Hella Rad Times At Sakurai High

by hoopedbaskets93

A typical High School fic, with a few twists! Mario and Luigi enroll at the most renowned educational establishment in the universe, but is the laid back school life all it's cracked up to be? Second episode up! Full summary inside. R&R, and all that fun stuff!

1. Pilot

"Hella Rad Times At Sakurai High" by hoopedbaskets93

Summary:

A typical High School fic, with a few twists! Mario and Luigi enroll at the most renowned educational establishment in the universe, but is the laid back school life all it's cracked up to be? Pilot Episode: The first day of school begins! Can Mario learn the ropes and brave the treacherous ups and downs of high school? With friends and foes at every turn, Mario will have to bring his A-game to survive through both the classes and the students themselves!

Genre: Friendship & Romance

Rating: T

All copyright goes to their respective owners.

---

"Bro, wake up, today's the big day!"

"Hnngrahh...?"

A young, plump, Italian teenager with a large nose and burgeoning mustache stirred awake at the sound of his younger, svelter brother's voice.

"Wha... Luigi, what-a are you-a talking about-a...?" The older male muttered as he stirred awake.

"Mario, don't you know?" The younger green clad sibling said, slapping himself in the face over his brother's forgetfulness. "It's the first day of high school!"

Shooting up out of bed immediately, Mario's eyes bulged out in realization and horror. "MAMA-MIA!"

---

"Ah, our first day in high school!" Luigi smiled broadly as he and his brother made their way up the steps of their new school, Masahiro Sakurai Memorial High. "Well, your first day, at least, ahuehuehueh. I know you're probably still kinda miffed at the whole mix-up last year, what with you having to repeat sixth grade and all while I got sent to high school a year early, but hey, can you really blame the school board? I mean, I am taller after all, it's an honest mistake anyone would make!"

"But-a we're TWINS!" Mario exasperatedly stated as he and Luigi reached the top of the stairs.

"Shush, ma said not to speak of that in public, ya putz." Luigi said in a hushed tone. "ANYWAYS, don't worry bro, I know you're probably on pins and needles with fear, but this school is great, I'm sure everyone is gonna love ya! And if anyone does wanna try and mess with ya, they'll have to go through me first!"

"Luigi, I never-a said I was worri-" Mario began, before Luigi quickly interjected him.

"Well, ya ready to head inside?" Luigi said with a grin, and before Mario could answer he pushed open the doors into the brand new world (for Mario).

"...Mama-Mia..."

A land of wonderment and awe sprawled out before Mario's very eyes, a shiny land with squeaky gum-riddled floors and offensively bright rainbows of lockers as far as the eye could see. Students already filled the halls, going to-and-fro, blatantly and brazenly ignoring such cardinal school rules as "no running", "no talking", and "no shoes, no shirt, no learning". What caught Mario's attention most of all, however, was the sheer amount of students; from what he could see, there had to be over a hundred in the enormous, ridiculously long main hallway alone.

"Mama-Mia, Luigi, how-a many people-a go to-a this school?" Mario asked in amazement as he watched the other students running up and down the halls like salmon in a stream.

"Who knows?" Luigi answered plainly, shrugging. "It's so tall and so long it has its own elevator, subway, and public phone services, and there are no such things as walls, only lockers, doors, and the occasional bench. It's strange, it always seems like I run across people I've never seen before every day, I have no idea where they're all coming from. So, if I had to give you a rough estimate of the quantity of students in this school, I'd say somewhere between 'a hella lot' and 'larger than the population of Montana'."

"Mama-Mia!" Mario exclaimed in shock.

"Yeah, but don't worry, most people I actually know the names of always just hang out on the first floor here, so you shouldn't have any problems keeping track of anyone you would consider worth knowing." Luigi stated reassuringly.

"How-a convenient!" Mario said.

"I know, right?" Luigi said back.

"So-a, wha-WAAAH!" Mario began, as he took a step forward, whereupon he immediately tripped over seemingly nothing, somehow managing to do a complete somersault and fall flat on his behind, all without moving from the spot he was already standing in. Strangely, Mario could've sworn he heard faint, obnoxious laughter coming from seemingly nowhere immediately afterwards. "Oof...Mama-Mia..."

"Ooh, sorry bro, I forgot to warn you..." Luigi said as he scrambled over to help his brother back up. "The janitors here kind of love to go overboard on the wax, if you couldn't tell by the fact that the floor is basically a linoleum mirror. People are always slipping and tripping randomly here, but you'll get used to it after awhile...Hopefully."

"Mama Mia..." Mario repeated.

"Uh, yeah, you're probably going to want to stop doing that 'Mama Mia' thing bro, that's getting old fast." Luigi said with more than a hint of irritation.

Mario nodded in understanding. "Oh-a, sor-WAAAH!"

"OUTTA THE WAY, LOSERS!"

Suddenly, the doors to the school opened behind the brothers and Mario and Luigi were trampled by a mob of girls carrying a bright purple Ferrari-Lamborghini chimera with brown spiky flames and with the wheels replaced with handlebars for them to carry it with. In the driver's seat sat the smuggest, most outrageously cool guy in the entire school, Gary Oak. In the passenger's seat sat the baddest ass in the entire school, Meta Knight, and in the back were the prettiest boys in the entire school, Marth, and Marth's personal stooge, Pit. They all wore shades and capes of various shapes and sizes (except for Pit, he gets nothing), and an extremely large set of bass speakers stuck out of the trunk blaring the extended techno-metal version of "Funky Cold Medina" at the highest decibel possible.

"At ease, wenches!" Gary ordered, and his harem obediently set the Lamborrari down instantly. With everyone's attention squarely on him, Gary cleared his throat and motioned for his closest girl to hold a megaphone in front of his face, and began to speak loudly over the shocking revelation of Sheena's true gender (*SPOILERS* she's a man *SPOILERS*).

"ATTENTION EVERYONE!" Gary said, as the girl holding the megaphone accidentally boinked it against the car, causing horrible, ear-splitting feedback in the process and sending everyone to the ground clutching their ears. Gary generously gave her a taste of the ol' pimp-hand and then continued. "THE KINGS OF SAKURAI HIGH, A.K.A. THE TOP TIER, HAVE ARRIVED, MUCH TO THE ABSOLUTE JOY AND DELIGHT OF EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! NOW, YOUR CHAMPION KNOWS WE MUST HAVE A LOT OF NEW STUDENTS HERE, SO YOUR CHAMPION WANTS EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU TO LISTEN UP WHILE YOUR CHAMPION RECITES TO YOU THE FIVE HUNDRED RULES OF GARYDOM, WHICH EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE OF YOU, NEW OR OLD, SHALL BE EXPECTED TO FOLLOW TO THE LETTER, AND THOSE OF YOU WHO DO NOT FOR ANY REASON WILL BE PUNISHED ACCORDINGLY. WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, NUMBER ONE: YOU WILL ALWAYS RESPECT YOUR CHAMPION, YOU WILL NEVER BESMIRCH HIS NAME, AND YOU WILL ALWAYS KNEEL WHEN YOU APPEAR BEFORE HIM. FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THIS RULE WILL RESULT IN AN ARMBAR! AND NOW, NUMBER TWO..."

Mario slowly got to his feet as Gary rambled on and on. Dusting himself off, he began helping his brother to his feet as well, but when he looked up, standing there smack dab right in front of him was the most stunningly beautiful, drop dead gorgeous girl he had ever seen in his entire life. Her natural blonde hair was wavy (not to
mention heavily conditioned) and went all the way down her back, and her cheerleader's outfit (which was what all the girls in the harem were wearing) accentuated her curves in all the right ways, and the sight of her alone was enough to make Mario to forget all about everything else, causing him to drop Luigi right back on his face.

"M-M-M-Mama-Mia..." Mario stuttered as he looked up into the girl's eyes, his jaw dropped and his heart aflutter.

"Mmhmmhmm..." The girl giggled, smiling seductively at Mario. "Hey there, cutie. I've never seen you around before, are you new, or are you just one of those weirdos that hang out on the upper floors all the time?"

"M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-" Was all Mario could get out, so distracted was he by the girl's beauty.

The girl giggled again. "You seem a bit tongue tied, so I'll just assume and hope you're the former. My name is Anna, I'm the leader of the cheer squad. And you are...?"

"M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-" Was still the only noise Mario was currently capable of making.

"Hey Mario, what's the big idea?!" Luigi said angrily as he picked himself up and got in Mario's face, which didn't change expression at all. "You're gonna treat your own brother, your own flesh and blood that way?! Over what?! You gonna ignore your poor brother and drop him on his face just 'cause you see a pretty dame walk by?!"

"Ugh." Anna scoffed and 'accidentally' pushed Luigi to the side. No one cared. "Oops! Oh Mario, you should really tell your brother to be more careful, he could hurt someone with stupid clumsiness like that!"

"M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-"

"...AND FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN AN ARMBAR! AND NOW, ONTO RULE 34: YOU WILL NOT CONVERSE WITH THE MEMBERS OF YOUR CHAMPION'S PERSONAL HAREM UNLESS GIVEN EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM YOUR CHAMPION HIMSELF TO DO S-Wait a minute..." Sniffing the air, Gary suddenly caught wind of the greasy scent of meatballs hovering around one of his top girls, and his attention immediately snapped to Anna and Mario.

"Well-" Started Gary smugly, lowering his shades.

"Well-" Continued Meta Knight smugly, lowering his shades.

"Werru." Finished Marth smugly, lowering his shades.

"Just what do we have here?" Gary said with conceit, his and his cohorts' attention squarely on Mario, who still stood with the same stupefied expression on his face. "Excuse me, red dumbass dressed like a plumber! May Your Champion ask just what in the green hell it is that you think you are doing?"

"M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-"

"Oh, for the love of..." Anna muttered to herself, rolling her eyes as she slapped some sense back into Mario, after which she quickly faded into the mob of cheerleaders.

"-A-MIA!" Mario finally finished, oblivious to his surroundings. Seeing everyone in the entire school staring at him in stunned silence (though FCM still blared away), Mario looked to Gary and chuckled nervously, then whispered discreetly to Luigi as he finally got back up again. "Luigi, what's-a going on?"

Luigi flashed a false smile Gary and co.'s way and whispered back to Mario through gritted teeth. "You're about to die."

"W-W-W-What?!" Mario whispered back in a panic. "M-M-M-Mama-Mi-"

"If you say that one more time I'm going to kill you before they get the chance to." Luigi scowled, elbowing his brother in the ribs as they both continued smiling excrement-devouring grins at Gary and his cohorts. Luigi then did his best to explain to his brother how badly he just screwed up.

"That's Gary Oak." The green clad lad began grimly. "He's the self-appointed king of the school, he has the entire cheerleading team as his personal harem, and yeah, he generally just gets whatever he wants because, well, he's Gary. That broad you were just drooling over, that's Anna Lindhurst, she's one of his favorites, being cheer captain and all. He doesn't like it when people talk to his girls. Those people end up getting hurt. Badly. Sometimes they're never even seen or heard from ever again. And do you want to know why?"

Mario shook his head as stiffly as he could, the fear in his eyes becoming more and more evident with each word that came out of his brother's mouth.

"Do you see that small blue pillow with the mask next to him?" Mario gulped and nodded, urging Luigi to continue. "That's Meta Knight, he's Gary's right hand man, and he is the toughest S.O.B. in this entire
school. Nobody has ever beaten him in any kind of contest, not even Gary himself, but then again I don't think Gary has ever been idiotic enough to challenge him in any way. I would say 'stay the hell out of his way', but you kind of just stepped in it as far as that's concerned, and, well, I hope you lived a full life, bro..."

