Chapter 1
The Mushroom Kingdom, a once peaceful land, now dwells in a endless amount of chaos and ruin. After a nasty, vile being took over the kingdom by chance, everything has made a turn for the worse. Dozens of factories spaced out around the kingdom produce necessities for the people, but mostly the king. Nearly all of the factories create weapons for the military. Only a fraction of them actually produce food, clothing, and everyday materials needed to live within the city walls. Industrialization took over the kingdom, and made the blue sky slowly revert to an eternal, ominous black. The sky isn't the only thing that's changed; homes for the people are being torn down everyday to make room for more pointless factories. This means that people have nowhere to live, if they're lucky, an empty warehouse or an abandoned factory could be used as a home. Otherwise, citizens are bound to the polluted, trash filled streets, which contain the foulest of smells. Not to mention crime is an unavoidable problem. In order to survive, people go around and steal what they can, whether it be food, clothing, or other necessities.
The king constantly goes around demanding more taxes from the mushroom citizens. Its horrifying because nobody has any money left, resulting in the king either executing them, or throwing them in the dungeon. Life has been a living hell since he came into the picture. That bastard, always making things worse. He captured my brother Mario and threw him in the dungeon. I need to find a way to get him back, but how? I have no strength left in these bones, all of these years with barely anything to eat has taken an alarming toll on my overall health. I've lost nearly all of my muscle, and my bones are as weak as a seventy year old toad. I'm in no condition to fight off the putrid source of the whole kingdom's agony. What's even worse is the fact that I have no cash at all, since I'm forced to work at a Bob-Omb factory for no pay. Oh well, at least it'll get me off the streets for most of the day. You see, I work ten hour shifts or more, usually five times a week. Sometimes my boss will be generous and will let me work everyday of the week. I'll even take that if it means getting out of those damn streets from hell. It's amazing that I'm off for once today, free to move about as I please, since there really isn't anything else to do. The king usually stops by for an evening stroll right about now, and not just for fun either. To collect taxes. Oh great, here he comes now in a black limousine, its windows smothered in the darkest tint imaginable. The limo keeps driving down the street at a steady slow pace of about 5 miles per hour. It stops all of a sudden. The trunk pops open, and all of the citizens walk up to it and start throwing in whatever possessions they have left. One toad in particular took off all its clothes and threw them in, apparently having no more possessions other than the clothes on his back. I feel so guilty, seeing all these people giving their favorite possesions away. Why? Its because I could have done something to stop it from ever occuring. Even I have to give something up, but nothing I have is something I want to give to that foul dictator. I mean, he is my arch rival afterall, but that gives him no right to dehumanize these people: including me. I have to do something to stop him, anything at all, but I just don't have the courage nor the strength to do anything.
The limo's drivers side window rolls down, revealing the king's face. Waluigi, the man that took over the kingdom, looked left and right, seeing if anyone else owes him money. I stood there, waiting for him to see me, waiting for him to capture and take me away, but he didn't. Instead, he just rolled up his window and strolled further into the city to collect more taxes. Phew, that was close, luckily I'm not wearing my traditional green shirt with blue overalls or else he would have noticed me. Although I have my plumbers uniform hidden away, I don't plan on wearing it for now. I need to blend in to the crowd. Ever since Waluigi reigned superior, he gave everyone new clothes and burned the rest. These new 'uniforms' are to be worn at all times. They look like ragged old prison uniforms, usually a light grey in color depending on how fucked up your uniform is. Mine isn't too bad, bits of my left sleeve are torn and ragged, while on the other hand, my pants aren't doing so well either with gaping holes everywhere. I look like a fucking hobo. That would mean everyone looks like a fucking hobo actually. I chuckled at the comment I just made and proceeded to walk down the bustling streets filled with toads dressed up like hobos.
Afer a short while I see a large, arching bridge created with cement connecting the predictable small rich section to the unusually large poor section between the city. The rich section has all the wealth and is able to pay off the taxes, on the other side, we have absolutely nothing. Along with getting extra care because they pay taxes, the king hires the rich to spy on us in order for them to make even more money. The system in this city is so broken and unfair that it sickens me. I really can't stand it at all. On a much happier note, underneath this bridge is a deep, wide-open channel once used as a river for transportation and trade. Now the water is all drained due to a dam built by our 'wonderful' king for his need for fresh, clean, and most of all, pure water. I've used it as my home for quite awhile now, since its now an unused channel. I managed to build a fence around my humble abode out of old pipeline I found laying around in the sewers. It works nicely as a defense mechanism against theives.
I walk through the gate I made and step inside my home, getting settled inside my homemade bed. It doesn't seem like much, but this bed is actually quite comfortable. I took a garbage bag out of one our many trash cans in the city and emptied it so it would be spacious enough for me to fit in there. Then I simply take the red plastic pull out string and tighten it around my neck once I'm inside. It's perfect. I also find it farely lucky that I was able to find an old pillow some rich fellow probably threw away in a trash can on the rich side of the city. I almost got caught though because the poor aren't allowed to go on the rich side. I started to close the red string on my sleeping bag to get as comfortable as possible when I heard a noise further down the channel. Good thing noise echoes in the channel due to its hollow design. Quickly wriggling out of my sleeping bag, I rustle through my cardboard box closet for the rusted pipe I use as a defensive weapon. Skipping past my other clothes including my traditional green plumber uniform, I quickly search through the bottom half of my closet for the weapon. Finally, I held the pipe in my hand and ran out the gate. Before I went on my hunt for the noise, I locked the gate to my home and headed out to search for the cause.
AN: Alright, thats it for the first chapter of this series. I hoped you all noticed something different about my writing. I tried my best to improve here, and I hope you at least notice something that has improved. Anyway, as this story progresses, I'm going to switch situations and pov's in the future. It will be mostly in the eyes of Luigi though, I feel that is the most critical pov that needs to be focused on. Well, see you guys next time. Oh, and remember, I am taking a summer english class as of today, so updates will be later than usual. Sorry. :/