Gamer4 in. Yeah, we are back, and (hopefully) better than ever! We're counting down to the new year: 2012 is rolling in! By the end of the year, the world will be over, and we'll have all moved on to whatever afterlife awaits us! But that's not until December, so we at the Writing Gamers association are celebrating with the first chapter of our newest story: Mario Mario and the Dungeon of Secrets! Those of you who haven't read the prequel, Mario Mario and the Hylian Stone, you might want to read that first, for any of this to make any amount of sense. The first thing on the new year, this story is going up! Anyways, let's get started here!

Disclaimer: Okay, I'm only going to say this once: I don't own Harry Potter, Super Smash Bros., or any franchises associated with the latter. There, I said it. Happy?

Mario Mario and the Dungeon of Secrets

Chapter I

Birthdays with the Smiths

"It'll be a fun summer..."

And so it came to be that Mario got yet another lesson in tempting fate. It wasn't the first, and it definitely wasn't the last, but it was there nonetheless.

We could describe in excruciating detail how that summer was not fun in the loosest sense of the word, but that would take too much time, so let's just skip to the worst part of it.

It all started at breakfast at a random house in Peach Creek. Peach Creek was probably the most bizarrely named town ever, anywhere. There wasn't a creek in the town, or anywhere near it, and nothing in the town had anything to do with peaches. Who had named the town? Who knows?

But moving on. In one particular house in that bizarrely-named town, not for the first time, and likely not for the last, an argument had broken out during breakfast. The reason for the argument was fairly simple: John Smith, the 'attacker' of the argument, had been awoken in the middle of the night by the cries of a dissatisfied albatross.

"This is the third time this week!" John shouted furiously. "And it's ****ing Tuesday!"

Though he knew it was ultimately pointless to argue anymore, Mario, the 'defender,' gave it a shot. "He's bored," he repeated for the 9001st time. "He's an albatross, he's not used to being caged up all the time. Really, I don't think albatrosses in general are housepets, but being in a cage has to be hell for him. If I could just let him out every now and again-"

"How dumb do you think I am?" John shouted, putting his hand in a tub of butter as he leaned across the table towards Mario. Mario had to desperately resist the temptation to answer. "Do you think I don't know what you'd do if you had the chance?"

Mario would have asked exactly what John expected, but he was cut off by Bill, his cousin, who'd cleaned his plate, shouting, "More bacon!"

"There's some on the griddle," Aunt Kate said, sounding, as ever, as if she was speaking to a being from Mount Olympus. "We do need to get you all the food you need while we can. I don't like the sound of the food at that school."

"Ah, don't worry about it," John said, calming as he turned to his wife and son. "I never went hungry while I was there."

Mario dearly wanted to point out that Bill could probably go for seven years without starving, but it wouldn't help his case.

Bill turned to Mario. "Frying pan. Now."

Mario, irritated by his consistent failure to win his albatross, Parrakarry, any amount of freedom, handed the pan over. As he did, he added, "Don't take any smashed pieces, highness" without thinking. Of course, he'd meant this sarcastically, but his poor word choice horrified the rest of the household. Bill leapt back what was, for him, a tremendous amount of distance: an inch or so. It was still enough to send him toppling over. Kate quietly screamed, and John stood up, towering over them, preparing to let out all his rage.

"I meant smushed!" Mario said quickly, realizing his mistake.

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT MENTIONING THAT WORLD IN OUR HOUSE!" John shouted. Not giving Mario time to answer, he continued. "WE GIVE YOU THIS HOME, FOOD FROM OUR TABLE, AND EVEN BILL'S BEDROOM, OUT OF OUR HEARTS, AND YOU STILL HAVE THE AUDACITY TO THREATEN BILL!"

Mario stared at John, and looked over at Kate, who was helping Bill to his feet.

"Okay, okay," he said. "I get the point."

John sat back, still breathing like he'd just run a marathon, and keeping his eyes on Mario.

Yeah, this wasn't the first time this had happened. Ever since Mario's homecoming for summer "vacation", the Smiths had been treating him like a live bomb, though John was the most critical about it. Why? Well, the fact was that, whatever else he said, John was right: Mario wasn't from their world. He wasn't normal. Even among the unnatural, he was abnormal.

He was a smasher. The school he'd gotten back from was the Super Smash Bros. School of Smashing, at the Smash Mansion. As unhappy as the Smiths were to be dealing with him again, it was nothing to how he felt about being back with them.

Mario missed the Smash Mansion. The mansion itself, with all its hidden passageways and secrets that none seemed to know all of. He missed the classes, (with the possible exception of power-up study, taught by Wolf,) the mail being brought by the albatrosses, the meals in the dining hall, his bed in the dorms, visiting the Crazy Hand (who was exactly what his name implies) by the Lost Woods, and, of course, Smash-Up, the most psychotic and exciting sport the smasher world had to offer, played on karts.

