Brian and Vinny: Episode Zero

by LDEJRuff

Chapter 1 - Preparing for the Mall

It was the night of December 22 at the Griffin house. Stewie was inside the living room, feeling miserable for missing the Brian he knew before the accident. While he was watching A Year Without a Santa Claus or Sex, he was thinking to himself.

"Oh, Brian," he thought. "I sure wish I could use that materialization program soon to return you to flesh and blood, and fur, but I promised myself I'd keep you as a robot a little longer. But with you as a robot, I...I just don't know. It's tough for me, especially around the holidays."

"Hello, Stewart," Stewie heard Brian greet. The robot dog was wearing a red vest, a brown jacket, and a pair of glasses.

"What's this?" Stewie said, surprised to see Brian. "What are you doing, Brian?"

"That's my name," Brian said. "Hey, whose leg do you have to hump to get some oil around here?"

"Oil?" Stewie repeated. "That's not your signature line at all."

"I've changed it since I became a robot, okay?" Brian responded. "Look, I went through a lot of trouble trying to act the way I was a few months before I got run over. For example, I'm trying to get into politics again, so I read the newspaper. What's with all these politics, huh? That's all about my level of political awareness."

"Oh, Brian," Stewie sighed. "You're just trying to make me feel better."

"Hey," Brian continued, "you remember my bestselling novel, Wish It, Want It, Do It? Well, I happened to write a sequel novel. Something I'd like to call Wish It, Want It, 2 It."

"Oh," Stewie said, turning to Brian. "You replace the word 'do' with the number '2', huh?"

"Yeah, let me recite a passage from it," Brian began. "'You wish you could attend the Oscars. You want to win an award. You know what you do? You win for best actor.' And at the end of the book, you see a picture of someone smiling. That's an example of you being a big success."

"Look, Brian," Stewie interrupted. "I appreciate what you're doing to cheer me up, but none of it can get your real body back, especially around Christmas."

"Nothing," he thought then, "except for that materialization program."

What Stewie just said brought something to Brian's mind.

"Christmas," Brian said. "Stewie, that's it!"

"What's it?" Stewie asked.

"Several months ago," Brian informed, "you said you time-traveled ahead to buy that new toy a week before you destroyed your time machine."

"Oh, yeah," Stewie realized. "But it could've been any night before Christmas. What made you think about that, Brian?"

"We could go back to the mall to see if I'm right," Brian requested.

"Well," Stewie began, shrugging, "I guess we could go back."

"Great," Brian said. "Let me get out of these professor clothes, first."

Before long, Stewie went up to his room, grabbed a small capsule and brought out a large pad from under his crib. He then got onto the pad every thirty seconds after typing something on a screen. Brian, who was back to wearing his red collar, noticed Stewie doing something.

"Aren't you supposed to be getting ready for the mall?" Brian asked.

"Just a minute, Brian," Stewie answered. "To prove you're right about the other Stewie being at the mall at this time, I've prepared clones of myself to teleport to the roofs of our house, Mr. Quagmire's house and Jasper's apartment. Remember our trip to Vegas?"

"Oh, yeah," Brian realized. "This machine of yours created clones of us. Of course, your clone died after the Stewie I was with mistook our money for yours. Anyway, what are you doing this for?"

"This," Stewie answered, showing Brian the capsule. "It's a portable time shield I invented to prevent any time anomalies from happening at a certain area. However, the cloned capsules are only good for one use. I don't want New Brian to forget about the present you gave him, or Mr. Quagmire to hate you again."

Now knowing what Stewie was doing, Brian requested, "May I please have your capsule and get on the pad? There's something my clone needs to take care of."

"As long as there's still time," he thought. "I don't want Vinny to forget about me. After all, I did help him get over Leo, but that's another story."

"Sure, Brian," Stewie said, handing him the shield. "Just as long as it's a good cause."

"Trust me," Brian began, "it is."

Typing the coordinates on the screen, Brian thought, "I hope this works."

And with that, Brian got on the pad, then went off it after the light shone from it.

"Okay, Stewie," Brian said. "Let's go to the mall."

"Great," Stewie said, walking to his closet. "Let me get my coat."

The progress on the screen went all the way up to 100%, and Brian's clone successfully was atop the roof of the pet shop where Vinny was.