SLACKERS

EPISODE XXIII

SINS OF THE FATHER

CHAPTER TWO - WARIO STADIUM

Present day

"You sure you wanna do this?"

The question came from Knuckles the Echidna, a long-standing customer of Slackers, New Donk City's favorite bar. Well, maybe not favorite bar so much as favorite hall of dumbass degenerates constantly getting into unfortunately gross misadventures. The question was directed towards one of the owners of said bar and Knuckles' best friend, Mihalis Dualwielder, sitting in a dinky-ass go-kart at the starting line in Wario Stadium.

"You're not talking me out of this one, Knux," Mihalis shot back. "I'm sick of that fat asshole always cheating!"

"It's not cheating if you don't know the ins and outs of this place like me!" came the reply from a smug-looking Wario, sitting in the kart next to his rival and best friend. Although, based on how they talked to each other, you might not guess that these guys had been friends since they were in first grade.

It had been four months since the last time we had seen what our favorite weird conglomeration of video game characters had been up to. Mihalis had been, more or less, mentally checked out for about a month after he had met Sakura Dualwielder, his daughter from the future. She had come to his time to save his life and allow him to live in hers, and she had succeeded. Something about an incompetent assassin being foiled by Mihalis's psychic talking cat, I dunno. Nevertheless, sending Sakura back to her own time was the hardest thing Mihalis had done in his entire life. And he had been through some really weird shit at this point. By comparison, go-karting was about as normal as eating, breathing, and dipping French fries in milkshakes.

Wait, that's not normal? That's just me? Um... well, anyway...

Mihalis and Wario, the co-owners of Slackers, had raced each other on this track many times before. Wario had designed it himself years ago when he was Mario Kart racing, hence the name "Wario Stadium." But you probably didn't need me to explain that. Unless you've never played Mario Kart; in which case, close this fanfic, find Mario Kart 64, play Wario Stadium, and come back when you're done.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

The track looked pretty outdated at this point, very jaggedly polygonal and lo-res compared to the courses you'd see nowadays. Hopefully you'll know what I'm talking about at this point, if you followed directions. Wario Stadium was the perfect excuse for Wario to actually win at something, because he often came up behind anytime he, Knuckles, Mihalis, or Mew would compete. They had tried practically everything at this point besides comparing wieners, although rumors had been known to run rampant among the group. Wario may have suggested something like that once, but if you asked him, he couldn't tell you. The swift punch to the face from Knuckles has made his memory a bit hazy, so we'll probably never know.

Whenever the guys were feeling competitive, they would usually default to poker. They held a weekly poker night at the bar after hours, where they'd sit at their favorite table, drink beer, talk, and play cards until nearly sunrise. Poker was their favorite way to spend time together by far, but sometimes they'd branch out to other activities like golf, skiing, bowling, Smash Bros, or, in this case, kart racing. The problem was, because Wario had designed the entire course, he knew of an exploit near the middle of the track that required extreme precision to fully take advantage of it. There was a jump where, if he timed it just right, he could hop over a large section of track and gain a massive lead. This would result in a very heated, years-long, and tired argument over whether or not jumping the track exploit was considered cheating.

Of course, to Wario, nothing he ever did was cheating. He was good at always coming up with some excuse or another to believe he was in the right with everything he did. This trait easily agitated his friends, but Mihalis secretly admired Wario's devil-may-care attitude. To him, it's what made Wario such an interesting friend. In Wario's eyes, everyone knew about the exploit, so everyone had just as much of a chance as him to use it and gain the same advantage. To everyone else, he was just as much a dirty rotten cheater as he ever had been, because, since he was the one who implemented that convenient little shortcut, he was the only one who really had the timing figured out. No one else had ever attempted it because it looked about as dangerous as waking the stupidly powerful Mew up from a nap with an airhorn.

And now, having finally had enough, Mihalis had decided it was time to try making the jump himself. And of course, Knuckles, the group's voice of reason (most of the time, anyway), was standing next to the kart, trying to talk him out of going through with such a dumb idea.

"You realize if you try this and fail, you're going to get horribly injured."

It was obvious how far beyond the point of caring Mihalis was at this point. He just wanted to see Wario lose at his own dirty creation.

"Nah, it's fine. I'll just have Mew heal me."

That was his default response for any time he was being told not to do anything dangerous. Mihalis was the only person known to have ever actually captured a wild Mew, not to mention a Mew that had reached near omnipotence. Mew was the most powerful Pokemon known to exist, and as a result, Mihalis and the others would often get cocky about what they thought they could get away with. Sometimes they succeeded, sometimes they failed miserably. When Knuckles let out an exasperated sigh of defeat, Mihalis turned the key to his cherished 64-bit, red and black, pipe-frame go-kart, and the engine made a fierce roar that further stirred his desire to win at this damn track.