"M-M-M-Ma-" Seeing the icy death glance Luigi was giving him out of the corner of his eye, Mario quickly shut his mouth. Then he opened it again. "Wh-Wh-Who are those-a guys in-a the back...?"

"Hmm?" Luigi craned his neck slightly so he could see who Mario was referring to. "Oh, that's just Marth and his lackey Pit. They... Uh... Er... Well, Marth was voted 'most beautiful person in the school'. He started a club filled with other pretty boys, Pit being the first to join, which gave him the honor and privilege to become Marth's personal handmaid manservant. Marth hangs around with Gary and Meta Knight because they needed one more insufferable elitist prick to round out their roster, but compared to the other two he's completely
harmless. And thus, you have 'The Top Tier', Sakurai High's dictatorial 'royalty'."

Sweat poured off Mario's brow by the bucket, as he began to shake violently in anticipation of his inevitable doom.

"...I'm really gonna miss you, bro..." Luigi said with a sniff.

"...Uh, excuse Your Champion…" Gary suddenly said in a huff, causing both Mario Brothers' hearts to jump. "But you two have been whispering to each other while staring at Your Champion with terrifying facial
expressions for five minutes now. And yet, Reddy Freddy there has yet to explain to Your Champion what he was doing conversing with Your Champion's choicest girl. Now, because Your Champion has such a kind heart and warm disposition, Your Champion will give you one last chance to explain yourself, small red fat boy. You may begin, and if Your Champion sees you shift your eyes towards the larger green version of you one more time, Your Champion will render his verdict early."

Gary waved his hand at Mario to proceed. Mario swallowed hard and clutched his cap in his hands, nervously wringing it back and forth furiously as he began to speak. "W-W-W-W-W-W-Well-a, I-a, uh, you-a see-a, I-a-"

"UNACCEPTABLE!" Gary screamed in outrage. Pointing at the terrified Mario with his scepter/pimp cane, he made a cut throat motion with his other hand and barked out his orders to his executioner. "M-Knight, your targets!"

Luigi's weeping for his soon to be deceased brother came to an abrupt halt. "W-Wait a minute, 'targets', why did you say that plurally? That...That was an mistake, right? Like...Like an accidental verbal typo, right? Because, I, I had absolutely nothing to do with this at all, my brother is the horndog here, not me!"

"...Well, yes, it was indeed a mistake, a mere slip of the tongue." Gary admitted, causing Luigi to breath a sigh of relief, oblivious to the murderous glare his brother was now giving him. "But how DARE you accuse Your Champion of making a mistake, that's a violation of rule 92!" Luigi suddenly turned ten shades paler and began to shake as violently as his brother. "And do you know what the penalty for breaking rule 92 is, knave?"

Luigi shook his head back and forth so rapidly he almost gave himself horizontal whiplash.

Laughing creepily, Meta Knight looked at Mario and Luigi and grinned a sadistic, evil smile. Of course, no one could see it behind his mask, but it's the thought that counts. "Double armbar time, boss?"

"No..." Gary shook his head slowly as he smiled at Mario and Luigi huddled together in fear, looks of unbridled horror displayed across both of their faces.

"H-huh?" Meta Knight gave Gary a slightly confused look. "But boss, isn't that the punishment for everything?"

"Of course it is you dumbass!" Gary ejaculated harshly. "There is nothing, NOTHING on this god damn planet that hurts more than a well-executed armbar!"

"Then...What's the problem?" Meta Knight asked, growing more confused by the second. "You want me to hurt them...Less...?"

"OF COURSE YOUR CHAMPION DOESN'T, YOU BLITHERING NINCOMPOOP OF AN IDIOT!" Gary bellowed furiously, giving Meta Knight a look that would normally cause a person to soil themselves but because he's Meta Knight it wasn't very effective. "Your Champion simply doesn't want you to perform any old average, every day, run of the mill armbar on them..."

Meta Knight's eyes widened as he slowly realized what Gary wanted him to do. "Boss...You don't mean..."

"Yes..." The sadistic smirk reappeared on Gary's face. "It's time to unleash your most deadly technique, M-Knight..."

The crowd gasped collectively as Meta Knight responded, some people fleeing immediately so as to avoid the horrific carnage that was about to ensue. "But...Boss...You remember what happened that last time I used 'that' technique..." Shuddering a little at the mere thought of it, Meta Knight continued. "Don't you think that's just a little...Extreme...? I mean, it's not like they did anything...That...Bad..." Meta Knight's voice trailed off as Gary turned to him and glared at him with a horrible seething rage. "...Right, on it, boss."

"L-L-L-Luigi, wh-wh-wh-wh-what's-a h-h-his ultimate-a t-t-t-t-technique?!" Mario stuttered in terror.

"I-I-I d-don't know, I've n-n-never seen it f-f-f-firsthand before..." Luigi replied in just as much panic, gulping hard before continuing. "...B-B-But the last time he used it, the ent-t-t-tire eleventh f-f-floor d-d-d-d-d-d-d-disintegrated..."

"M-M-M-MA-" Mario wasn't able to say anymore before Luigi began strangling him.

"...Prepare yourselves..." Meta Knight said suddenly, with icy coldness to his voice, as he threw his cape aside, causing an entire section of the crowd to begin fighting over it. "Because now you will know what pain truly feels like." Jumping out of the car, Meta Knight rushed towards the Mario Brothers as Gary watched on with glee. "BEHOL-"

"FALCON... PUNCH!"

In the blink of an eye, a muscular, silhouetted figure leaped over the crowd of bloodthirsty students who were a bit too close to the massacre than they should've been, and with a great amount of force and strength no ordinary man could humanly muster, flung the smaller foe straight into the air and right through the ceiling at death defying speeds. Everyone around stood there in shock and awe, baffled as to how someone could possibly take out the school's number one fighter with such little effort. And just as quickly as the mysterious figure appeared, he disappeared, sending a quick salute to the brothers then dashing away into the heavy throng of people who crowded the hallway.

"M-META KNIGHT! NO, DAMN IT, NO! YOUR CHAMPION DOES NOT LIKE THIS. NOT ONE BIT!" Gary seethed and panicked, gnashing his teeth in pure, concentrated rage. "Harem! Go find him! That poor bastard must've been thrown into the next dozen floors before actually making it out of the school. If Your Champion's calculations are correct, and they always are, he's probably in the smack dab in the middle of that grimy forest
east of here..." he concluded on complete assumption.

"B-but, baaaaby…" Anna whined in displeasure, looking at Gary with puppy dog eyes. "It's all icky, and damp, and muddy, and gross, and I don't wanna go there. You don't want my pretty legs to get all scratched up by mean, prickly branches, do you?" she cooed teasingly, pressing her large chest against Gary's side, causing him to blush madly.

"Of... of c-course not, honeybuns! Your Champion will... just get some worthless chumps who have nothing better to do for the search party. I'm sure M-Knight can wait. He… he he heh. Ahem." Gary coughed harshly
into his fist, then turning his sharp gaze back to Mario and Luigi. "Don't think you're getting off scott free with this, lard asses! Your Champion will return, and when Your Champion does, you'll get double the punishment! Enjoy whatever little time you have left, losers! Smell ya later!" upon inflicting the final, haunting words, his harem took cue and escorted him off as the disappointed crowd slowly disbanded.

"Is... is it over?" Luigi muttered in disbelief, looking over at his equally stunned brother.

"-ma mia..." Mario let out as he lazily collapsed onto the ground.

"Come on, bro. We still need to get to class, remember? Assuming we aren't late already..." Luigi sighed as he helped his brother up yet again. The two then made their way further down the hall as Mario took his time to catch his breath and reflect on what exactly just happened, and who that mystery man was. With the
area significantly less cluttered with people now, Mario finally had a chance to truly get an eyeful of the bright and obnoxious, yet breathtakingly gorgeous insides of the building.

"Golly..." Mario continued to gaze upon the interior in awe, admiring all the little details put into each and every inch of the school. The lockers were all colored differently in every hallway. The floor went from large square tiles, to rounded edged ones, to triangular mosaic depending on the floor one would be on, and the floors themselves were seemingly endless. The stained glass windows that adorned at least one wall per floor all depicted beautiful, painstakingly made pieces of artwork from either commissioned artists, a talented past
teacher or student from the school, or just whatever the principle found during his occasional trips. Be it garage sales, thrift stores, art warehouses, online, wherever. Regardless of origin, they looked stunning and were a true sight for sore eyes. After about twenty to thirty minutes of mindless wandering, Mario began to wonder if they were going in the right direction at this point. "Um... Hey, Luigi? Are-a you sure you-a know where we're-a going?" he mumbled out of curiosity and slight doubt.

"Of course! I'm positive we're on the... uh..." Luigi dragged on, "The... 13th... No, 31st..."

"This is Floor #65B. As evident by the navy blue and dark yellow color scheme," a young voice answered from behind the two brothers. "If you got your double sided 568 page pamphlet covering the school's bottom interior before you came in, you'd know that!" he chuckled kindheartedly at their assumed ignorance.

"O-oh! S-sorry to-a waste your-a time, paisano. This is my-a first day and my-a brother here is-a quite forgetful." Mario apologized in embarrassment. Luigi couldn't interject to defend himself before the short, baseball cap wearing boy spoke again.

"That is quite alright, gentlemen. No one here ever bothers being helpful, so I try to assist whoever may be in need as much as I can to compensate. Ah, but yes, pardon my rudeness, my name is Ness. And you two are?" he adjusted his cap humbly.

"I'm-a Mario, and this is my-a brother Luigi. It's-a nice to-a meet you, Ness!" they tipped their hats in good manner, Mario unknowingly flashing his messy, unkempt bed head.

"So, I take it you two are on your way to the opening ceremony?" Ness asked.

"O... opening-a what?" Mario asked back in admitted ignorance.

"You know, the one Principle Hand is starting in half an hour! Surely you did know that?" Ness squinted.

"Uh-a... no...?" Mario's head drooped while Luigi simply looked away, scratching the back of his neck without a word.

"Ha, it's fine. I have spares of the pamphlets that were given out, so please feel free to take them. I could lose the extra weight in my bag." his tiny hand rummaged through his backpack that was almost larger than himself and pulled out a tall stack of papers. Luigi taking the top half, Mario the bottom few left, and sticking them in their own bags.

"Alrighty then. Principle Hand's speech will be in the garden; the largest area outside the school. If we take the third elevator on this floor next to the lady's restroom, we should make it to Floor 2, then we'd walk down the staircase to the entrance, go outside, take a kart to get around to the back, and we should get there in time. But, if you want to get there faster, we could use the hang gliders or jet packs on the roof." Ness rambled on as he pointed all around the map he was holding while the brothers stared off in confusion, trying their best to figure out what most of the lad was saying.

"Let's... just, uh, do the first one." Luigi gulped. When it came to flying, Mario didn't mind too much, but Luigi never liked heights very well.

"Fudge, all the elevators seem to be in use now. ...Wait, the one on the other side of the hall should be back up in a minute, come on." Ness pointed and dragged the two brothers over, hastily rushing in as it came up before it got flooded with other classmates. Mario was overwhelmed with how big even the elevator rooms were and how many people it could fit in them, so long as the weight limit wasn't surpassed thrice over. There was hardly any elbowroom for the trio due the number of students standing inside, causing the otherwise cozy space to become mildly cramped. Luckily, the trip down was rather quick for a whopping 62 floors downward, and the three got a good chunk of progress done on their way to the ceremony. They caught their breath and the brothers patiently awaited Ness to tell them where they should head to next. "Whew, okay, 2nd Floor, which is mostly staircases. The one that heads to the Main Room is the widest and biggest one to the south. Come on, we only have twenty minutes now." Ness navigated.

Many long trots whilst avoiding getting trampled by other people later, they finally made it outside the school. "Phew, now we just need... to find the... karts..." Ness looked on and saw that there were no karts, no nothing, just an empty lot with lots of students.

