PROLOGUE

Mario yawned and hopped out of bed one quiet morning in the Mushroom Kingdom or Brooklyn, New York or WHEREVER THE FUCK HE LIVES. I'm guessing he used to live in Brooklyn but when he was transported to the Mushroom Kingdom he was like 'fuck this shit I'm living here now.' So yeah!

Mario hopped downstairs, ready for an exciting day of plumbing. Maybe he would get lucky, and Bowser would kidnap the princess again so he would have something to do! Plus maybe this time he would get lucky...

Mario sighed. He tried to avoid thinking about this, but he was pretty sure he would never get too lucky with the princess. Sometimes he felt like the only reason she even pretended to like him was because she felt sorry for him and he saved her from turtles...

He shook his head, trying to clear these thoughts from his troubled mind. Optimism is the key to life, he always believed. He stepped into the little kitchen room and saw Luigi, sitting at the table with no breakfast setting in front of him, looking rather grim. Mario's heart did a cartwheel. This grim setting usually meant something horrible had happened! Mario feigned concern and walked over to comfort his brother.

"Luigi, what's wrong?" he asked in his thick stereotypical Italian accent. "Don't tell me I have to save the princess again..."

"No, Mario," Luigi sighed, fingering a piece of paper that was laying on the table in front of him. "It's...it's that time again."

Mario's brow furrowed.

"What do you mean, Luigi?" he asked. "What time?"

Luigi held up a flyer he had been touching lightly. Mario took it, and his heart sunk when he looked upon it. His eyes immediately fell upon the familiar symbol, imprinted in the middle of the flyer. It was the crest of that horrible tournament, the one that Mario dreaded seeing every few years...but it always seemed to come back to haunt him. SUPER SMASH BROS. TOURNAMENT 2013 was printed in large block letters at the top of the paper. The flyer was decorated to look like an invitation to an exciting sports event that one would be so honored to receive in the mail, but Mario and Luigi both knew that there was something quite sinister behind this piece of paper. The names MARIO MARIO and LUIGI MARIO were printed at the bottom like a beckoning of the Devil himself after selling one's soul.

"N-no!" Mario choked. "It...it can't be! I...I thought we paid off our debt! Luigi, we...we..."

"I know, brother," Luigi replied, tears forming in his eyes. "I thought it was over too."

"Luigi...what if we die this time?" Mario whimpered. "What if...what if we have to kill each other? This could be our time. Remember Mewtwo? And...Young Link?"

Rather then responding, Luigi simply met eyes with his brother; a knowing, understanding look, wishing to be of comfort but void of any means of comforting. The look in Luigi's eyes did not say 'it'll be okay, brother'. It did not say 'we'll always have each other, Mario'. No...that look communicated the one thing that Mario knew in his mind...the one thing that he did not want to hear, but that he knew to be true. That look was saying, 'we're going to die, brother. We're fucked.'

Both of the plumbers began to cry, dreading the terrible events that were going to unfold in their lives.