Chapter One

The 8 Level Maze

There was another moment where he woke up. He couldn't have remembered anything on how he got there. He checked around him, and found a little piece of information. His name was Mario; he couldn't remember having any last name or if he had any family at all. He was barely tall, had some belly, he noticed he was wearing blue overalls with a red shirt; on the top of his head there was a cap with the first letter of his name.

The world he found himself was an open field, it looked as a battle happened there. He knew that the answers were at the end of the road; but he was in blank about what answers he was looking for. As he started to walk, he found that some blocks defied gravity, they were there hoovering on the midair.

He realized he could jump quite high, at least five feet in the air. From the platform he had a better view of the world. He realized he was in a valley, he tried to see if there were other signs of life but to his surprise there were only some wild fauna and flora. In a moment of impulse, he saw that there was one more block above him, the block was flashing and had an interrogation mark. When he punched on the block, a small yellow mushroom appeared but started to move fast on the opposite direction.

Mario quickly ran against the mushroom and when he touched it, he felt a new strength flew through his body. He grew up a few inches, being almost 5'9 after the change. He jumped back down and started to walk down the only path that was on his way. A series of walking mushrooms named Goombas started to run to him; he felt a necessity to defend himself. He aimed quickly and jumped over there smashing them in the process.

Blood and gutters where everywhere; he panicked for a moment and he realized the creatures where almost harmless if he let them walk around him. The scenario was surreal as he kept walking, there were pipes sprouting from the grounds; he realized at that moment that probably he could be the last survivor of a massacre.

The pipes and the ground were part of a city; he was an in a city. "Mushroom Kingdom is in ruins" He suddenly remembered, he remembered the attack on the Kingdom, he remembered Princess Peach getting abducted and Bowser massive scale attack that almost killed everyone and the few who survived were transformed into stones and monsters.

He realized he killed two Toads who had no free will, that they were brainwashed and he didn't even cared; he was more concerned to save the princess. The memories were coming back; the last days of the Kingdom, the Peach throwing him on a secret chamber on the bottom of his house; he realized he woke up on the Mushroom Way and he wasn't far away from the Mushroom Kingdom Castle.

Mario started to run as if there was no tomorrow, he became worried. He found that one sewer tube that was opened and he could travel a little bit from the bottom. He thought maybe some of the citizens ran down below for survival, he was wrong, at least on the Mushroom Way he couldn't found anyone.

As soon he got out on the other side, he tried to avoid some Goombas and some Koopas who were patrolling the area. He realized if there was some Koopa Troops around there must be some information about them. He tried to go closer but as closer he got, he got detected and as he got detected he got attacked.

There was a small showdown between him and the Troops; he got killed.

- Another one who bites the dust. Shit! Peach screamed at the monitor, while watching clone dying on action.

- Princess, you know the memories of the clones aren't perfect, they tend to linger on what the original Mario was. Almost on a genetic level.

- I know Toad, but there has to be a way to bring that essence back. The people of Mushroom Kingdom need their hero and it was a shame he got killed almost 10 years ago as the first causality of the Koopa War.

The laboratory was cold and dirty. There were three levels in which Peach and Toad were the only ones inside at the top. The lower level was surrounded with some tables that sheltered some solutions, as well on the corner there was an operation table with a corpse that was almost impossible to identify but it looked human.

The second floor contained some stasis chambers, all of them filled with Mario and Luigi clones. All of them on different stages, Peach always felt guilty that the plumbers died on her name, she couldn't do even nothing. Every time she passed on the second floor she wondered what would have happened if things turned different, if Bowser didn't conquest the entire Kingdom? She didn't have any answers.

The last floor of the laboratory chamber offered the entrance and exit; it had some monitors to control the vital signs and development of the clones, as well the software that implanted some memories she did retrieved from the prime ones. A small secured safe like door was located on the left side of the last room, that door was the focal point of the hard-hologram chamber; the same chamber the Research Institute created before their obliteration in order to train soldiers.

Albeit after many decades the emphasis of the chamber became to "wake up" the hero nature of the clones and their abilities to manipulate fire and pure energy. Both heroes were unique on their own way; even if they were brothers by blood they were quite different in terms of personality and pure power.

Peach felt that Luigi had more potential than Mario, she was sitting there looking at the tanks, feeling sad; she was thinking if Luigi had reached his full potential the outcome of everything could had been different. He was the ability to tap in the realm of the Boo's, deal with the counter-natural realm as well have access to the elemental energy that made the multiverse work, but he was a coward who relied too much on Mario.

Mario on the other hand could only access fire elementals and create fantastical forms of attack, he had the attitude to compensate his lack of power, he was a natural leader. Peach was feeling melancholic about the outcomes but she wanted to have a change and regain some of the Kingdom back. Her two concerns were if the clones succeed she was going to set them up in order to kill the real King of the Koopas, but also how she was going to lie to them, that they were the originals in case one of the memories of their assassinations resurfaced.