"Welp." Luigi uttered, "Guess we'll walk."

As the clock ticked on, the three's meandering was leading them nowhere. With their schedule now totally out of whack, the brothers and young boy began to lose hope of making it in time. As Luigi leaned against a nearby fountain to relax for a moment, he spotted a young man and horse from across the field. He sighed in light jealously, wishing they had a good means of transportation of any sort right about now. Mario and Ness soon took notice themselves. "Oh, what good timing! Maybe Link can help us if he has Epona with him." Ness chimed, walking over to the green clad blonde while the pair of brothers looked on in confusion.

"Hey, Link, you're heading to the ceremony, too, right? You think you give us a lift? If Epona is alright with that, of course." Ness asked kindly, and somewhat desperately.

The silent blonde looked over at the two plumbers from afar and nodded after thinking for a second. Ness grinned cheerfully and waved the two over. Link didn't worry too much for his trusted steed, as he knew she
was more than capable. The four proceeded to head out to the ceremony as Epona galloped gracefully across the grassy fields that lead to their destination.

But not everyone was as eager to go to the ceremony, as some still lurked inside the school for their own reasons.

---

Meanwhile, in the airducts...

Two short, mutant animals sat cramped in the school's first floor air duct, both of them dressed strangely in heavy winter clothing, even though it was the middle of September and it was actually rather hot out. The duo, a blue hedgehog and an orange two-tailed fox, were both waiting impatiently for the return of their other friend and the third of their musketeer outfit, a red echidna who was given a mighty task to fulfill by the hedgehog leader.

"I'm telling you Sonic, this isn't going to wo-"

"Oh Tails, you're always such a pessimist!" The famous blue hedgehog shook his head and chuckled obnoxiously at his two-tailed best friend, interrupting him mid-sentence as he was wont to do. "You're lucky you have me here, or else you'd NEVER be able to make any other friends!"

Folding his arms (or at least doing the best he could in his oversized poofcoat), Tails narrowed his gaze and responded dryly. "Actually, I think the reason I don't have more friends is BECAUSE I associate myself with you, but okay, whatever you say. This still isn't going to work."

Sonic's response was typical of him; a waggle of the finger and a cocksure grin. "Tsk tsk, have a little faith in your ol' pal Sonic, would ya? I mean, have I ever steered you wrong before?"

Tails' eyes widened and he put on an aggravated expression as he quickly and loudly began to reply. "YE-"

Sonic, however, swiftly decided to change the subject, cutting off his friend again and speaking loudly over him. "DAMN IT, what's taking that idiot Knuckles so long with that fog machine?" Sonic too now folded his arms, and began tapping his foot on the floor impatiently.

"Well gee, Sonic, why don't you try dragging a fog machine into an air duct some time and see how long you take?" Tails said in defense of his other friend.

Before Sonic could get off another retort, both his and Tails' attentions were turned immediately to the long strip of air duct behind them, where a horrible mixture of panting, wheezing, and metal clanking and dragging loudly across other metal was drawing near them.

"Ah, speak of the dumbass!" Sonic said, as Knuckles, who like the others was overdressed in massive winter clothing, managed to finally drag the heavy, almost too big to fit in the air duct machine up to his friends, where he immediately collapsed in a heap and began gasping for air. Sonic smiled and firmly slapped Knuckles on the back. "Good job Knux, even though, as usual, you WERE too slow with it, you managed to make it just in the nick of time!"

Gasping for breath, Knuckles shook his head urgently at Sonic as he attempted to speak between breaths. "S-Sonic... Wait... About the machine..."

"Oh, no time to talk, Knux! School's gonna be in session any moment now!" Sonic said in a hurry, shushing his friend.

"But Sonic, I couldn't-" Knuckles began fretfully, tugging at Sonic's sleeve to try and get his attention.

Cutting Knuckles off and ignoring him completely, Sonic turned to the other two with a serious expression. "Okay guys, you remember the plan, right?"

Scoffing, Tails nodded in annoyance. "Yeah, yeah. You're gonna come down out of the ceiling accompanied by the fog machine, flanked on either side by me and Knuckles, to your handwritten theme song, you're gonna drop a few no doubt 'hilarious' one liners, and everyone will fall in love with you all over again." Tails rolled his eyes at the utterance of 'hilarious'.

"Bingo!" Sonic said with a grin, clapping his mutant friend on the back, knocking him over in the process. "You see Tails, all you need to worry about is turning the fog machine on, and I'll take care of all the rest! No problemo!"

Grunting in displeasure as he pushed himself back off the floor, Tails shook his head irritably. "No see, that's exactly WHY I know this is going to end horribly."

Getting between Sonic and Tails, Knuckles again tried to urge Sonic to listen to him. "Guys, I'm tellin' ya, I couldn't find a fo-"

"Oh shush already, Tails!" Sonic said, with a tsk, as Knuckles' words again fell on deaf ears, much to the echidna's distress. "Put your shades and costumes on guys, in thirty seconds, it'll be time to kick some rad!"

As Tails sighed and rolled his eyes with contempt, Knuckles stumbled in front of Sonic, crying out for his attention. "SONIC LISTEN TO ME I COULDN'T FIND A FOG MACHI-"

Pushing Knuckles to the side, Sonic glared at the echidna and chastised him. "Knuckles, stop wasting time and put your costume on already!"

"BUT-" Knuckles began, a look of panic on his face.

"DO AS I SAY YOU DICK-FOR-BRAINS!" Sonic snarled at him, forcefully shoving Knuckles' costume into his hands.

"But...But I..." Knuckles stuttered, before sighing dejectedly and slumping his shoulders in utter futility. "Oh, man..."

Opening the door on the 'fog machine', Sonic climbed inside, then gave his commands to Tails. "Alright Tails, start the fog machine and then get in position! We go in ten, nine, eight..."

As he searched for the on switch, Tails noticed there was definitely something wrong with this so called 'fog machine'. "Uh, S-Sonic, hold on, I don't think this is a fog-"

"Seven, six, five..." Sonic continued counting, once again completely oblivious to the words of his friend.

"That's what I've been trying to say!" Knuckles cried, his voice a mixture of frustration and panic. "I couldn't find a fog machine so I had to use a-"

"FOUR, THREE, TWO..." Sonic continued, louder than before at the sound of Knuckles' voice.

"Welp, too late now...!" Tails stated, shrugging his shoulders as he located the machine's on switch and placed his hand on it in anticipation.

All Knuckles could do was whimper.

"ONE!" Sonic shouted triumphantly, and on cue, Tails flipped the machine's power on.

*FWOOOOM*

"OH SH-" Tails shouted in horror, as flames shot out of the front of the machine, sending a particularly solid fireball crashing through the air duct's grate through to the floor below.

As all the students that were on the floor gasped, screamed, and ran for cover, Tails and Knuckles tentatively dropped onto the floor, making sure not to land on any of the scattered flames that had jumped off of Sonic's flaming body.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN, IS IT JUST ME, OR DID IT SUDDENLY GET A WHOLE LOT COOLER UP IN HERE?!" Sonic stated in a ridiculously over the top manner, making some ridiculous hand motions to the terrified group of students who looked on in terror.

"OH DAMN SON...IC, YOU'RE SO COOL I THINK YOU JUST GAVE EVERYBODY SECOND DEGREE PNEUMONIA OR SOMETHING!" Knuckles added in an even more ridiculous voice, seemingly just as oblivious to Sonic's current state as the hedgehog himself was.

"OH YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT! BRR, I THINK I JUST GOT A CHILL UP MY SPINE, I'M SO COOL I CAN GIVE MYSELF PNEUMONIA!" Sonic added, his voice as incredibly obnoxious as he could possibly make it.

"S-SONIC, YOU'RE ON FIRE!" Tails finally stated, shaking himself out of his dumbstruck, panic-stricken stupor.

"YEAH, YOU KNOW IT BRO!" Sonic said with a poop-eating grin, winking and finger-gunning at Tails before suddenly and without warning going into a freestyle rap. "I'M SO COOL I'M HOT, I'M SO HOT I'M COOL, I
AIN'T YOUR AVERAGE EVERYDAY ORDINARY OL' FOOL! MY NAME IS SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, I'M THE DUKE OF THE DASH, I MAKE ALL THEM OTHER HOMEBOY JUST LOOK LIKE TRASH, I-"

"SONIC, YOU'RE SMOKIN'!" Knuckles uttered, his voice suddenly filled with fear as he finally realized the flames engulfing Sonic's body weren't just 'special effects'.

"Oh yeah, I know!" Sonic retorted cockily, basking in the 'praise' his friends were giving him. "Somebody stop me! Oh wait that's right, no one can stop me because I'M TOO FAST! Now, where was I?"

"NO, SONIC, REALLY, YOU'RE BURNING UP!" Tails cried out in urgency, wringing his hands together in frustration as he tried to get through his friend's incredibly thick skull.

"Ah, I'm so stoked to hear you changing your tune, Tailsy!" Sonic said in delight, shooting a thumbs up to his friend. "See, I TOLD you I would make this work! I mean, I'm Sonic The Hedgehog, I can do ANYTHING! Now, back to my sick rhymes!"

Slapping his forehead in anger at his friend's incredulous ignorance, Tails pointed to the hedgehog's blazing body and shouted in sheer annoyance. "AUGH, NO, YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER IDIOT SONIC, YOU ARE LITERALLY BEING ENGULFED IN FLAMES!"

Blinking in confusion at Tails' words, Sonic sniffed the air, catching the heavy, choking scent of burning hedgehog, then looked down at himself to see his outfit completely burned away, and his body, as both his friends stated, completely covered in flames. "OH GOD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAH!" Suddenly in excruciating pain, Sonic began to scream hysterically as he ran around in a circle comically in a futile effort to put the flames out.

Crying out his his frying friend, Knuckles attempted to heroically dispense words of advice that the hedgehog himself had given to the echidna years ago. "SONIC, REMEMBER WHAT YOU USED TO SEZ, STOP DROP AND ROLL! ROLL FOR YOUR LIFE!"

Gasping in shock, Tails' eyes bulged out and he shook his head frantically at Knuckles' words. "NO YOU IDIOT, DON'T TELL HIM TO DO THA-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH HHHHH!" Tails was too late, as Sonic had already curled into a ball and was spindashing up and down the hallway, accomplishing nothing more than to set the entire hallway ablaze and drive the few remaining students who hadn't already fled to do so in horror.

Tails dropped to his knees and clutched the sides of his head, crying out in anger and frustration. "...Why...WHYYYYYYYYYYY?!"

"Whoa, little dude, hang tight!" a surprised, macho voice shouted from afar as the muscular, furry figure went to grab a nearby fire extinguisher. Tails and Knuckles remained in their positions, frozen in shock, as the mystery man began to put out the flames burning wildly on the oblivious hedgehog's charring body, as well as those that were beginning to engulf the hallway. "GAH! What... what the hell is this crap?! Who dares interrupt me mid-song!?" Sonic angrily lashed out, flat out disregarding this person had just saved his life. "Fox, what the hell are you doin'? We gotta go, remember?" an irritated, accented voice called out from the entryway.

"Whoops! Sorry, Falco. I'll be there in a 'sec, hold on. Later, fellas!" the hero winked masculinely and jogged
over to the main doors, leaving the three to their thoughts as they stood there in confusion over what they just witnessed. "Wow... what timing, man. There was like no one here and then he showed up totally out of nowhere." Knuckles pointed out obviously, in awe. "…Damn it, I can't believe this." Tails bemoaned, "He was this close to dying and then that guy had to save him. If it was anybody else, I would praise him. But... Son of a... Ugh, screw it."

