It was a dark and stormy – You know what? No, it wasn't. Sure, it was night time, well, actually, approximately 4:30 in the morning, but it was still dark, so there. And it wasn't exactly stormy, but a thick fog obscured the vision, and it would have been unpleasantly wet for most people. Through the forest, a man walked. He was fairly average looking, wearing practical boots, thick gloves, overalls, and a distinct red hat. He had quite a bushy mustache despite only being in his mid-twenties, and his bright blue eyes had a sort of fire behind them. Most of the time. Right now, however, he looked pretty annoyed.
Mario was utterly, hopelessly lost. This was highly unusual – He prided himself on his sense of direction, after all, he went everywhere on foot. The fact that he had a magical map certainly didn't hurt, either.
Peach had been called away to a "diplomatic meeting" (read: excuse for a party) with Lady Bow, leader of the Boos in Forever Forest. She'd asked the Bros to come. Luigi had to suddenly leave to E. Gadd's lab to help on a "really… important… gadget-doohickey-thingamabob" (Meaning he didn't want to come).
Mario, of course, had accepted, and set out with nothing but his trusty hammer, his magical map, plus some items just in case.
Mario shook his head to clear his thoughts. Thinking about how he got here wasn't going to help him get un-lost. He checked the map again, and groaned. All it was showing right now were scribbles of trees and a huge question mark. Well, looks like he was going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. He crouched down, and backflipped into a tree, latching onto a branch halfway up to swing around and throw himself straight to the top. He nimbly landed on one of the top branches, and looked around to try and get his bearings.
The tree Mario had picked was rather tall, but there wasn't anything to be seen but fog and more trees in every direction. Fireflies flew around, but, apart from that, there wasn't any sign of where he was. He groaned, sitting down on the branch.
"That's-a-great, huh?" Mario asked no-one in particular, glaring at his map. "Stupid crazy forest geometry. I'm-a gonna be late. What's next, monster attack?"
The plumber hero heard an ominous creaking sound coming from his makeshift chair. He sighed. "Yep, a wonderful day for-a-Mario!" There was a loud crack, and Mario fell to the ground, a bored expression on his face as he tumbled towards the ground., at least until he slammed face-first into the back of some kid passing underneath on a little horse.
Normally, this would've been more of a problem for the kid than Mario, as Mario was used to this sort of thing by now. Unfortunately, a thick metal shield was strapped to the kid's back; leaving both him and Mario in a pile on the ground, dazed but relatively unharmed.
"Hee hee! We did great!" The voice belong to a strange little kid; wearing an odd, heart-shaped mask and dressed like some sort of scarecrow. Next to him were two fairies, glowing balls of light with wings, one white and the other purple.
"The red guy just feel on the green guy. Yay us," the white fairy said, her voice bored and sarcastic. "What an epic victory."
"C'mon, let's see if they've got any sweet loot on 'em," the masked imp said. He started rifling through their clothes, pulling out Mario's map and a blue ocarina. "Hey! A treasure map! Ooh, show me the treasure I want!" He unfolded the map to see that it led to an ice cream parlor, which, according to the map, had opened yesterday in Clock Town.
"Yay, ice cream!" The purple fairy, who'd been reading over the imp's shoulder, said. "Hey, Skull Kid, can I have the ocarina? I wanna play it!"
Skull Kid looked at the ocarina, broken from his frosty milk fantasies for a moment.
"No, Tael!" the white fairy yelled. "Remember what happened last time? You'll just drop it and break it, just like with the dog!"
"Aw, sis… He was okay…"
"AFTER we dragged him to the Great Fair-YAARGH!"
Skull Kid had decided to take that moment to play a note onto his ocarina. He was the most awesome ocarina player in the world… Of course, this was only true if you know that "awesome" was, at one point, synonymous with "awful". He, in fact, managed to make the ocarina make a terrible sound that no variation of ocarina is actually capable of producing. Birds and fireflies flew away in a panic; the fairies froze in midair and dropped a few feet before managing to catch themselves; seventeen nearby trees withered and lost theirs leaves; and the Great Demon King Bowser Koopa was interrupted from his pre-invasion briefing/lecture/complain about the Mario Bros. session when everyone in the castle but him clutched their ears in pain and screamed, an astounding feat since very few of the minions even had ears to begin with. In short, Skull Kid's ocarina playing was worse than Mario's aim.
The sound was horrible enough to cause the kid in green Mario had crashed into to involuntarily jump ten feet in the air. All that remained of Mario was an extremely strong updraft.
The child couldn't be older than ten years old. He was dressed in simple leather boots, a green tunic, and what appeared to be a floppy green traffic cone for a hat. On his back rested a sheathed sword and shield. He had blonde hair and dark blue eyes, currently engaged in a glare at the Skull Kid
"Okay," Link said. "Give me back my ocarina."