As soon as he'd arrived back at Peach Creek, any mementos he'd had of the world of the smashers had been locked up either in the attic he'd formerly slept in, or out in the garage. (The last referring to his Flame Runner, the best kart there was.) The Smiths didn't care at all about anything that had a connection to the smasher world. It didn't matter to them if Mario lost his place on the Smash-Up team after a summer of getting his skills nice and rusty. They cared maybe slightly less what happened if he returned to the Smash Bros. with none of his homework done. The Smiths were pure muggles (aside from Mario's mother being Kate's sister) and were extremely anti-smasher. The argument came from another act by them to cut him off from that world: they'd locked up his albatross, Parakarry, in order to stop the bird from carrying messages between him and his friends.

Mario was definitely the odd one out at the Smiths'. John was tall with a brown moustache, Kate was a little shorter with red hair, and Bill was a blimp with legs. Mario, on the other hand, was shorter, had black hair and blue eyes. On his forehead, however, was the strangest thing about him, the thing that made him an oddity even in the smasher world, a land of oddities.

Twelve years ago, on Halloween night, Mario's family had been attacked by perhaps the most evil smasher who ever lived: Tabuu. The guy had been so feared that some smashers still flinched at the name twelve years after his downfall. His parents had died, but for some reason, Tabuu had been unable to kill Mario himself, the one he'd been there to kill in the first place. Even stranger, the moment he'd failed in his attempt, his own powers had been destroyed, along with his body and the house. Crazy had saved Mario there.

After that, Mario had been brought to the Smiths, the only family he had left, though they were only family in the very loosest definition. For eleven years, the Smiths had kept the secret of Mario's past to themselves, refusing even Bill when questions arose around that area. They'd held steadfast to their story that Mario's house had burned down, killing his parents.

It was a year ago, in a miserable shack on a rock off the coast, when the Smash Bros., frustrated at the lack of response from letters they'd sent the Smiths in regard to Mario attending the Smash Bros. school, had sent Crazy to fetch him personally, and that's when the real story came to light. Mario had gone back to the Smash Bros., and found a place there. But the school year had ended about a month and a half ago, and now he was back with the Smiths, who liked him no better with Smasher powers than without.

They were even ignoring that today was his birthday. Not that he expected anything special, he'd have to be insane to after past experience, but they at least tended to acknowledge it. The last time they hadn't even acknowledged it, Uncle John had been in the middle of a psychotic breakdown, and everyone else was too focused on that. Even Mario himself had briefly forgotten.

It was here that Uncle John stood up and said, "Okay, now, as we all should know, today is immensely important."

Mario looked up. Could it be?

"This could be the day that I make the biggest deal ever."

No. It couldn't be. Mario felt stupid. John was talking about the dinner party that he'd been talking about for the past few weeks, almost non-stop. There were a couple of rich people in the middle of a deal with John's insurance company, and they were coming over to their house to seal it.

"Now, let's run over the schedule one more time, just to make sure we all have it," John said. Yeah, like the last few dozen times hadn't been enough. "We all have to be in position at 7:00 sharp. Kate?"

"I'll be in the living room, waiting to welcome them," she said immediately.

"Good. Bill?"

"I'll be waiting to open the door," Bill said, putting on a smile that scared Mario almost as much as Tabuu himself. "May I please take your coats?"

"They'll love him," Kate said happily.

"Indeed," John said, before turning on Mario. "And you?"

"I'll be up in my room pretending I was never born," Mario said, trying not to show emotion.

"Exactly," John sneered. "Okay, then I'll come out, and we can get some drinks. Come 7:15..."

"That's when I announce dinner," Kate said.

"And Bill?"

"That's when I say, 'May I lead you there, Mrs. Ingo?'" Bill said, making a motion like he was offering his arm to someone.

"Just perfect!" Kate said, as Mario snorted quietly.

"Very much so," John agreed, before turning back on Mario. "And you?" he growled.

Trying to keep his face straight, Mario said, "I'll still be pretending I was never born."

"Exactly," John repeated. "No one outside of here knows about your abnormality, and we want to keep it that way." Turning to the others, he continued: "Now, when we're all done eating, you take Mrs. Ingo into the living room, and I'll start bringing the subject around to business. If we're lucky, we'll be looking for our vacation home just tomorrow."

Mario didn't have any reason to look forward to this: even if they brought him, instead of sending him over to Mr. Jenkins's house, he doubted things would be any better at a vacation home than they did back at Peach Creek.

