So it's finally come to this. Instead of fighting, double jumping, or winning olympic medals, Nintendo has signed Mario up for a three-year teaching job at Smashville Community College. Forced to train a college grade of video game heroes, can Mario Mario survive the onslaught of principles that come with the new job, or will his primitive Smash instincts get the best of him?
Intro
To have your whole life, your most notorious 2-D moments and experiences, mapped out on a single magazine page, by an old guy who spent five minutes typing it...
"Role call. Please respond 'Yes' and raise your hand when your name is called." Mario scanned the checklist, "Samus Aran?"
A girl with blonde hair, a black T-shirt and orange pants with yellow halves raised her hand, "Present."
"Sonic T. Hedgehog?"
The blue hedgehog fiddled with the pencil caught in his quills. Mario called his name again and, with a slight jump, he replied, "Here!"
"Shang Tsung?"
A sorceror with ashy, gray locks and a face only a grandmother could love pulled his attention up from his magic book and answered coldly, "Here."
"Spartan-117...er...John?"
The boy with an oversized, green sci-fi helmet that somehow didn't crush his head looked up from the far side of the room, "Present."
"Spike Kakeru?"
A boy with unimaginably bouncy, spiked tomato hair raised his GBA-equipped hand, "Here!"
"Cloud Strife?"
On the left side of the room, an equally spiky blondehaired boy brushed a wet cloth along the blunt side of his massive weapon and answered, "Present."
"Solid Snake?"
A man wearing a camo green headband and his own custom clothing bodysuit fiddled with the SOCOM pistol in his hands. He lowered it, for a second, and responded, "Present."
"Kratos?"
A boy with a shiny, bald scalp pressed a serrated knife to a chicken's head. The blade swept down, bringing the chicken's neck with it, before the boy bit into the chicken's back. Mouth full, he spat, "Here."
"Link?"
The boy not far from him flicked his minish green cap, his cartoonish eyes abroad with big, dialated pupils, "Here!"
"Kirby?"
A pink blob of supreme bliss fought to keep it's place in it's seat. Giving up, it stood up in it's chair and jumped. "Kir-by!" the puffball squeaked.
"Daisy?"
A girl with long, scarlet hair braided in a ponytail, a banana top, and a denim skirt with thigh-length boots underlying them glanced upward and answered him, "Here."
"Megaman?"
This was one of the more interesting students. A boy completely wrapped in light-dark blue cybernetic robot parts, but with a human face for a...face. It was almost impossbile to tell what was dress and what was robot, but the boy yanked a wire from a mini-modem on his desk and replied, "Present."
"Marco Rossi?"
A boy with a clean-cut chin, glacier styled haircut, and headband tying up his wavy sweet potato hair lowered his tommy gun, "I'm here."
"Larry Lovage?"
A young man with tan jeans, black shoes, and a rolled up 80's shirt purred as he rolled his fingers along the arm of a blonde-headed girl next to him. Mario called his name again, before Larry responded with a double thumb gesture.
"Zelda?"
The girl right next to him shoved him away. Huffing, she responded with a ticked off, "Here!"
"Guybrush Threepwood?"
A man in a buttoned up red jacket, boots, and light blue pants hissed shut his widened treasure trunk. He slid it under the desk as Mario stared at him, "Present, good sir."
"Pokemon Trainer?"
The boy in a red, sleeveless shirt and jeans with a red cap swirled around backwards on his head bounced in his seat. The exclamation point was enough, as Red was not able to talk.
"Fox McCloud?"
A fox with headbands strapped into his ears rocked back and forth in his chair. Mario's gloved hand slammed down on his desk, and the fox flipped over the chair in surprise. Weakly, he grasped for life and mumbled, "H-...here..."
"Parappa?"
"Kick! Punch! It's all in the-"
"PARAPPA!"
"Present..."
"Lara Croft?"
A woman, face hidden by her fad-current orange shades, raised her hand from far in the back of the class, "Present."
"Crypto?"
A cowboy with an oversized ten-gallon hat and overall western attire, raised his hand, "I'm here meatbag." Mario raised an eyebrow, but shrugged it.
"Rayman?"
The purple limabean sprang from his seat and yipped. Mario checked off his name, not even bothering to question it.
"Dynamite Headdy?"
The limabean's cousin repeated the same jump and crashed into his chair. Mari slapped his forehead and checked him off.
"Asuka Kazama?"
Asuka was face-deep in her otaku manga. Sure, it wasn't something she was obssessed with, but becoming an otaku made the pain squeezing her breasts from the overdone, clearly provacotive schoolgirl uniform skirt and blouse her mother and sister forced upon her slightly less noticeable. Not even bothering to raise her head, she answered him, "Present!"
"And last...maybe least..." he mumbled, "Sora Normura?" The plumber grinned.
A boy wearing the newest line of inflatable ballon pants, clown shoes, a red-white sweater vest, and other articles of clothing with unzipped sections sat next to Link. His keychain was tied between his hands like silly string, and he weaved his hand upward to respond, "Here!"
Mario crossed off the final name on his checklist. He placed it on his teaching desk and put his hands to his waist, breathing a sigh of constipated relief, "Now that I've inducted you all in traditional college fashion, who's up for a trip to the bathroom?"