Skull Kid whipped it behind his back, along with the Magical Map. "What weirdly-shaped blue flute thing?"
Had the white fairy's body been visible, she could have been seen slapping her hand to her face.
Link rolled his eyes, and jumped forward to grab the Skull Kid. Somehow, though, Skull Kid was quick enough to jump out of the way and land on Epona. While the horse didn't mind horrible music; she certainly did mind someone other than Link riding her, and bolted. Unfortunately with Skull Kid still on her back, thereby defeating the whole purpose of running in the first place.
Link was able to grab onto Epona's saddle and was dragged across the forest floor at high speed. This was incredibly painful, of course, as he was pelted by countless twigs, roots, and bugs, and only lasted a few seconds before he was thrown and Skull Kid rode into a hollow log. Link quickly hopped to his feet, ignoring the pain, and drew his sword. He chased after Skull Kid, hopping across tree stumps to reach a huge knothole in a gigantic tree, which, somehow, turned out to be hollow. He skidded to a stop as soon as he was inside, because in front of him was what appeared to be an endless abyss, who knew how far down it went.
"Man, I'm glad I didn't fall in that… Gotta find another way down… What's that noise?"
A faint scream could be heard behind him, getting louder by the second. He turned, looking for the source of the noise. At the last moment, he looked up, and saw something red falling very, very fast straight towards him.
Mario crashed into Link, sending them both tumbling into the abyss below.
They fell for what seemed like hours, but in reality was only a few seconds. Still, it was bizzare, filled with blackness and strange swirling simples, with nothing else. Link landed on his butt, thankfully on top of a soft flower. Still hurt. He was in a round room, deep within the tree. The flower he was on was in a shallow pool of water, and across from him was the Skull Kid floating in front of a round door and two torches. The fairies hovered by his side. Epona was nowhere to be found.
"What's with that stupid horse of yours? It doesn't listen to a word that's said to it."
Mario suddenly fell into the room, landing in the water with a perfect three-point landing and drenching everything with the tremendous splash he produced. Skull Kid glanced at Mario, but didn't say anything. The fairies were busy trying to get themselves dry.
The Skull Kid continued, acting like Mario hadn't just showed up. "There's no use riding a thing like that, so I did you a favor and got rid of it."
"… You… did… WHAT?" Link yelled.
"Hee, hee!" The Skull Kid laughed, and his mask began shaking. Link found himself becoming dizzy, his vision fading to black.
He couldn't recall what happened next, other than that it involved a lot of Deku Scrubs, and was somewhat scary.
Soon, he could see again. Everything seemed different, bigger, almost, and his body didn't feel quite right. Next to him, in the water, stood a Deku Scrub wearing overalls and a hat.
"Hee, hee! Now that's a good look for you!" The Skull Kid laughed. "You'll both stay looking like that forever."
Like what? Link looked at his reflection, and screamed. He… He'd been turned into a Deku Scrub! He looked over at the other Deku, realizing it must have been that guy who'd fallen in here a bit ago.
"Whoop-a-dee-doo!" Mario said. "Transform me. Yeah, that'll work. Gimme my map back!" Mario hopped out of the water, easily making a jump that was very impressive for a Deku Scrub, and ran towards the Skull Kid. The white fairy flew over and punched him to the ground. Link ran for the Skull Kid too, rather awkwardly, and was similarly punched to the ground.
"Stupid deku faces…" the fairy said, as Skull Kid turned around to leaven them behind. She turned. "Hey! Skull Kid! Tael! Wait up!" They didn't listen, and the huge door slammed down before she could reach them. "Ugh… This is just like last time! 'No, silly Tatl doesn't want candy, let's just lock the door while we rob the candy store and stay there all night eating!' You! Deku heads! Open the door now!"
"… I really don't think we should," Link said, picking himself up.
"You did help steal our stuff," Mario pointed out.
"Come on! Ugh, if I wasn't dealing with you, I wouldn't have gotten separated from my little brother. Please! A helpless little- Wow, that was easy…" At the words 'little brother', Mario had opened the door to let her through. Link followed, glaring at the other deku.
"A-what-a?" Mario asked, as he let the door drop. "Look, I've-a got a little brother, too. Love him more than anything in the world. Being worried about him… I wouldn't wish that feeling on my worst enemy. Anyway, we haven't been introduced. It's-a-me, Mario!" The plumber-turned-deku held out his hand to shake.
"Link," Link said, taking the other's hand for a moment. "... I still don't trust her. She helped turn us into dekus!"
"Neither do I, but that doesn't-a mean I'll ignore her. What's a deku?"
Link looked at Mario like he was insane.
"Hey! Plant-faces! Hurry up! Oh, I hope Tael's alright…"
Mario and Link ran ahead, Link still looking at the older deku like he was crazy. Who didn't know what a deku was? They were, well, quite frankly, everywhere.
