Performance Review: Mario Management
"All of you, come on, hurry! She'll be here any minute!" Princess Peach called out. Multiple Toads, good natured Koopas and Lakitas rushed around a large, open part of the castle. The room was very long, with a red rug stretching the entire length of it and an enormous table in the center. It was decorated with white and pink decorations. A Lakita swooped down and grabbed a Toad who was trying unsuccessfully to pin up a banner. The Lakita brought him up and he managed to get it where it needed to be. But then, forgetting that he did not have a magical floating cloud, let go. The Toad screamed as he fell down and crashed into a pile of Koopas. Princess Peach moaned and shook her head, massaging the bridge of her nose.
"Princess? Who did you say was going to be here?" One certain Toad asked, tugging on Princess Peach's dress a bit.
"Just hold that thought." Peach said, holding a finger down to the mushroom person. "You! Green Koopa! Would you quit bouncing back and forth? You aren't getting anything done like that! Seriously, just stick out your arms or legs and slow yourself down!" Peach demanded of a Koopa across the room. "Now what did you want?" Princess peach asked, glancing down at the Toad.
"I'm sorry to bother you like this, but I was just asking who was coming soon?" Toad asked curiously. Princess Peach watched a Pair of Lakitas struggling to get another section of the banner to stay on the wall.
"A hammer! Use a freaking hammer, we literally have them laying around the kingdom!" Peach called out. "Go mug a Hammer Bro. if worst comes to worse!" Peach called out.
"Princess?" The Toad asked tentatively.
"One second!" Princess peach snapped. The Toad recoiled a bit, frightened by her tone of voice. Princess Peach continued to bark orders at her subjects, trying to get the place to look perfect. A Toad with Blue circles on his head came hurrying up to Princess Peach.
"My Princess?" He asked.
"What is it? How is the cake coming?" Peach asked.
"Uh…about that…we're out of flour." The Toad said, glancing to the side. Princess peach sighed.
"Of course. Go grab some coins, run into Toad Town and go buy some. And hurry!" Peach shouted. The blue Toad jumped and he nodded vigorously.
"Yes, my princess, right away!" He said and scurried off. Peach looked around the room with was painfully, slowly being pulled together. And the other thing was that Mario was not even here yet. Where could that fat plumber even be? Peach sighed again.
"Princess?" The red Toad asked. Princess peach sighed.
"Evelyn gainer, alright? Just remember that name, Evelyn Gainer." Princess Peach said. The Toad nodded. Peach got rather irritable when she was stressed. She needed to get this Toad out of her face.
"Thank you-" The Toad started to say, but Princess Peach interrupted.
"Actually, I think I might have a special job for you." Princess Peach said, kneeling down to his level.
"Really?"
"Yeah, do you think you could go out to the front of the castle and stand there?" Princess Peach asked.
"Just stand there?" Toad asked. "That does not seem that important." The Toad said.
"Really? You always just stand there. You always wait in little houses off the main path, just waiting for Mario to come buy for you to sell stuff to him. You stand in the corner of a castle, the middle of a mansion, you stand around for entire…My point is, all you do is stand around and wait." Peach said, starting to grow impatient once again. The Toad could sense this. He nodded in understand.
"Yes, I get it now, thank you." He said. He turned and he hurried away, Princess peach watching him out the door of the room. She turned around just in time to see a Lakita slip and fall off of his cloud, grabbing onto the banner to save himself. He accidently tore down a few sections in the process. Princess peach sighed. Nothing ever seemed to go smoothly in this place.
-O-O-Fancy Transition-O-O-
Evelyn Gainer was a woman who worked for Performance Reviewers of Various Entities or P. R. O. V. E. for short. She had black hair that was often pulled back into a messy pony tail with two strands hanging down on either side of her face. She wore rectangular red glasses on her face. Her face seemed to be almost too perfect, but that is how it was. She just had a cute face and was all around, extremely good looking. But she never really cared or took any time to go man-hunting. She had work that had to get done. She brushed some lint off of her black pants, doing her best to look professional. She had a thin purple pen set behind her ear and she had a wooden clip board sitting next to her with a paper held down by the plastic yellow clip. She leaned against the tinted window of P. R. O. V. E.'s official limousine, watching the terrain fly passed the window. She felt like she had been staring at the exact same landscape for hours. She sighed and scooted forward, leaning towards where the driver was.
"Hey, Tanner? Where are we now?" Evelyn asked the driver. The driver, without turning around glanced down at a GPS device.
"We should be entering the Mushroom Kingdom right about now." The driver, Tanner, said. Evelyn raised her eye brow. She had heard the name before, but she had never actually been here before. She was supposed to be taken to the castle to meet with Princess Peach and explain what she was there for. Evelyn scoffed. Things never happened like that. Some freak of a super villain would burst down the door and before long, Evelyn would be sucked away into some crazy adventure with someone she hardly knew. It would not be the first time for her. In fact, it seemed to happen quite often. She heard a familiar beeping from the front of the limousine and she knew that it was times up and the ride was over.
"Are we here?" Evelyn asked as the limo slowly started to lose speed.