"What a freaking jerk! Right when I was getting to the best part he had to go and and dump this smelly whipped cream junk all over me! And he totally ran everyone else out of the room. What a selfish cockhat!
How dare he do this to me? Revenge is clearly in order here. Change of plans, idiots. We're gonna need a plunger, a can of salt, some duct tape, a bag of screws, motor oil, a toddler's bicycle, a frozen loaf of french bread..." the hedgehog's rambling fell on deaf ears, however, as his so-called comrades just stood there too deep in their own thoughts to pay attention to whatever he had to say.

And so, as the lingering stench of burnt flesh and fumy chemicals filled the air, with the incessant rambling and ranting of Sonic echoing down the smoking halls, the annual school ceremony was a mere 2 minutes from starting. And the group of Mario, Luigi, Ness, and Link managed to arrive in the nick of time, all thanks to Epona and her godlike horse powers of carrying nearly three times her own weight in passengers.

"Phew, I didn't think we'd make it for a second there. Thanks so much, Link and Epona!" Ness said gratefully, Mario and Luigi nodding in agreement.

"But all-a the seats look-a taken, should-a we stand or-a…?" Mario trailed off, looking aimlessly for any possible empty spots at all in the enormous crowd circling the center stage. As the others helped in trying find a place to stand, Link noticed a large oak tree located fairly close by.

"Oh, I see what you mean," Ness chirped, "But what about you two? Are you good at climbing? It's quite a ways up…"

Mario and Luigi glanced at each other briefly and smiled knowingly. "I'm-a sure we'll-a manage." Mario chuckled coyly.

The two then walked over to the base, pausing for a moment to estimate the angle and height, and in perfect synchronization, jumped all the way up to the sturdiest branch on the tree. Ness' jaw dropped at the sight and Link seemed rather surprised as well, though his generally emotionless expression didn't show it much. "W-whoa! That's incredible!" the younger boy said.

"Heh, it's nothin' special…" Luigi chuckled modestly. "Anyway, you-a guys need to get-a up here! It looks like-a the show's about to-a start!" Mario called from above as he spotted a giant gloved hand float over to the platform in the middle of the area.

While things were still being set up, Ness and Link made their way up and seated themselves beside the two Italians, Epona laying down at the base of the tree patiently awaiting her owner's return. "So-a, uh…" Mario murmured, staring at the large hand he noticed earlier nervously. "Is… is-a that the-a principle?" he gulped.

"Yeah. That's Principle Hand, but he's not as terrifying as he looks, really." Ness answered honestly. "He turned a new leaf some time ago and since he came here the reputation of the school has changed drastically, and for the better." the boy continued, "Looks like they're having trouble with the microphone and speakers again. After last year's speech they've been especially careful with those." he shifted his gaze when he noticed the puzzled looks from the brothers. "You, uh, don't wanna know…" he insisted.

"Attention! Attention, students! Please settle down now!" the mighty gloved hand attempted to command the large crowd of bustling youngsters. "LISTEN TO ME, CHILDREN!" with a loud, mighty roar, silence immediately followed. "Ah, thank you. That's better." he coughed in satisfaction. "Hello, everyone! It is the 41st anniversary this year, and it is my pleasure to officially announce that our beloved school has now gone a full five years without a single major casualty. I am very proud of each and every one of you. With that out of the way, I would like to announce the new plans we have for the year. As many of you have informed me via our suggestion box, there are quite a few classes you would like to see introduced to our school, and I am happy to say that we plan to bring in quite a few of those, so I hope you look forward to it. Next off, our total charges for repairs were, for the first time in years, under the usual eight digit number. Once again, I would like to express how happy I am at how positively we are all improving here. I truly could not be more proud to be your principle. And now, onto the new plans for…"

"Luckily, it doesn't look like Gary bothered coming…" Luigi let out under his breath.

"He never does." Ness reminded, "He's most likely throwing his annual pool party on the roof. Only the V.I.P. Students get to be invited, so fortunately for people like us who want to learn, all the so-called cool kids are too busying partying to ruin something like this for us." he finished, shrugging.

"…and while the vending machines containing sugary drinks, candy, and other junk foods will not be done away with entirely, we do feel it would be best to cut down on them to a more appropriate number and only place them in staircases, as we feel walking is…"

"How has he not been expelled yet?" Luigi randomly complained aloud without a second thought.

"Sadly, that's something I don't know. I can only assume he's still allowed to be here because of family connections. His grandfather actually teaches here, if you didn't know." Ness informed.

"Oh right… There was a Professor Oak, but I never knew it was the same Oak. Huh…" Luigi took a moment to let the thought sink in, baffled at how he completely missed the connection before.

"…and with that, we hope the football team will be pleased with the improvements we are making to the field itself and their equipment. Considering how, to put it lightly… "chaotic" the last few games went, we feel these changes should help in preventing such… troubling occurrences hence forth. Next on the list is the…"

"So-a, Ness, when-a you say "other cool-a kids" you-a don't mean-a other people-a like G-Gary, do you…?" Mario sporadically brought up after thinking the thought too deeply.

"Trust me, everyone else is a wall flower compared to Gary and his posse. There's the delinquents, the trouble makers, the pranksters, and every other stereotype under the sun but while their antics may be bad, they aren't nearly as bad as anything Gary's done. So, as long as we avoid Gary and his affiliates, we should be a-okay." the lad assured.

"…furthermore, the efforts regarding the garbage and recycling pick up, while they have been going quite well, could be better, so to encourage the cleanliness of the school grounds we…"

"Well, that's-a good to hear. Are-a there any floors that-a we need to avoid in-a general?" Mario inquired further.

"Gary's unpredictable. He could be lurking around the cafeteria one day, and at the swimming pools the next. Regarding any particular shady places? The upper floors, during the lunch hours. That's pretty common knowledge." Ness' response made Mario recall what the bodacious blonde from before mentioned, and then his mind began to wander into the perverted depths he was all too familiar with, until he heard the giggling of a more sweet, well mannered female.

"Eh?" his gaze traveled downward to his right and he saw a picnic blanket placed on a small hill a little ways away from where the main seating area was. On it were a pair of rather refined looking ladies in dresses; a brunette in a bright yellow and orange dress, and beside her a pineapple blonde in pink.

"Oh, Daisy, that's so unladylike! You shouldn't be using words like that!" she said in between catching her breaths.

"Heh, you're the one laughin', though!" the other chuckled uncontrollably.

"…I would also like to give a very special thanks to Mr. Kawashima, because without him I would not have been able to…"

"Oh, what're you doing now?" Luigi cocked his head over to see what his lollygagging sibling was doing now, groaning once he realized what exactly. "Another broad? Oh, for the love of…" he let out, quietly enough for no one below to hear but plenty loud enough for Ness and Link to.

"Oh? …Ah, that looks like Princess Peach and her best friend, Princess Daisy." Ness couldn't help but throw out.

"Pr… Princesses? What's royalty doing in a place like this?" Luigi inquired, feeling somewhat curious over the women himself now, much to his distaste.

"…I would like to give a quick shout out to the janitorial staff, as well, as their hard work and determination has proved both admirable and inspiring to myself, and I am sure the rest of the school as well. But if I may make one tiny suggestion? Please try to cut down on the floor wax, it is beginning to get just a tad out of hand and even I fell on my bottom on the way getting here! And I do not even have…"

"It does seem a tad unusual, doesn't it? Such regal figures attending a school like this. Reputation or not, it still seems rather unfitting. If memory serves, I believe they came here by choice." Ness recalled, although not entirely sure.

"…And so, I bid thee farewell. I am still a very much busy man, you see, but I hope I managed to get all the important subjects. If I missed any, please send your comments and complaints to the Vice-Principle. And with that, I shall take my leave. Make sure to get to your classes in a timely fashion, students!" Mr. Hand finished in a rush, trying his best to not make it look too obvious.

"It's over already? Shoot, I wasn't paying that much attention…" Luigi grumbled, mentally kicking himself for acting like his brother.

"I wouldn't worry about it, if he said anything that's relevant to us, I'm sure Link heard it. He's not the talkative type by any means, but he's definitely a good listener." Ness complimented as everyone else made their way out the garden.

"Is that so?" Luigi said in surprise, looking over at the mute blonde, who nodded modestly in confirmation. "Well, that's good to know. Alright, so, uh… Class. Mario, you remember what classes we were assigned to, right?" Luigi asked, unsure himself.

"Huh? Me?" Mario responded in bewilderment. "B-but I thought you…?"

"Oh for the love of…" Luigi smacked himself in the face over his brother's continued incompetence. "Now what are we gonna do?"

"Oops…?" Ness said, scratching his head and giving the brothers a reassuring smile. "Well, I wouldn't worry too much about that. I'm sure you can get it resolved, but I'm afraid I need to get to class, and Link, too, so you'll have to do it on your own. Best of luck!"

As the four made their way down and parted ways, the brothers looked at each other in irritation as they walked back to the school. "Pfft, too busy drooling over dumb broads to pay attention to anything important. Unbelievable." Luigi whined, sifting through the unbearably large map of the school layout to try and pinpoint the principle's office, but with no luck.

"Oh-a, sure, blame-a me when I-a didn't know a meatball-a flipping thing-a about this-a place!" Mario complained back through gritted teeth, doing the same with his papers with similarly unsuccessful results.

"Gah, this is getting us nowhere..." Luigi said in a huff, shoving the map back in his backpack in defeat.

"Truce?" Mario asked calmly, sticking his free hand out to his likewise tired brother.

"Yeah, truce." Luigi replied, giving a firm shake back.

"Now, let's see..." Luigi said to himself, as he got the map back out, staring at the school's mall-like layout that was portrayed upon it. Running his finger across the map slowly, Luigi finally found the Principle's Office and tapped it enthusiastically. "Alright, so according to this, the Principle's Office is room B-14, do you see any numbers or anything on the room in front of us? I'm afraid if I take my eyes off the map I'll lose track of the office again..."

"Hmm-a..." Walking over to the door in front of them, Mario read off the print that was displayed across it. "Room-a B-16, Janitor's-a Closet."

"W-Wait a minute, B-16?" Luigi repeated in shock, looking to Mario who nodded in confirmation. "B-But, according to this, that means..." Turning around slowly, Luigi slapped his face in realization, crumpling the map up with his other hand as he saw the flashing neon sign that read "Principle's Office" in fancy script displayed in the long, storefront-like window of the room that had been directly behind the two brothers the entire time.

"...O-Ops-a..." Mario stuttered, looking back at his brother with embarrassment.

"...Ugh, let's... Let's just forget it and go in, we're already late enough as it is..." Luigi muttered bitterly, shaking his head in
frustration as he shuffled hastily into the office, his brother on his heels.

As the brothers entered the office, they quickly found out they weren't the only ones who were visiting the Principle so soon.

"B-But, Principle Hand! I tolds ya, it wasn't my fault!" Came the blubbering, sobbing voice of Knuckles, who was currently on his knees in a pleading position in front of Principle Hand, apparently begging his forgiveness for something.

"Well, Mr. Hedgehog and Mr. Prower both seem to be of a differing opinion, isn't that right, boys?" The Principle said, as he floated behind his desk, pointing at Sonic and Tails who stood off in the corner, conflicting looks spread across their faces.

"YEAH, IT WAS ALL KNUCKLES' FAULT!" Sonic sneered, a poop-devouring grin spread across his face. "Ain't that right, Tails?"

Tails frowned back, as all eyes in the room turned to him. As his eyes darted around, from Sonic's malicious smile to Knuckles' tearful expression, he began to respond, looking at the floor shamefully as he spoke. "E-Er, w-well, I don't know if I would say it was ALL his fau-" Tails was hastily interrupted by Sonic's elbow jabbing him painfully in the ribs, as the hedgehog whispered something angrily into his ear. Sighing dejectedly, Tails 'corrected' himself as he rubbed his sore abdomen and looked away from Knuckles shamefully. "...I-I mean, y-yes, it was all... Knuckles' fault..."

