As Mario sat on the burnt grass, watching the Halberd crash out of the sky, he calmly smoked his cigar. He embraced the smoke into his lungs, as his body embraced death itself; Mario was bleeding out badly from his final battle with General Bison, he'd seen many of his friends die, but he was satisfied with just this. His mission was over, and the world was saved. The last thing he spoke to Sniper, before passing out, was:

"This is good, isn't it?"

Mario awoke with a shock, panting heavily, seeing rain and lightning from outside his bedside window. It seemed all he'd experienced was nothing but a bad dream.

"Mama mia," he gasped as he wiped the sweat from his brow, "what a terrifying nightmare. Wait, if it was all a dream, then that means-"

It meant the Illuminati never tried to destroy the world. It meant there might never have been an Illuminati to begin with. It meant his friends were alive, and not been killed. It meant someone dear to him was still alive. As he pondered these happenings, he heard the soft skin of a woman graze his left shoulder.

"Are you alright, plumber boy?"

"Yeah yeah, I'm okay, Rosalina," he sighed with relief, "just had a terrible nightmare that everyone we knew and loved had died, including-" he stopped. He thought hard about if he truly loved Peach. He thought he did. But then again, here he was in Rosalina's bed, spending another night having his affair.

"Mario honey," Rosalina pouted, "don't tell me you're thinking of that dumb Princess Apple."

Mario perked his eyes toward her, filled with rage. "Her name isn't Apple, it's Peach. More than that, she is a real peach; soft, delicate, and sweet, unlike a terrible, man-stealing whore like you!"

Before Rosalina could have time to yell at Mario for this insult, Mario grabbed her by her blonde locks and slammed her face into the wooden bedframe. He could her a soft crunching sound as he did so. He found it safe to assume he'd broken her nose. He pulled his legs out from the sheets and placed his feet on the floor before putting his overalls on.

"I'm flying back to Mushroom Kingdom. Don't contact me ever again, you terrible slut. How dare you seduce me into betraying my beautiful girlfriend the way you did.

Mario walked out the wooden door and into the cold stormy night, as Rosalina cried herself back to sleep.

. . . . .

Ness's head hurt. No matter how much he PK Flashed himself, there was no way he could get out of there soon. His head from it. He had spent the last 5 days, or what felt like 5 weeks, stuck inside the basement. He and Lucas had no choice but to continuously provide PK energy to the basement generator. Up above them, the Brinstar Nightclub played luscious beats, the sounds vibrating through the lobby floor and through the basement ceiling. Ness knew that if they stopped, there would be no power. If there was no power, the managers would get angry. If the manager got angry, they wouldn't get fed that evening.

"Enough is enough." Ness perked his aching head up to see Lucas stand up defiantly.

"I don't want to die down here in the cesspit of dogshit. I may not be as brave as you are, Ness, but I certainly don't want to die down here. We're getting out of here, right now!"

"You know we can't, Lucas. You know the ceiling is too low for us to get a PK Thunder out, so we can't rocket ourselves through the door."

"Damn, you're right," Lucas sighed in defeat. They never should have talked to that man on the phone. They never should have gone to the bad part of the city to meet him, without telling anyone where they were going. They never should have signed that contract into servitude. Now, they would either die of starvation, die of disease, or die living as slaves.

"No. We're not going to die here, not today."

Lucas activated a PK Freeze on the door knob, making it cold to the touch. Due to the way science worked, it also meant it was easy to break. Ness could see what Lucas had in mind and, with a quick PK Flash, shattered the locks on the door. The noise of music, drugs, and partying upstairs on the dance floor kept anybody from hearing the disturbance. The two boys cautiously sneaked through the door, cautious of any who might see them down the basement corridors. As they made their way through, they stumbled upon a tall, slender man in purple overalls dragging an unconscious Pikachu across the floor, its nostrils covered in a mix of blood and a suspicious looking white powdered substance. As the man came close to a janitor closet to the left of the boys, he noticed them, looking like he'd been caught in a very terrible act. They stared at each other for several seconds before the man smiled and asked the boys if they wanted to join in. The boys kept on their way silently, as the man sighed and finished pulling the Pikachu into the closet with him. They cared not for the shifty rumblings they heard from behind the closed door, as they had their own problems to deal with.

They made their way down the corridor further, until at last they found the double doors leading to the stairs to the back alley of the club. They were almost out. So close to the end. All they had to do was open the doors. And yet, the only doors Lucas could think of was the single door slightly ajar, just on the right side of the hallway, several meters before the exit. A faint orange beam of light bled through the opening, entrancing the already delirious Lucas, who motioned toward this door.

"What the heck are you doing, Lucas?" Ness complained, as Lucas shuffled toward the door.

"I can't stand it, Ness. I don't know what it is but it's something in my head telling me I need to see what's beyond this door. As if, if I don't, I will never be able to forgive myself for never finding out what is there."

Ness reached his hand out to stop Lucas, but he too felt the need to figure out what mystery lied beyond the barrier of that cold steel door. Lucas only had to grace the door with his finger tip for it to silently swing open, smoothly. Their mouths dropped at what they witnessed at that moment.

All over the floors, the walls, on tables. In the dim orange light they could see it all; the charts, the maps, the manifesto, they saw all of it. They saw the start of something brewing that threatened the harmony of the city. They needed to tell someone, anyone. Sadly, they could not. They were trapped in that corridor. They could have left to tell someone, but it would not be an option for them. And that is because bullets entered and exited their brains, as someone saw them and shot them from behind with a pistol, to ensure nobody would know what was to come.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2