"So, um… That stuff back there? I, um, apologize," the fairy said. "So, yeah… Uh… Take me with you! I know where that Skull Kid might be going. My name is Tatl."
"Fine," Mario said, before Link could say anything about it. "Show us the way."
"Right!" Tatl said, flying forward. Mario and Link followed her to a room over a huge abyss, with nothing but a few random platforms containing flowers on them.
"So… You're dekus now. If you dig into those flowers and jump out, you should be able to glide between the platforms really easily."
Mario looked at Link, and the two dekus shrugged at each other. Mario went first, instantly figuring out how to glide to the next platform, which contained a chest. For no real reason, he kicked it open and took out some… Nuts. Ten of them. Nothing special.
"DA NA NA NAA! You got Deku Nuts!" Link announced as he landed next to Mario. "Throw them on the ground! Upon impact, it makes a blinding flash, freezing enemies in their tracks! You can even drop them like bombs while flying from a Deku Flower!"
"How the heck did you even know that?" Tatl asked. "I literally just told you what a Deku Flower is! And seriously, everyone knows what Deku Nuts are."
"I didn't," Mario said.
"What rock have you been living under?" Tatl asked. "A Deku Scrub who doesn't know what a Deku Nut is…"
"I've-a been this way for five minutes," Mario said, as he burrowed into the next Deku Flower.
"Hey! Don't ignore me. That's not the point! Seriously, how can he not know?" Tatl asked Link.
Link ignored her. He was curious, too, but he really didn't want to talk to Tatl. The three moved on through the room, until finally arriving at the end, where there was another door. But Mario was staring at something else, a small tree, which almost looked like a twisted Deku Scrub. Link got a feeling of sadness, just from being near it.
"… Let's-a-go," Mario said, walking towards the doorway. "This is a sad place."
"Yeah… It's depressing," Link said, following Mario. "But… I'm not sure why."
"Oh, grow up, you two."
The three went through a twisting hallway. Things seemed to warp and stretch as they walked through; even Mario was dizzy by the time they exited the doors at the end. When they got their bearings, they found themselves in a large, stone room, a waterway running through the middle and turning a giant gear. The steady, constant workings of machinery could be heard.
"… Are we in some kind of huge clock?" Link asked, running for the stairs he could see leading upwards on the other side of the room. "… Wow… I've never seen a clock this big."
"I've-a seen bigger," Mario said, as he climbed up after Link. "And weirder."
"Yep!" Tatl said proudly. "This is the Clock Tower, in Clock Town! It's the centerpiece of the whole town, its pride and joy. Even if no one is completely sure how it got here. All the clocks in town are connected to it."
Link started to say something in reply, probably sarcastic, but was interrupted.
"You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"
Link and Mario turned on the spot to face a man dressed in a purple suit. He had red hair and an enormously oversized backpack. The whole time, his eyes remained closed, and he kept a smile on his face. He didn't look like much, but, right off the bat, both heroes could sense something… off about him.
"I own the Happy Mask Shop. I travel far and wide in search of masks… Perhaps not as far as you, however," he was looking at Mario as he said this, "During my travels, a very important mask was stolen from me by an imp in the woods."
"Skull Kid," Mario said. Link glared at Tatl, who simply tried to make herself smaller.
"So here I am at a loss…" The Happy Mask Salesman continued. "And now I've found you. Now, don't think me rude, but I have been following you… For I know of a way to return Link to his former self. If you can get back that precious item that was stolen from you, I will return you to normal. Mario… Yes, I know who you are. No one travels as far as I without hearing of you. I am sure your precious item will return you to normal, but its nature means you must discover the method yourself."
The mask salesman paused for a bit, to let this sink in. "In exchange… All I ask is that you also get back my precious mask that the imp stole from me. To ones such as you… The Hero of Time, and Super Mario himself… It should by no means be a difficult task. Except… The one thing is… I'm a very busy fellow… And I must leave this place in three days. How grateful I would be if you would bring it back to me before my time here is up… But, yes… You'll be fine. I can see that you both have tremendous courage. Combine your strengths, and I'm sure you'll find it right away. Well, then… I am counting on you."
Mario and Link nodded, before pushing open the doors leading out of the clock tower.
I decided to finally start this story. This story has been on my mind a VERY long time. As in, the very first draft of this story – which was never published, lost, and has nothing to do with this one – was written in May of 2013. The reason I'm starting it now? Tomorrow is my 20th birthday. This is a sort of… Present for myself, so to speak.
Majora's Mask is my favorite Zelda game; and Mario is my favorite game series. In the original draft, Mario was going to turn into Mario species, like a Yoshi and a Koopa. That's not the case here.
The Magical Map – From Paper Mario 2 – can do more here than in canon. For a start, it can show anywhere, and anything the user wants. Only Mario, however, can use it to its full potential.