"W-WHAT?!" Knuckles cried in exasperation, as he looked from Sonic to Tails in a panicked fervor, not being able to believe his own best
friends would sell him up the river like they were currently doing.

"Well, there you have it, Mr. Echidna." Principle Hand said, tutting in disappointment. "I think we all know that two people are more than one, so unfortunately for you, their accounts override yours. Now, I hope you'll act a bit more responsibly the next time you feel like setting an entire hallway ablaze, hmm?"

Sniffling, Knuckles nodded sorrowfully. "...Y-Yes sir, P-P-P-Principle Hand..."

"Okay, off to class with all of you then." The Principle said, shooing the anthropomorphs off. "And don't even THINK of skipping detention after school, Mr. Echidna." The glove added, giving Knuckles a stern point.

"Y-Yes sir..." Knuckles replied, as he attempted to wipe the still freely flowing tears from his eyes.

"Alright boys, you heard the glove, let's book it!" Sonic said with a hearty laugh, grabbing his two morbidly depressed friends and running off with them at the speed of Sonic The Hedgehog.

"...Oh, what are you two doing here?" The Principle said after a moment, finally noticing Mario and Luigi's presence in his office. "Shouldn't you boys be in class?"

"A-Ah, r-right..." Luigi said, clearing his throat and chuckling nervously as the Principle folded his fingers and gave him a look just as stern as the one he had just given to poor Knuckles. "U-Uh, sorry for bothering you, Principle Hand sir, my name's Luigi Mario, and this is my brother Mario Mario, and we, uh... Kinda, sorta... Forgot to get our class schedules earlier due to... Er... Difficulties..."

"...Hmm. Right." Master Hand replied gruffly with a small nod. "Well, these things happen, it's understandable."

As the glove rustled through his desk, Mario and Luigi both breathed sighs of relief to one another, thankful that the principle wasn't angry at them.

"Ah, here we go." Getting two sheets of paper out of his desk, he handed one to each of the brothers. "Try not to forget them again, I'd hate to have to put anything on your permanent records this early in your school lives, hmm?"

"A-Ah, th-thanks Mr. Hand, w-we won't!" Luigi stuttered, smiling gratefully at the principal along with his brother.

"Alright, now you boys get off to your class slash classes, since I'm feeling generous, I'll let your tardiness go just this once because it's the first day." The Principle said pleasantly, before quickly tensing back up and pointing to his door. "NOW GO BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND."

The brothers needed no further instructions, and quickly zipped out of the Principle's Office posthaste.

"Phew, glad we got that taken of." Luigi muttered exhaustedly, wiping the sweat off his brow.

"Yeah, that-a was sure nice of-a the principle to let this-a slide just-a this once!" Mario agreed, doing the same.

"Anyway, I'll be across the hall. Good luck, you'll need it..." Luigi finished morbidly, an expression of uneasiness creeping up on his face as he parted ways from his puzzled brother.

Slowly, the stout Italian opened the creaking door and immediately realized what exactly his brother was talking about.

As if the gruesome events that transpired mere minutes ago weren't enough, the packed class room somehow proved even more chaotic. Pencils were flung, hair was pulled, and gobs of chewed paper were spat. It was utter madness, and the expression of the teacher's face only proved this.

"Students! Students, settle down right this instant!" Came the beleaguered cry of what Mario assumed was the teacher, a rotund, mustachioed man whose portly shape gave him more than a passing resemblance to an egg. As the man sighed heavily over his futile attempts to bring about order, his gaze shifted to the doorway, where he finally noticed Mario's presence. Letting out another sigh, the man beckoned Mario to come over to his desk, which the young Italian did obediently.

"I take it that you're the one the principle told me about." The man said in a less than caring manner. Not giving Mario time to reply, the man continued briskly. "Well, my name is Mr. Eggman, or Mr. Robotnik as some of our older, more stubborn students continue to call me. Go ahead and take your seat, assuming it hasn't been chucked out the window already..."

Mario gulped hard, gazing forward at the ongoing terror that was mere inches away from him. With overwhelming feelings of dread and apprehension, he hesitatingly took a single step forward, no soon afterwards taking a book right to the face, his nose ever so slightly softening the blow. The uphill battle he waged to reach the back row where his seat was located felt like an eternity, and the swelling lump of flesh hindering his eyesight didn't help matters in the least. Though, by some stroke of luck, if it could even be called that, he eventually ended up rolling straight into the back wall, thanks to the
errant foot jutting out from an uncaring student's desk into his already severely limited path. By this point, Mario just felt relieved that he had made it to his seat at all, rather than annoyance on how he had arrived there.

After Eggman scanned the area one last time for good measure, making sure every student was at least in the room and accounted for, he stood up again to speak. "Attention, students..." He said in his most polite of voices, but with no response at all. Shaking his head woefully and sighing heavily once again, he reached into his desk and pulled out a megaphone. Clearing his throat, all traces of politeness were gone from his voice as he screeched into the amplifier. "ATTENTION, YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE SACKS OF-" Eggman's words finally got through to the unruly class, and they quickly zipped into their seats (or at least stood where they would have, had said seats still been in the room or in one piece) before he even had to finish his sentence. Putting the megaphone back away, Eggman forced a smile onto his face to greet his students. "...That's better."

Getting back out of his seat, Eggman picked up a piece of chalk and began to write his name on the blackboard as he spoke. "Now that our final student has arrived, I would appreciate it if the rest of you wretch-I mean, DELIGHTFUL children would kindly pipe down so that I may begin. Now, my name is Mr. Dr. Ivo 'Eggman' Robotnik, but you may call me simply 'Eggman' for short."

As Mario rubbed his throbbing nose to try and soothe the pain a little, inhaling through his teeth in pain and trying to regain his hearing, he could just barely make out the rest of what the teacher was saying.

"Now, if I many begin-" Eggman started to say, before quickly being cut off by a pink, slightly on-edge looking hedgehog wearing a less than modest red dress.

"Um, excuse me, Mr. Eggman, but where is Sonic?" The hedgehog looked at Eggman with a super serious expression on her face. "You said that we were all here and accounted for, but I don't see Sonic anywhere, and he told me that he was taking this class this year, so I of course did so too... But he's not here."

"...Ms. Rose... Amy, is it?" Eggman asked regretfully after mulling it over in his head whether he really should or not. Getting a nod from the hedgehog, Eggman continued. "I'm sorry, Ms. Rose, but whoever this 'Sonic' fellow is, he isn't a part of this class. Perhaps you were mista-"

"No, no!" Amy interrupted, her voice suddenly much shriller as she shook her head back and forth vehemently. "No, Sonic told me he would be here, he TOLD ME about math class! And... And if he's not here, then that would make him a liar... But... But Sonic... Sonic would NEVER lie to me...! Why... Why would Sonic ever lie to me like that?!"

"...I can't imagine..." Eggman muttered to himself under his breath, rolling his eyes in disdain as the pink hedgehog appeared to be having a breakdown in front of him.

"No, there must be some mistake here, because there is no way that Sonic would ever so much as THINK of lying to me about ANYTHING, I am his darling Amy, and he is my precious Sonikku, we were meant to be together forever for the rest of our entire lives!" Amy said, her voice and mannerisms becoming more unhinged and frightening with every word that escaped from her mouth. "And that includes math class, so... Yes, there must have been some kind of mistake." Amy said, seemingly calmed down in an instant. "Sonic obviously just went to the wrong classroom by mistake, he can be so silly like that sometimes! Oh, Sonikku... Why must you toy with my fragile, delicate emotions so...?"

"...Er..." Eggman scratched his bald skull lethargically, having droned out the majority of the hedgehog's speech much like the rest of the class. "That... That's nice, Ms. Rose... Now, if you would please take your seat so that we may begin our class, we're already thirteen minutes behind schedule as it is..."

"Oh, yes, of course, Mr. Eggman sir!" Amy said with a giggle as she skipped merrily back to her seat.

"Okay now, seeing as how this is the first day of school, why don't we start off with something easy to get the learning juices flowing back into your nubile young minds?" Eggman asked the class rhetorically, walking back over to the blackboard and spending the next three and a half minutes furiously scribbling out a ridiculously long and impossible looking equation that filled the entire blackboard, save for the tiniest of spots in the bottom right corner that was seemingly reserved for the answer. "Alrighty, who would like to answer our first problem?"

As Eggman's face beamed brightly at his students, the smile quickly began to fade once he realized no one was going to volunteer at all. Quickly, he decided to just pick someone at random before his expression and mood soured completely once again. "Ah, well, why don't we let our newest student have a go at it first, so that he can show us exactly how smart of a noodle he has in that disturbingly fat noggin of his!" Pointing at Mario, Eggman turned his hand around and motioned the Italian towards him in a 'come here' manner with his finger.

Reluctantly, Mario tore himself away from his seat and slinked ever so slowly towards the head of the class, trying desperately and futilely to wrap his own head around the insane math problem he was being forced to solve, but only managing to give himself an even bigger headache than the one he already had thanks to the book.

"Alright, Mr. Mario, was it?" Eggman asked the young Italian as he finally reached the front of the room. Before Mario could so much as reply, Eggman thrusted a piece of chalk into his hand and pushed him in front of the chalkboard. "Well, go on ahead, don't keep us waiting, now!"

Looking from the teacher's expectant, if not outright demanding face, to the glares of his fellow students, to the piece of chalk in his jittery hand, to the chalkboard and the monstrous equation itself, Mario was a bundle of nerves, and nothing he could think of was having any effect calming his nerves or solving the math problem. As Eggman tapped his foot impatiently, Mario's mind went into panic mode, and he hastily and messily scrawled the first number that popped into his mind onto the blackboard's only open space.

"...123?!" Eggman remarked in shock as he read Mario's wild guess of an answer. "Why, that... That's... Absolutely correct!"

Mario's had to take a double take to make sure he had heard his teacher correctly. "...It... It-a is...?!"

"Why, of course!" Eggman said with a laugh, slapping Mario on the back. "Oh my, what a kidder, acting as if you're surprised about it!"

"W-Well..." Mario stuttered, laughing nervously a bit himself as he scratched the back of his head. "It-a IS-a my lucky number, after all... Ahaha..."

"Well students, judging by how quickly and easily Mr. Mario was able to solve this problem, it's pretty clear to me now that such a problem isn't a challenge at all to your developing young minds, so you can all thank him for helping me realize this, as I'll be sure to give you all some much, MUCH more difficult problems!" Eggman declared jovially, a declaration which was received with a chorus of groans, boos, and expletives aimed solely at the poor Italian boy. "Thank you Mr. Mario, you may head back to your seat now while I come up with some more challenging questions for you all~!"

The fleeting moment of happiness and joy that Mario felt when he found out he was against all odds correct was instantly dashed as he took the slow, long walk of shame back to his seat in the very back of the room, the glares of all his fellows students boring straight through his skull as he was pelted again by various painful and/or disgusting objects. As he finally reached his seat, he slumped down into it and buried his face into his desk with a long, heavy sigh. "...Mama-Mia..."

---

Twenty minutes later, as class was finally dismissed, Mario took no time in escaping from the den of horror that had become filled with a thick, heavy hatred of him since Eggman's announcement. Fumbling to get his homework organized and filed away, he parked himself by the nearby row of lockers as he waited anxiously for his brother to arrive.

"Geez, it's-a only my-a first day here and-a already I'm-a so tired... I don't-a know if I can-a make it the rest of-a the day..." Mario thought to himself, exhaling audibly. Five more minutes passed, with still no sign of his brother. As he continued to stand patiently beside the nearby drinking fountain, a feminine voice broke his concentration.

