained.

Luigi numbly brushed the snow from his unfeeling arms and turned to glare at Pit, who was sitting scrunched and shivering violently. Only then did he realize something was amiss.

"I can't feel anything!" he shouted, and slapped desperately at his arms where the snow had lain a moment before. It was one of the most important distinctions of all, and the only that allowed them to travel between the games and the real world without forgetting which was which. The programs were virtual, as they were, and so they were able to feel them. That ability inexplicably gone, Luigi panicked.

"Of c-c-course you c-can't," Pit shivered. He shook a fine layer of snow off his wings. "This is a w-w-world where you d-don't exist, remember? How can you f-f-feel if you don't exist?"

Luigi thought that that was taking things much too literally, and the whole situation made him completely uneasy. It was a long time before he begrudgingly accepted it.

"Fine!" He snapped, "Hurry and show me whatever it is you wanted to show me so that we don't have to spend any more time here than we absolutely must!"

"Your best idea to d-date," Pit grumbled, and he scurried to his feet and bounded off down the thoroughfare, imparting footprints that would have been impossible in the real world. Luigi struggled to follow.

Pit ran for several blocks before stopping abruptly before a storefront. Luigi had to drag his feet to keep himself from hurtling into him. But all along the way a dozen questions had been swimming through his mind, so the first thing he asked was, "What is the date?"

"It's the same as it is in real life," Pit answered him absently. He glanced around the deserted street for a moment.

Luigi looked up. "What's this?"

"A toy store." Pit pressed a handful of money into his palm. "Go in and ask the man behind the counter for a Wii."

"I thought you said I didn't exist in this world," Luigi said smartly, but Pit raised his hackles at him, and alarmed, he bolted inside.

It was a schlocky kind of place, with garish colors and a cacophony of mechanized squeals and sound effects. Luigi wasn't partial to toy stores, and he felt sort of foolish just standing around, but he knew there wasn't anything else he could do to ease the feeling.

The man behind the counter had been counting the bills in his cash register. He looked up at Luigi and grinned broadly, apparently not much caught off guard by the sight of a two-foot-tall, green-clad, bulbous-nosed Italian standing in his toy store. "Good evening sir! How are you tonight? Staying warm, I hope?"

Luigi shifted up to him awkwardly. "Ah, um, hello. I was supposed to, uh, ask you for a Wii?"

For some reason, the man seemed extremely put-off. He scrunched his eyes closed and shook himself exasperatedly. "Listen, buddy. I don't need the details. If you've gotta use the restroom, it's in the back."

"No!" Luigi snapped, agitated, "I meant the video game system!"

The man looked at him curiously. "Well, if it's a console you want, we have those. Which did you have in mind?"

"I already told you! A Wii!" The man sighed again, but before he could admonish him, Luigi huffed and continued, "The console's name is Wii. W-I-I."

"Odd. I've never heard of such a thing." Luigi rose an eyebrow, and so the man, in an effort to be helpful, asked, "Can you tell me who the manufacturer is?"

"Of course. Nintendo."

The man chuckled darkly. "Well, doesn't that explain a lot. And here I thought the curiosity for that archaic stuff had all but dried up. I'd try the consignment shop if I were you. Go south on this road until you pass under the Hanshin Expressway. Two blocks further you'll find the place my buddy owns. It's classy. As consignment shops go, you know. If your Wii thing exists, they should have it there." When Luigi responded by staring at him blankly, the man added, emphatically, "Seriously, you can't miss the place. It's right next door to this real good noodle joint. I used to hit them up all the time, before the help got weird. But that's not really the point. How old is this Wii thing, anyway?"

"Just a few years!"

"Who'd have thunk it?" he said in airy disbelief. He shook his head, but as Luigi was walking out he shouted after him. "Hey guy, you get sick of messing around with the has-beens, come back, alright? I'll hook you up with an XBOX!"

Luigi shut the door smartly as he stepped back outside. He glanced sidelong at Pit, who was dancing from foot to foot trying to keep warm and generally making a big show out of ignoring Luigi's gaze. "I just thought you should know," Luigi said coolly, "That if you're honestly trying to suggest that Nintendo would have tanked without me, that that is the most absurd thing that I have ever heard, and that not even the most jaded, maladjusted fanboy could ever possibly agree with you. Seriously."

"I never said we would have tanked," Pit scoffed, but Luigi grabbed him by the scarf before he could qualify himself.

"And if there was anything rattling around in your half-baked angel skull that even passably resembled a frontal lobe, you would have made the weather nice instead of twenty degrees and snowing."

"Sodeyama's idea," Pit shivered. "Turns out he's quite dramatic."

"And even if Nintendo would have tanked," Luigi continued, blatantly ignoring him, "I still don't see how that's supposed to change my mind about anything."

Luigi paused for a moment, because this was the first of his comments that had managed to clearly deflate Pit. "Oh." He swallowed and shifted his weight. "Well. If…that's how you feel, that's how you feel, I guess." And for a full minute, the two of them stood in flat silence.

Eventually Pit regained enough muster to say, "That's not all I had to show you, you know."

Luigi was massaging his brow. "Whatever you need to do then, Pit. But please, do it quickly."