"You do remember Mew isn't here, right?" came the sensible voice of Knuckles, leaning on the kart, looking down disapprovingly at his buddy.

"Uh..." uttered Mihalis, suddenly remembering that his all-powerful source of insta-healing was currently out of town exploring the universe with his girlfriend, Celebi, and nowhere nearby to heal anyone until he returned.

To his left, Wario grinned evilly as he started his own kart, prepared to continue his undefeated streak at the stadium he designed and named after himself. Mihalis looked at Wario aggressively, obsessed with the chance to humiliate him on his home court.

Knuckles, the only other person there, the only one who had somehow been talked into refereeing this thing, sighed as he raised up an arm, expecting the absolute worst.

"Ready..." he said, sounding about as excited as an 8-year-old at a Microsoft shareholders' meeting.

He flung his arm down and let out an incredibly nonchalant "Go."

Engines roared louder, wheels spun, and obscene amounts of dust were kicked up as the go-karts wildly sped off from the starting line. Knuckles could feel his eye twitching as there was some mud below where the tires had been, and it was now splattered on his face.

Once they were up to speed, Mihalis and Wario immediately began bumping into each other, trying to make each other spin out, hit a wall, or tumble down a dirt ramp. Mihalis was able to gain an early lead, but his hopes of staying on top were shattered when his kart took a tumble due to a rather rudely-thrown red shell, courtesy of Wario. The fat architect laughed smugly as he passed his business partner, politely showing off his middle finger.

"Shit..." mumbled Mihalis as he slammed on the gas.

He had to catch up. No, he had to pass that cheating asshole, no matter what. He passed through an item block, waiting to see what kind of help he'd get. He was a little disappointed to find a green shell. Something that could work, but would require precise aiming. If only he had gotten a red shell, then he could just toss it and wait for it to inevitably hit Wario as he cried out like a baby. Alas, that wouldn't be the case this time. He sighed as he tossed it towards Wario, whom dodged the shell at the last minute.

Mihalis heard himself shout "Dammit!" like his brain was on autopilot.

It would only be a few more corners before the dreaded "Cheaters Jump" would be in sight, and sure enough, there it was. The infamous ramp that Wario would always use to jump over the wall and win the race. On cue, Wario used a super mushroom he'd kept on hand from the last item block, and sent himself on his kart flying off the crude dirt ramp and over the wall, coming close to clipping it. He was able to make the landing, putting himself nearly half a lap ahead of Mihalis in a single second.

Seeing Wario succeed in his little scheme once again was enough to further piss off the already-angry Mihalis. The red he was seeing prevented him from noticing that Wario had help from a super mushroom. All he could focus on was pushing the gas pedal hard enough to make a hole in his kart, and on keeping his eyes glued on the route Wario had taken. Obviously, he would have to match it exactly to pull this off the way Wario had always done. He sped with all his ability toward the same spot on the ramp to make the jump, land on the other side, grab the next item block, and slam Wario with a blue shell so he could pass him and return all the crude gestures, adding a few of his own for good measure.

Instead, he found a banana peel in his path at the last moment, and after about a quarter of a second of realizing what was about to happen, he made contact. Any hope of making the jump was absolutely shattered when he began spinning out, heading straight for the wall while still firmly planted on the ground. Instead of jumping over the wall, he skidded and slammed into it at full force, completely destroying his kart and sending him back bouncing along the track to a halt. When he stopped skipping like a pebble along the dirt raceway, all he could do was somehow roll over and groan in incredible pain, and watch Wario pass him on the next lap.

Thankfully, although Wario may have been a cocky jackass most of the time, he was never completely heartless. He saw the utterly defeated Mihalis incapacitated in the middle of the track, at the end of a long trail of broken kart pieces, and he skidded to a halt before turning around and racing in the opposite direction. He leapt out of the kart and ran for his friend.

"Holy shit, Mike!"

Upon arriving, Mihalis looked like he had somehow reached previously undiscovered levels of drunkenness beyond actually being drunk.

"Ahoy there, I'm Captain Foxwiener, how may I direct your call...?"

"Uh... you okay there?"

"I need 10w-30 porridge crickets, mother..."

"Uh..."

Wario could only manage a droning sound as he realized how screwed up his buddy really was. He went for his phone, dialing the contact with a picture of a red echidna with a lampshade on his head, and made the call.

"Knux? You might wanna call an ambulance..."

I'd like to dedicate this chapter to anyone who uses the N64 Wario Stadium exploit. Is it cheating? Or is it fair, since it's in the base game? I'll let you guys decide while we wait for the ambulance.