"Mario? Is... that you?"

"E-eh?"

His gaze lazily wandered until it hit him like another dictionary to the face; a curvy, busty, brunette with a voice that could melt butter and a face he hadn't seen in years.

"Gosh, it's been so long! I never thought I'd see you again in here of all places!"

Mario couldn't even begin to comprehend this unanticipated turn of events. Suddenly, all his pain washed away and was soon replaced with mixed feelings, including shock, surprise, embarrassment, confusion, and more fatigue than before. "P-P-P-Pauline?! Oh, M-M-M-M-M-"

"I knew it was you! I could recognize that mustache from a mile away!" Pauline said with a smile, before coughing and adding under her breath, "...Well, actually, I kinda did, but hey, what a surprise, right? It must have been at least..."

Mario did his damnedest to try and mutter out a proper sentence to the woman, but amidst all the excitement and reminiscing, Pauline didn't even notice while she continued to jibber jabber on about irrelevant things from the past as the Italian went on with his awkward stammering.

"Mama-mia, I... Er, I-a mean... Well, what I-a want to-a say is..."

"Oh, but here I am, rambling on again!" Pauline said with a giggle, unaware of Mario's pitiful attempts at speech that she had interrupted. "What about you, what brings you here?"

And with those words, Mario's mind hit a mental brick wall. As a means to try and buy more time, he hastily attempted to change the subject. "Well, uh, geez, just-a been waiting for-a my bro and uh-"

"Luigi's here, too?" Pauline asked quizzically, raising an eyebrow, before a look of realization spread across her face. "Oh, I think I get it now. You were hired because of that bathroom incident a few floors down, right?"

"S-sure. Yep, that's-a it!" he lied poorly, avoiding any and all eye contact as bullets of sweat began to trail down his aching face.

"So we're both here on business, then?" Not giving Mario the time to respond, Pauline let out another giggle. "That's so funny! I take it your new plumbing job has proved more fruitful since you moved?"

Suddenly, a conversation topic he could comfortably go with. "Oh... oh-a yeah, certainly. You'd-a be amazed of-a what kind of-a things people stick-a down their toil-"

"Now what's all this then? A happy reunion, and you didn't invite me?"

The sweetened atmosphere soon turned sour once again for the plumber as another familiar voice chuckled mockingly from behind the two.

"Ugh, DK..." Pauline mumbled under breath, looking away from the unpleasant ape in mild disgust.

After a brief grimace, Donkey Kong shrugged it off and went right back into his poor impression of acting suave. "Now, baby, is that any way to act towards somebody who's given you nothing but their heart and soul for all these years, even to this day?"

Pauline scoffed at the empty, sloppily put together words and walked a few more steps back. "Please. There was never anything between us, and everyone -except you, apparently- knows that." she said coldly, inching ever closer to Mario. "And what did I tell you about following me around everywhere when I'm here?"

Donkey Kong paused for a moment to think up an intelligent rebuttal to her insinuations of stalking, looking over to his shorter, slightly more dressed cohort, and back to the pair in question. "Why, Pauline, darling, are you implying I meant to just so happen to notice you coming out of the principle's office after a meeting and happen to come down here? That's propos... prepostre... Just silly."

Tugging on the larger primate's tie anxiously, the smaller monkey spoke up, trying to get DK to get his mind back on track. "Uh, DK, I think we should really get to our class right about no-"

Slapping the smaller monkey's hand away, DK scoffed angrily. "Shut it, Diddy! Can't you see I'm trying to-"

Undaunted, Diddy tried again, the urgency in his voice rising. "We don't have time for this! We really need to-"

Flicking the monkey away from him with ease, DK growled at his smaller companion, his anger rising. "Don't talk when I'm talking, dang it, and listen to me when I say-"

"EVERYBODY, CHILL!"

Silence filled the air between the four, as a new familiar face, at least to the other Kongs, appeared. With his signature polka dot bandana and purple tinted sunglasses, it could only be the raddest, and more properly dressed, member of the DK crew out there. The one and only...

"Funky? Shouldn't you be like, shooting baskets or something with your "bros" or whatever...?" Donkey Kong muttered bitterly, as Funky remained cool as a cucumber under his fellow Kong's burning hot headedness.

"Nah, dat ain't for today. But t'anks for asking." he said coolly, adjusting his shades. "Now, what's wit' all dis bad mojo dat I and I be gettin' here?" he asked back, giving a stern glare back through his purple visor.

"Oh, what, this?" DK repeated, rolling his eyes and flapping his lips together mockingly. "Nothin'. Nothin' at a-"

"DK's harassing Pauline again." Interrupted Diddy, only too happy to rat on his 'big buddy' with the way he was treating him.

Towering over Diddy, DK snarled at him with rage. "DIDDY, YOU LITTLE-"

"I see..." Funky said, lowering his shades to take a gander at Pauline. "So, dis is the Pauline I've heard so much about. I can see why he makes such big stinks over ya'. Why, if I were a human, I'd be all over dat a-"

"Stay out of this!" DK interjected angrily pushing Funky aside. "This is between me and my true love!"

"That's what you said about Candy, too, until she dumped you..." Diddy chimed in, a sly smile spreading across his face.

Shaking his fist at Diddy, DK once again bellowed in rage. "SHE DID NOT DUMP ME, DIDDY, WE BOTH AGREED THAT-"

"Aaaanyway, let's, uh, not get back into dat." Funky stated anxiously, in a rare moment of nervousness for the cool Kong. "I'm sorry my pal here has caused you so much trouble, sweet thang."

"Oh, it's nothing. I'm used to it." Pauline responded, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. "Still annoyed, sure, but what can you do..."

As the already heated situation delved into more touchy matters, Mario continued to sit there in silence, sandwiched between his childhood crush, and rival since his later teen years. The bickering between each party seemed endless, until finally, a faint blur of green passed by. Like a 50 ton weight lifted from each of his shoulders, Mario nearly cried out in joy.

"Mario? Oh for pete's sake, what have you done now?" Luigi said in annoyance, seeing the hectic scene that was revolving around his brother.

"Luigi! Oh, I'm-a so glad you're-a here! You see..." Mario cried, rushing over both to greet his brother, and to get away from DK's tantrums.

"You don't need to say anything, bro." Luigi said reassuringly, once he noticed the familiar, tie-wearing ape and groaning under his breath. "Not when that dumb ol' ape's around..."

Turning away from Diddy, DK put the brunt of his bullying on Luigi, as he began to wind up his fist to deliver a punch to taller Italian. "WHO'RE YOU CALLIN' DUMB, YOU SCRAWNY LITTLE-"

"So yeah! Let's get outta here, shall we?" Luigi said, completely ignoring the ape. Smiling, he waved happily to Pauline. "Nice seein' you again, Pauline!"

And before Mario could say his bittersweet goodbye, the younger brother hurriedly dragged him out from the ugly scene, which was showing no signs of calming down, let alone ending. Along the way to their next class, Mario explained the past ten or so minutes to him with each grisly detail.

"Sheesh, when will that guy give it a rest?" Luigi said, shaking his head in disgust. "I'm surprised she hasn't gotten a restraining order against him."

"Is it-a even legal to-a do that when-a the offender is-a... not human?" Mario asked, scratching his head in confusion.

"I... Uh, well... " Luigi stumbled, not having a readily available answer to such a silly question. Fortunately for him, they had just arrived at their destination. "Oh hey! We're here already. Try not to embarrass me too much, alright? Some of my friends will be in here..."

"I don't-a think you'll need-a my help, Luigi..." Mario stated with a grin, clapping his brother on the back. "You do a good-a enough job of embarrassing yourself on-a your own-a!"

"Ugh, let's just go..." Luigi huffed in irritation, shrugging off his brother's hand. Swallowing hard, he slowly turned the door knob and soon let himself in, Mario close behind him. With a quick wave, he greeted his group of friends from the corner of the room and approached them hesitantly. "H-hey guys..."

"...H-Hi, Luigi..." Greeted a short, bespectacled blonde-haired boy, who seemed distracted, as he kept peering around the room looking for something.

"...Hey." Aloofly muttered an equally short man clad in a yellow and blue astronaut's suit with a tiny patch of blonde hair sticking out of his strange, bean shaped head.

"Oh, hi Luigi..." Greeted Tails unenthusiastically, who waved half-heartedly at the green clad brother. "...Sorry you had to see that earlier in the principle's office..."

"HEY, HEY, LUIGI! IT'S ME, SLIPPY! YOU REMEMBER ME, RIGHT, RIGHT?" Came the exuberant shout of a stocky green frog, who waved eagerly and loudly to Luigi, drawing the attention of everyone else in the room.

"S-so, guys, this is my b-brother, Mario. Mario, these are my pals." Luigi introduced with a slight hint of shame lingering on his words. Mario nodded and raised his hand in a "howdy" fashion. "Nice-a to meet you-a all."

"...H-Hi, Mario... I'm Jeff..." Stuttered the blonde haired boy in a sort of kind of almost friendly manner, as he continued to fidget around distractedly. "...Listen, you haven't seen a brown haired boy with a porkpie hat and the same outfit as me anywhere around here, have you?"

Mario took a moment to ponder the question. Just in the past hour alone he saw hundreds upon thousands of different people pass by him. Granted, most of them being mere blurs he couldn't remember very clearly, but he was positive he didn't see anyone like that on the way to class. "Not-a that I can-a recall, no..." he attempted to assure.

"...Thank god..." Jeff responded after a tense moment, letting out a deep breath that he seemed to have been holding in since before Mario and Luigi had arrived.

"...He has a stalker." Explained Tails in a monotonous tone of voice. "Then again, that seems to be the case with about half of the student body... Oh, right, I'm Miles Prower, but call me Tails, everyone else does..."

"O-oh, I-a see... That-a, uh, well-a, stinks..." Mario tried to console, biting his tongue upon uttering such halfhearted words, let alone to someone he had only just met.

"...Usually Ness, Paula, or Poo are around to warn me when he's lurking, so it... It's okay... Most of the time..." Jeff said quietly, his voice trailing off into unintelligible mumbles as he spoke.

"...Right, anyways." Tails spoke up, clearing the awkward silence in the room. "You probably won't be seeing much of me, this is the only class I have away from Sonic, my only Sonic-free zone in the whole school, the only tiny, negligible, minuscule bit of FREEDOM I have for the entire day, so... Well, it's nice to know you before Sonic drags my reputation down further into the bowels of hell with him... Oh, and if I didn't make it clear, don't ever talk to Sonic, even if you have
to." Tails added a moment later in an urgent tone. "He's the blue hedgehog you saw me with earlier in the principle's office. He... He's not a pleasant person to be around, to put it nicely."

Mario gulped again, not being entirely sure what to say. The group was a bipolar mix of paranoia, loathing, and clinginess, and the only thoughts that could register in the Italian's mind were pity for his brother.

"...Oh, right, and this is Louie." Tails said, motioning to the short astronaut beside him, who hadn't stopped staring off into space since Mario had walked into the room. "He... He doesn't talk much... He doesn't really do much of anything anymore, really..."

"Besides eat," Slippy added, pointing towards the small pile of empty chip bags and candy bar wrappers cluttering his desk space.

"...Yes." Tails added darkly, shuddering lightly. "Never let him leave your sight if you have any food on your person. Even if it's currently in your mouth."

"...Also, if you have any small animals, don't let them around him either..." Jeff added.

"...Or large animals..." Slippy muttered.

"It's because of him that most of the vending machines around here are entirely empty ninety nine percent of the time. Even as soon as the janitors refill the stock, he just buys it all back. While good for the school's profits, not so much for anyone else who needs a snack or whatever..." Luigi finished.