"Yes, we are." Tanner said, nodding towards the window. Evelyn turned and sure enough, sitting right outside the window was a towering castle with tall red spires and a majestic moat surrounding it. Evelyn raised a skeptical eyebrow. Everything looked too perfect. The trees were all trimmed the exact same way looking thin and puffy, a waterfall sounding off in the near distance. Evelyn took her eyes away from the perfect scene and glanced at her clip board. She flipped up a few pages and looked at who her host would be. There was a picture with a description listed next to it. Hair color: Yellow, eye color: blue, height: 5'6" and a few other basic things were listed next to the picture of Princess Toadstool. Evelyn flipped the papers down over top of the picture. Princess Peach looked way too frilly for her taste. The limo wheeled around the castle and drove along the yellow, dirt road at a safe speed. The car moved along, creeping up to a stone bridge that led to the entrance of the castle. Evelyn looked out and she grabbed the pen behind her ear.
"First offense," She said, speaking as she wrote. "A bridge that leads to the castle that cannot be closed off in case of attack." She wrote.
"Oh come on, don't be so harsh this time." Tanner said, pulling up to a stop. Evelyn snickered.
"It's my job to be harsh! Hyrule was bad enough, but this place looks even worse." Evelyn said, reaching out to open the door. She grabbed the handle and bid Tanner good bye. He pulled it, but the door would not open and Evelyn had already started leaning into it. She knocked her head of the glass and gasped shortly in pain.
"Oh, sorry, I must have forgotten to unlock it." Tanner said with a snort. Evelyn sighed and after the doors had been unlocked she reached again for the handle and she clicked the door open. The door swung wide and she stepped down out of the car, squinting in the sudden brightness of the sun.
"Whoa!" She heard a voice yell from below her. She jumped back suddenly, taken aback by what she saw.
"What in the-what ARE you?!" She called out, backing away towards the limo. She was looking down at some smiling creature that wore a blue shirt that was parted in the middle and diaper-like pants with two brown shoes. But the strangest thing about this little person was probably the massive, round fungus that seemed to be sprouting from the top of its head. It was all white except for four red circles that were positioned around its head.
"I'm Toad! You must be Ms. Gainer?" The little fungus man asked. Evelyn glanced at Tanner as if for some support or advice, but receiving none, she straightened herself up, reached into the limo to grab her clip board and shut the limousine door with a click. Tanner pulled away, leaving Evelyn standing there, looking down at the rather strange person…or whatever it was. She cleared her throat. She flipped through a few of her papers until she found a page with a description of one called Toad.
"Oh, okay." She said to herself, still slightly disturbed by the little person. She had found the page with a picture of Toad and in his description it read that he was Princess Peach's stewardess. He must have been sent out here to meet and escort her into the castle.
"Are you alright, Miss?" Toad asked. Evelyn cleared her throat once more and she looked up from her papers, pushing one of the black strands of hair behind her ear.
"Yeah, no, I'm fine, I was just checking on…you…thing. Okay, never mind, I assume that you're here to escort me to Princess Peach…" She paused to check for the little guy's name again. "…Toad?" Evelyn asked. Toad smiled and he nodded.
"Yes, just follow me! We're off to the castle!" He said excitedly, causing Evelyn to jerk back. The little guy was a little excitable. He started off towards the castle doors across the bridge and Evelyn followed along, crossing over the flowing moat. But suddenly, she heard a strange buzzing above her. Evelyn looked up and she cocked her eyebrow at what she saw. It looked like a…turtle? Riding on a…what was that, a cloud?
"What the hell?" Evelyn asked, shrugging her arms up. Toad paused and glanced back at her. The cloud riding turtle floated around and he seemed to be carrying a camera on a fishing pole. He swooped down and he circled around Evelyn.
"Good afternoon." The turtle said. Things never failed to get weird for Evelyn. What was weirder is the fact that the people who lived in this freaky world DID NOT find any of this weird. A turtle. Riding a cloud. With a camera on a fishing pole. Yep, it was already shaping up to be quite an interesting Performance review. The turtle went on. "The Lakita Bros., here, reporting from just outside the princess's castle. Evelyn has just arrived on the scene and we'll be filming the-"
"Do you always greet your guests like this? Shoving a camera in their face?" Evelyn asked, her clipboard held at her side.
"Uh…well, sort of…I don't know, it's just what I do." The Lakita Bro said.
"Mhm…and you just follow them around? Wherever they go?" Evelyn asked.
"Not to sound like a complete and utter creeper, but I suppose." The Lakita Bro said, his camera dropping.
"Uh huh." Evelyn said, bringing up her clipboard and grabbing her pen.
"What are you writing down?"
"Zero privacy as well as openly and blatantly spying on guests…is it to even see if they are a threat?" Evelyn asked. The Lakita Bro shook his head and Evelyn scribbled away. The Lakita Bro glanced over at Toad.
"Okay, well, I'll just be filming from back here then…" The Lakita Bro said, floating away. Evelyn walked up to Toad.
"Alright, now you can take me to Princess Peach please." Evelyn said and Toad started off hesitantly towards the doors again. Evelyn tucked her pen away behind her ear and returned her clip board to her side. They traveled over the arching bridge and came up to two doors with golden handles. Toad hopped up to reach on knob and turned it, swing the door open for Evelyn. Then, thanking Toad, they both traveled inside, Toad hurrying to lead the way.