Sora, Asuka, Snake, and Larry all strolled outside. When finally they returned, Mario held up a stack of thin textbooks labeled NINTENDO POWER. Something delightful began to manifest in Mario's smile, maybe teaching wouldn't be so bad after all...
Collecting the extra and returning them to their shelves, Mario moved toward the front of the class and spoke, "Please turn your textbooks to Page 1." They did so, the sound of a flock of birds taking flight fluttered the about the air, "Now as you can see, Page 1 is an article titled 'The Do's and Dont's Of Gaming". What are your opinions on video games, PCs, and the like? What do guidelines mean to you? What makes gaming gaming?"
Master Chief, Snake, and Link's arms shot up. Mario pointed at John to speak.
"Videogames are an oxymoron in of themselves. If one does not take the initiative, the overlord's underlings will wipe the floor with you. It is through years of training, no matter how much augmentation or otherwise, that form the perfect player."
"Reasonable. However, before we move on, I would like to elaborate on this. Now John, sit down, while I listen to the rest of of your opinions. Snake?"
"There's a thin line between a hero and a trained killer. A hero can be believed in as someone who does things of noble stature, a killer can be believed in for protection or as a motivational tool. No one quite knows who or what they are, but that isn't the point of a videogame. There is no such thing as the perfect person, game, or thing. But the gaming world is dependant on the laws set UPON these icons, and without those laws, nothing can be considered truth or fact."
"Well spoken. Impressive vocabulary." Mario scratched his chin, "Samus?"
"When your surrounded by everything without any way of escape, there is only one thing you can depend on. There is no family, no weapon, no thing that can determine your life span. You decide when to live and when to die.Your actions are weighed into different schemes: Good and Bad. If you follow these two, unforeseen outcomes can emerge from either. The one you choose, and if you choose to abide by it to the last breath, is a decision passed on throughout several generations. A decision that continues to pound into you until that day where your enemy dosen't miss."
"Good and Bad...Pokemon Trainer Red?"
"Your life is nothing without your collectibles. To succeed in a video game, you MUST follow the Prof's tutorials. You MUST accept advice from friends and FAQs. You MUST take advantage of NPCs for your gain. It is, whether humane or otherwise, the only way to survive a video game. There's nothing like the feeling of catching a supposedly unstoppable monster, or defeating the opponent no player could beat before you."
"A brash statement of unforgiveable truth. Next up, Larry?"
Larry rubbed his forehead as the bruise from Zelda's slap irritated his scalp. Still in his seat, he looked at Mario with confidence brimming every word out of his mouth.
"The best thing about video games are the rewards. Not the strife you push through to get them, but what you receive. Even better, when you can OBTAIN something someone else gave up their blood and body for to get. Unlockables are like busty blonde sisters. You wiggle your way through one, then you move onto the next one!" Larry raised a hand, "Am I right?"
"Moving on...Link, please go."
The Hyrulian swordsman jumped onto his desk. Sora hid his face behind a book. "Videogames are for thou fairlady-"
"Then explain Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball?" Megaman interjected. Link jumped in impatience, but stopped when Mario slapped the blunt side of a ruler against the surface of his desk.
"That is enough, Link, you have a warning, as do you Megaman. No more outbursts, and do not interrupt another student ho is speaking." Link and Megaman nodded obediently, "Well, while you all have given excellent answers so far, the question is bothering me...who are all of you and what have you done with my REAL students?"
A sudden burst of motivation and moral was drained from the room by Mario's words. He smirked, marking a series of checks on the student's progress notes. It was obvious: No student was THAT prepared on the first day, no matter how skilled, experienced, or augmented. There was only one explanation, they were being aided by Players, and judging from the energy sapped from certain students, only four had entered the class unstiffed. Mr. Videogame held his head in shame and scratched his hair, dissapointedly.
"Lovage. Tsung. And Megaman. You three are excused from tonight's mandatory assignment. For the rest of you cheat-exploiting scoundrels, you must look up, research, and write a 900-word essay on a popular videogame icon. You cannot use Me or Yourself, though other students may be interviewed." Groups immediately began to form, "And..I would SUGGEST you all choose rarer, more discrete icons. Your grade depends on your originality and quality of essay."
The groups dissipated. Like a thunderstorm, the bell rang in timing with the big clock hand covering the 1'. Mario's class scurried outside, into the halls, and within minutes, vanished into the schoolbuses and some into their own cars. Mario flipped open his own NINTENDO POWER, sighing as articles about him and his fellow comrades in their past adventures.
It felt as if only yesterday, he'd conquered Donkey Kong and rescued Pauline before the news crews arrived, saying to the news reporters, "Remember kids, DON'T do this at home." as he bravely brought fair lady back down, all defined in a single sentence.
He shut the book, shoving it back into one of his desk many compartments.
Now he knew how celebrities felt...
-END DAY-
TERMS
"Players" are Third Dimension beings designed to aid PCs and work with NPCs. They are illegal in most areas, as they allow videogame characters to, as Nintendo puts it, "think-outside-the-box" and apply an unfair advantage against playable characters.