"O-Oh..." Mario stuttered in response, unsure of how exactly to respond to such... revelations.

"SO HEY, GUYS, ANYONE GONNA INTRO ME?" Slippy suddenly said, as loud and obnoxious as he had been before, maybe even more so now.

"...And this is Slippy. He's... Slippy." Tails finally muttered in deadpan.

Mario was still entirely unsure as to what he should say and do. There he was, standing before what was quite possibly the most miserable looking bunch of lethargic young men he has ever had the displeasure of being around.

"...Right, I can tell by the look on your face, you're thinking, 'gee, this is quite possibly the most miserable looking bunch of lethargic young men I have ever had the displeasure of being around', or something along those lines." Tails said dryly, shaking his head and sighing woefully. "...Sorry, we don't mean to be like this, honestly, but it's just... It's kind of hard being happy when you're constantly having to be the buttmonkey of a cruel, dictatorial 'best friend', in constant fear of being stalked by a 'best friend' who refuses to accept that your sexual preferences are different than his, are constantly in the shadow of your infinitely more talented brother, have a second stomach where your brain should be, or are Slippy..."

Before Mario could even budge his lips an inch to try and say anything in his defense, Luigi once again butted in, coughing harshly onto the index finger of his fist. "Anyway! We should take our seats now, the teacher's gonna be here any second no-"

As Mario scrambled to find his assigned seat, the door behind him wooshed open, and all chatter in the room died down instantly.

"Greetings, children." a deep, chilling voice let out as the oddly dressed figure emerged from the doorway. "I see our new student has arrived. Well, don't just stand there, come up to the chalk board now." his chilling words freezing Mario dead in his tracks.

Turning around slowly, Mario gulped as he caught his first glimpse of his new teacher, the sight of him alone sending a deep chill down his spine. Pointing to himself nervously, Mario squeaked, "M-M-M-Me...?"

"Yes, you. In the red. Come up here and introduce yourself to the class, if you'd please." he suggested almost demandingly as he walked ever so slowly to his seat.

Swallowing even harder, Mario stumbled to the front of the class, as a cold sweat began to beat at his brow. Looking up at the menacing figure who was apparently his teacher, the man nodded fiercely and stated, "Go on.". Mario turned to face the classroom, swallowed once more, and as Luigi frantically tried to send "get on with it" messages to him with his facial expressions, stuttered his name out for all to hear. "U-U-U-Um, h-h-hello, I'm-a Mario, M-Mario Mario... I'm-a Luigi's brother, and-"

"Alright, I didn't say to give your whole life story." The teacher said gruffly. "Take your seat."

Swallowing another lump down his throat, Mario scurried back to his seat. Receiving a sarcastic "Good job, bro." from his brother from behind him once he sat back down.

"Alright, now, let's get down to business." The teacher said, coldly and firmly. Walking over to the blackboard, the man didn't pick up any chalk, instead, as he raised his hand up to it, dark, purple, smokey text began to form on it, eventually spelling out "Mr. Dragmire" in a particularly sinister looking font. "I am your teacher, Mr. Dragmire. You will all refer to me as Ganondorf. Not Ganon. Not Mr. Dorf. Ganondorf. Anyone who decides to disobey will be swiftly dealt with in a fitting manner."

The class listened intently and hung onto every word the dark wizard's mouth uttered, all the while being scared silly and paralyzed in fear.

"Now..." Ganondorf said, staring intently into the eyes of each and every one of the students in turn. "I hope you all remembered to bring the homework projects I assigned to all of you for summer vacation; 'How I Used The Powers Of Science To Enhance My Local Environment'." Folding his arms, Ganondorf waited in utter silence for his student's
replies.

A series of confused mumbles and whispered cussing emanated from most of the group, assumedly due to forgetfulness. Mario looked over to Luigi in similar fear. Luigi gave a "It's fine, you have nothing to worry about" face as best he could, as talking and note passing was strictly disallowed in the class.

"...Time's up." Ganondorf said suddenly, dropping a fist onto his desk in the manner a judge would pound his gavel, instantly getting everyone's undivided attention once again. "You will each come up and present your projects to the rest of the class in an orderly fashion, starting with the student sitting in the top left most seat in the class, and going left to right from there. Mr. Andonuts, you're first."

Although having actually completed his homework, unlike the majority of the class, Jeff still felt an overwhelming urge to soil himself upon being called up first. Getting his things together as neatly as he could with the very little time he was sure he had, or rather, didn't have, he took a deep breath and slowly walked up to the front to present his project.

"...Th-This is my project, the Andonuts Unglomper 1.3..." Jeff said, taking the cover off of his project to reveal a full body suit that was covered in what appeared to be many different sized syringes, all filled with various, heinously colored liquids. "It uses the power of science to create organically cultivated viruses that protect my environmental footprint from the unwanted advances of those who would be destroying the environment by robbing me of oxygen, therefore causing me to be unable to emit precious carbon dioxide and in turn causing rampant deforestation by denying plants the very life force with which they require to live..."

"I... Er, haven't the slightest clue as to what you just said, so I'll give your... whatever this thing is supposed be, a pass. Next." Ganondorf said in blunt honesty, shooing off the boy with his right hand and scratching at the side of his neck with his left.

Getting up slowly out of his seat, Tails walked nervously, and empty-handedly, to the front of the classroom.

"...Where is your project, Mr. Prowler?" Ganondorf asked chillingly, as he gave Tails a scrutinizing look.

Tails struggled to avoid eye contact. Shifting between the sharp pair of eyes staring through his soul and the blindingly bright lights that flickered from above his head, he scratched the back of his "neck" and let the unfortunate truth out bluntly. "I didn't make it, sir. I'm sorry."

"...You... Didn't make it...?" Ganondorf repeated, in a voice even more monosyllabic than Tails'. "...You made no effort whatsoever to make it?"

"Trust me, sir, the effort part was there. It's just that... I couldn't find the time. Yes, even within the two week deadline, I can't say that I had any free time within that period to work on it... Again, I apologize from the bottom of the bottom of my heart. You can, like, smite me, or whatever punishment you see fit..." he said haplessly, looking down at his red and white shoes in shame.

"..." Ganondorf looked down at the shamed figure who stood before him, who looked much like a man standing before the gallows. "...Oh, right, you're that unfortunate child who's friends with that blue demon, aren't you?"

"Y-yes, sir... That would be me..." Tails responded in the most pathetically self loathing voice he could effortlessly muster up.

"...Hrm... Right... Well..." Ganondorf shifted around uncomfortably, seemingly contemplating with himself in his head before finally speaking. "...I suppose, given the circumstances, that I will consider lessening your punishment slightly. I'm sure being around that vile creature on a daily basis is punishment enough as it is. But, uh, do try to grow a spine soon, yes?"

Tails winced at the ending words, but shrugged it off as he himself knew that it was true; he needed to stop being pushed around by that cocky, obnoxious ingrate that he called a "friend." He rose his head back up to face his teacher, and nodded. Carefully making his way back to his seat soon after.

"Right. And, uh, it wouldn't kill you to smile once in a while either, you really do know how to bring the mood down in a hurry..." Ganondorf added under his breath, before shaking his head and turning his attention to the next student. "Alright, you, with the red hat and the magnificently burgeoning moustache."

Mario took a double take and turned around to face his brother again. "B-but-a! Luigi, wha- what am I-a supposed to-? I-a only just got-a here!"

Luigi shrugged back, a clueless expression on his face as he forced a smile and mouthed "Just wing it!"

Exhaling deeply, Mario took his sweet time in getting himself over to the front row again, coughing before beginning to attempt to explain his situation to the teacher. "Well, uh, Mister-a Ganondorf, sir, you-a see... This is-a my first day here, and uh..." his voice trailing off into incomprehensible mumbles as Ganondorf stared off at the poor fool.

"...So, what you're saying..." Ganondorf said slowly and tersely as he bored a hole through Mario's skull with his icy glare. "...Is that you have no project to present either?"

Mario let out a short burst of uncontrollable, maniacal laughter, interspersed with sobs in terror of the man, choking down the embarrassing noises as best he could before finally speaking up again. "N-no."

"...Didn't your brother say anything to you about how you were required to present a project of your own as well?" Ganondorf asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mario groaned under his breath, taking another quick glance at his brother before facing Ganondorf once again. "He-a didn't say anything of-a the sort, sir..."

"...I see." Ganondorf said, folding his arms disapprovingly. "...Well, it looks like you have your first after school punishment companion, Mr. Prowler. Sit down, Mr. Mario."

Mario's heart sank. His emotions flew around frantically in his gut like flies to a rotting corpse as he dragged his feet back to his desk, his head drooping down just enough for his hat to threaten the suggestion of falling off his head in the process.

"...Right." Ganondorf said, clearing his throat after the absurdly long walk Mario took back to his desk. "Mr. ... Louie. You're next."

The stout blonde did not respond. Still in the exact same position that he had been in since he arrived, he continued staring off out into the window. A steady stream of drool evacuating from the corner of his mouth, the amount of saliva already beginning to pool at the base of his helmet.

"..." Ganondorf sighed audibly to himself, shaking his head into the palm of his hand. "...Why do I get all the 'smart' ones..." Clearing his throat once more, a deep growl began to permeate within his throat, and all of the students besides Mario and Louie instinctively stuck their fingers in their ears. "MR. LOUIE!" Ganondorf bellowed, his deep, baritone voice reverberating around the room and making the plexiglass windows vibrate violently.

While Mario was too distracted by his conflicting feelings to notice, right across from him, Louie's eyes shot open and he practically flew out of his seat and clung to the nearby window he was gazing into just seconds before like a cat.

"...Your project, Mr. Louie." Ganondorf said, the irritation in his voice palpable.

And then, reality came back to the frightened male instantaneously, much to his horror. "O-oh good lord! Wh-wh-wh-where am I? Olimar? Olimar?! OLIMAR, WHERE ARE Y-"

"PRESENT... YOUR... PROJECT!" Ganondorf snarled, his face contorting in a way that made it look almost... boarish...

"Last I remember was... "wait here"... and then... Now he's... Where is..." his twitching eyes scanning whatever else he could make out from the room, soon being interrupted by the boarish face in question. "GYAAAAAAAAAAA-" screaming at the top of his lungs, he pushed the windows to their limit, causing them all to shatter perfectly in sync with each other. With nothing to grip onto, Louie soon fell out, and his screams trailed off until he landed on the foliage planted a few floors downward.

"...Okay..." Rubbing his temples wearily, Ganondorf forced himself to settle down, as he spoke calmly and quietly to himself. "...He's wearing an astronaut's suit... That's scientific... And he has those wretched little floral beasts that follow him around and carry out his every whim... That's environmental... Therefore, he passes, and I no longer have to deal with him for the rest of the day. NEXT."

After a few moments, Slippy realized he was up next. Turning around to give his pals a cocky thumbs up, he hopped gleefully up to display his latest invention to everyone. This resulted in more confused faces from the teacher. "And... what, pray tell, is this, Mr. Toad?" he asked against his better judgment.

"I'm glad you asked, Mr. Ganondorf sir!" Slippy said, beaming proudly as he whisked the cover off his invention in a dramatic, sweeping fashion. "Presenting for the very first time to the public, Slippy Toad's completely one hundred and one percent original newly trade marked and copyrighted invention that combines elements of both science AND the environment! Now, you may think it looks like just a mere blanket, but BEHOLD~!" Grabbing the ugly, puke green lump
of felt with his visage printed all over it that was in front of him, Slippy giddily slipped it on over his body. "SHOCK AND AWE, it's also... A SWEATER~!" Grinning broadly to the 'captive audience' before him, Slippy waited eagerly for a round of applause that never came.