"Okay!" John said. "I'm going to go get some suits for Bill and me. You," he added, turning on Mario, "stay out of Kate's way."

Mario dully turned and headed out to the backyard. No place at Peach Creek had a large yard, and the Smith house was no exception. However, they did have a bit of a bench, with some bushes and a fence separating their yard from their neighbors'. He hadn't expected a great birthday, but this one ranked an all-time low. His gaze drifted into the bushes. If there was one thing he missed from the smasher world more than anything else, it was his friends Link Faron and Zelda Hyrule. However, it didn't seem like they were missing him. He hadn't heard anything from either of them since he left them at Seatac airport, even with Link's parting idea of asking Mario to visit.

Mario had lost count of the times he'd almost decided to use his power to open Parrakarry's cage and send a letter to them, but even if he had that ability (his main ability was in pyromancy,) young smashers weren't allowed to use their abilities outside of school. The Smiths, of course, knew nothing of this: it was only for fear of retaliation that they didn't lock him up in the attic again. For a week or two after his return, he'd enjoyed messing with Bill, as he'd thought he would, but Link and Zelda's lack of any communication had sapped any of that of any fun. And now they'd forgotten his birthday. Great.

He'd even, on a couple of occasions, caught himself wondering if the whole thing had been a dream. Of course, that was only for very brief stretches of time, but still.

Of course, the year hadn't been perfect. It had been at the end of the year that he'd come face to face with Tabuu once again, possessing Mewtwo, former teacher of Psychic abilities. He was a wreck of his former self, and had been left in a nasty position when he abandoned Mewtwo to his death. Mario still hadn't fully recovered from the incident.

Mario suddenly tensed up. He'd been staring absentmindedly into the bush, and the bush had suddenly started staring back. There were two blue eyes looking right back into Mario's.

Mario got to his feet, ready for whatever was about to happen, but a voice suddenly came across from the house.

"I know what day it is!"

That was Bill. The eyes briefly turned towards Bill, then looked back at Mario, before blinking and disappearing.

"Come again?" Mario said, still looking at where they'd disappeared.

"I know what day it is!" Bill repeated in an annoying singsong voice.

"Wonderful," Mario said. "You finally know what a day is."

"It's your birthday, isn't it?" Bill sneered. "How come you're not getting anything? Don't you have any friends at the asylum?"

Keeping calm, Mario said, "Better not let Aunt Kate hear you talking about the Smash Bros."

Bill flinched a bit at the mention of the school's name, not unlike some smashers still flinched at Tabuu's, but he quickly recovered. Suddenly looking suspicious, he said, "Why are you staring at that bush?"

"I'm trying to decide on the best way to go about incinerating it," Mario said. "Have to practice, you know."

Bill jumped back, a look of horror taking him. "You can't!" he said. "Dad said you can't! He'd kick you out!" Apparently deciding Mario was bluffing, he started getting back into his smug manner. "And it's not like you have anywhere to go, you don't have any friends to-"

Mario jumped backwards, and started moving his hands forwards dramatically, in a way that no smasher would conceivably ever try to actually do anything. But it seemed to work: Bill turned and ran towards the house, trying not to fall over. "Mom! He's doing the stuff with the thing that he got from the place!"

Mario paid dearly for it, though he still decided afterward that it was worth it. Kate was able to figure out that he hadn't actually done anything, from the lack of harm anywhere, so he got off a bit easier than he might have, but he had to duck a blow nonetheless. Then he got some work to do.

While Bill stayed in watching some tv for a change, and Kate started preparing the meal, Mario did all the cleaning of the house and cars, and mowing the lawn, and making everything nice and even. Kate wasn't satisfied until dark was starting to fall. Mario finally went into the kitchen to have his own dinner before heading up to, in essence, erase himself from existence. That night's cake was on the table, with turkey cooking in the oven.

"Hurry up! They'll be here soon!" Kate said, handing him some bread and cheese. Mario had it done in almost less than a minute, then rushed upstairs to his room. As he headed up, he heard Uncle John's car pulling into the driveway. Mario hurried to his bedroom, making as little noise as possible, and collapsed on his bed.

As soon as he did so, he jumped up again, hearing a yelp behind him.

XXXX

4... 3... 2... 1... HAPPY NEW YEAR! Welcome to 2012! I know this chapter wasn't the best, but hopefully, this is the start of something much greater! Welcome to Mario Mario and the Dungeon of Secrets! Thanks to those of you who are returning, or to any newcomers! The only downside to all this? School's starting up again in two days. Ah well, you have to take the bad with the good! Please R&R, constructive criticism that can help make the story better is, as always, welcome, while flames will not accomplish anything, Gamer4 out!