Ganondorf had no words. The palm of his hand slowly found its way to the man's forehead and another heavy sigh escaped from his throat. Needless to say, he wasn't amused. "Just... just go."

Slippy skipped back to his desk, an almost smug look of self-satisfaction sprawled across his face.

"...Mr. Mario, your project." Ganondorf said wearily, glad he was finally almost halfway done with the class.

As Luigi stood up, he bent down, reaching under his desk to pick up the large, heavy project that he had created. Unable to see where he was going as he walked with the enormous, shrouded object in front of him, Luigi unfortunately couldn't see the foot that his brother had unknowingly stuck out in the aisle in front of him due to his current break from reality, and in true school tradition, he tripped violently, his project flying directly into Ganondorf, as Luigi himself fell flat on his face.

Although he had the instincts of a panther, Ganondorf's otherwise sloth-like movement prevented him from avoiding the blunt of the force that struck upon his entire body. As Luigi found his footing, the first thing he was subjected to witness was the seething rage bubbling from within his teacher. Luigi nearly soiled himself at the sight.

"..." As Ganondorf seethed, the bright green liquid that was slowly spilling down his face from Luigi's project began to boil and bubble, giving the already frightening man a downright heart stopping appearance.

"S-S-S-S-Sir...? A-are you... al...right..." Luigi fumbled as he hesitantly stepped back from the visibly angered figure. Luigi could almost see the steam shooting out of his ears, he was that furious.

"..." Ganondorf continued to seethe and smoke, from numerous facial orifices by this point. Glaring at Luigi, and then at Mario, he hissed in the most insidious voice he could muster. "...MARIO... BROTHERS...!"

Upon hearing his name, Mario awoke to reality after being lost in his thoughts for what felt to him like hours. And only then did he notice the horror that was sprawled before his very eyes. "M-M-M-M-M-M-!"

"...CLASS... IS DISMISSED." Ganondorf hissed through gritted teeth, not taking his eyes off of either Mario Brother. "MARIO BROTHERS... WHILE I THINK OF A SUITABLE PUNISHMENT FOR THE BOTH OF YOU, YOU WILL CLEAN UP THIS DISGUSTING MESS THAT THE BOTH OF YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR."

Like a magnet, Luigi's gaze gravitated right back to his brother's. The situation was much too dire for him to call him out on stammering his favorite phrase for the umpteenth time, and focused first and foremost on obeying their teacher's orders. "D-don't just sit there, damn it! Help me with this!" he urged as he ran up to the mess.

"...R-Right-a...!" Mario stammered, hurrying over to help his brother clean up the sprawling disaster area.

"...M-Mr. Ganondorf, s-sir..." Tails, who was the only other student who hadn't bolted from the room immediately after 'class dismissed' was uttered, began nervously. "C-Could I possibly stay until the scheduled end of class, this is the only time I have away from-"

"Either leave or help in cleaning this mess if you want to stay that badly." he let out almost mercifully, though his mood at that very moment was anything but.

"..." Without a moment's hesitation, Tails hurried over to the mess and began vigorously scrubbing away at it, seeming almost... happy, to be doing so... Well, happy for him, at least.

After half an hour or so, the three had deemed their work just about finished. Save for the heap of rags that piled up over the course of the cleaning. Hoping that by now he had calmed down some, they turned to their teacher with hopeful expressions twitching on their faces.

Ganondorf returned their looks of hope with one of utter contempt.

This caused all three to gulp in unison.

"...I believe that will be all for your punishment, Mr. Prowler. You may leave." Ganondorf said, his voice a gravelly husk due to all the rage filled screaming that his vocal chords had endured earlier.

"Ah, y-yes, sir!" Tails squeaked out, hastily making his way out, giving a quick apologetic glance to the brothers, before shutting the door behind him.

"Now..." Ganondorf turned his gaze from the fleeing fox to the two brothers, his expression somehow souring even further. "...As for you two..."

The pair tried as hard as they could to maintain their composure for at least a few seconds in Ganondorf's daunting presence. Their eyes were glued to his. Their ears clung to each word that came out of his mouth. Their feet refused to budge an inch for the duration of their time standing in that same spot.

As Ganondorf spoke, his facial features twitched violently, seemingly trying to urge him to stop from saying every word that came out of his mouth. "...Seeing... Seeing how this is the first day of school... I will let the two of you off with a warning... For now... Now, get out of my sight, and let us pretend this little incident never happened... And... I'll have my eye on the both of you from now on... Oh yes... Always watching... Wouldn't want either of you to get into any more mischief..." As Ganondorf's voice trailed off, a sinister glint formed in his eyes, and his lips unconsciously curled into a rather disturbing little smile.

The brothers continued to stand still as statues in place, unsure of whether this was their cue to leave or not. Just to be completely safe, they stood in their positions for a few more moments.

"...BEGONE!" Ganondorf suddenly and angrily barked, snapping out of his odd trance in an instant.

Like robots, they took to their command within the instant it was given. Dashing out the door, they ran as fast as they could away from the room.

Sitting themselves down on a nearby bench to catch their breath, the brothers took their time to regain themselves and assess the current situation. "That... that was..." Luigi huffed out, still pale as a bleached sheet since exiting from the class.

"Scary..." Mario finished, grasping onto his shuddering knees to keep them from banging into each other further.

"...Water?" Luigi asked under a sigh, gesturing to the vending machine on the other side of the hall.

"O-oh-a, sure." Mario replied, fumbling with his backpack to try and find his wallet.

"No, it's fine." Luigi insisted, getting out his own money as he walked shakily over to get their drinks. Mario sighed, cupping his hands back on his doughy cheeks as he looked back on how poorly the day has gone so far. His first day, no less.

"Here ya' go." Luigi said quietly, handing over the extra bottle of water to his brother, who accepted it graciously.

"Thanks-a, bro." As the two continued to sit there, lost in their own thoughts, Luigi took it upon himself to break the silence first.

"Mario... I'm sorry for not telling you about the assignment."

"It's-a fine, bro..."

"And for all the other things I've said and done since we arrived."

"I-a know."

"It was all of poor taste on my end, and I apologize."

"And I-a forgive you for-a that, Luigi."

"Thanks, Mario."

"Truce, for-a real this-a time?"

"Truce, for real this time."

With a firm hand shake, the two finally made amends with one another and basked in their brief, rare moment of joyous silence before Mario felt the need to speak up again.

"And I'm-a sorry for-a sticking my-a foot out like-a putz. I-a didn't know what-a I was-a doing..."

"W-wait... it was YOU that-"

"A-anyway! Truce, remember?!"

Then, a familiar chill voice chimed in from the distance, seamlessly obliterating the stirring scene that was about to unfold soon before he arrived. "Hey, rounded dude, sorry 'bout before." the swagged out Kong apologized, "We've been tryin' to get the guy some anger management goin' on, but Donkey's still stubborn as a mule..."

Mario let out a light chuckle. Like Pauline, he was used to dealing with the loudmouthed, tie wearing ape. "It's-a fine, Mister... uh... Shoot, I-a can't I recall your-a name, paisano." Mario admitted, kicking himself some for being so forgetful.

"Funky Kong. But y'all can just call me 'Funky', dig?" Funky replied, flashing the Italian a large, toothy grin.

"Oh, I-a see, so, are you a relative of-a Donkey or uh...?" Mario asked curiously.

"It's a long story, homes." Funky smirked awkwardly. Even for someone within the DK clan, he wasn't very well versed in its family trees. No one was, really. "Anyways, I jus' wanted to apologize about before and pass on the message that Pauline chick wanted me to give y'all"

Upon hearing this, Mario mentally kicked himself again. How could he have forgotten what was quite possibly the only highlight of his day so far? Besides the fact that he was such a scatterbrain, that is. At any rate, he was all ears for what the Kong had to say. "Well-a, uh, what-a was it?" he urged out of mild impatience, shifting in his seat.

"She said she'd love to get a chance to talk to ya' again, and dat she should be free by the weekend or so. So dat's the what and when, the where should be the local cafe downtown." he put it simply.

Mario gave a small sigh of relief before taking a quick swig of water. "Sounds-a like a plan," he said in a more upbeat tone of voice for once, "Tell-a her I think I-a can make it-a then."

Funky nodded, turning around stylishly and walking off with a hip-hop in his step, humming an unfamiliar but incredibly catchy tune to himself as he vanished into the crowd.

Luigi chuckled as he discarded his empty bottle in a nearby recycling bin. "So, shall we get to class now, lover boy?" he teased as he began to get his things together.

"Yeah-a, yeah-a." Mario said, returning Luigi's smirk. "So, astronomy class is-a next?"

"Yeah," Luigi started, looking at his map again for clarification, "I don't think we have much to worry about. For one, Ness should be there, and two, the teacher is... Well, you'll see. She's very nice."

"She?" Mario asked, his ears perking up instantly.

"Tut, tut, tut... " Luigi shook his finger at his brother and gave him a sly look. "Remember the date you just agreed to, bro."

"Eh?" Momentarily confused by his brother's insinuation, Mario gasped, and attempted to do some damage control before things got embarrassingly out of hand again. "No, I-a mean! I'm-a just surprised that-"

"Suuuure, bro." Luigi said unconvinced, grinning from ear-to-ear.

"Ugh, Mama-mia, can-a we not get into-a this again?" Mario pleaded.

"We don't have to. We're here." Luigi stated simply, motioning to the door in front of them.

As Luigi slowly opened the door for greater emphasis and effect, Mario's eyes widened as they were greeted to a realm of which he had never seen before. It didn't even look like a class room. In fact, it was almost as if he had stepped out of school and straight into outer space. The room was dark, but was lit with many twinkling lights that moved ever so slowly across the ceiling, behaving like stars. Also projected around the room were bright images of planets, constellations, and other things that gave an interstellar vibe. Other than that, it still faintly resembled a class room. Save for all the odd looking decorations floating around. With a snap of his brother's fingers, Mario's attention turned away from the out of this world atmosphere and back to the class in question. After finding their seats, they received a long awaited greeting from their new friend from earlier, Ness.

"Hey guys," he smiled to the two, "You're here rather early. I take it you got everything taken care of?" he inquired, rubbing his finger under his nose.

"Yeah, the Principle let it slide, thankfully." Luigi said as he leaned back in his seat.

"All-a those little pudgy-a things flying around are-a kinda creepy..." Mario said as he stared nervously at the squishy, star-like object dancing above his head.

"That's a Luma," Ness corrected knowledgeably, "Today's class is going to be all the little guys, so this is a good opportunity for you to learn about them, Mario!" the remark making the Italian in question a tad bit more uncomfortable. Twiddling his thumbs unconsciously to stay preoccupied with something, his eyesight lazily scanned the area until he noticed from the corner of his eye a fancily dressed figure entering from the doorway.

Her presence immediately garnered everyone else's attention, as well. Her mint green dress shimmered even in the minimalistic light source that surrounded it, same for the small silver crown that rested comfortably atop her head of platinum blonde hair. All eyes were on her as she made her way to the front, behind the futuristic looking chalkboard that took up the entirety of that wall.

"Hello, class," she began, her voice as smooth as silk.

"Hello, Miss Rosalina!" the students, sans Mario, greeted back cheerfully.

Pausing for a moment, Rosalina continued, "I see we have a new student with us today. Would you like to come up to the front to introduce yourself?" being offered a situation he didn't want anything to do with a second time, Mario simply sat firmly in place, avoiding eye contact and pretending he wasn't the one being spoken to. This caused the teacher to pout somewhat, in an almost teasing manner. "Now, now. There's no need to be shy." she giggled. Soon, Mario felt himself
being lifted out of his chair by seemingly nothing. Doing his best to keep his already unstable composure, he was hoisted up to the front row, landing perfectly on his feet despite his less than catlike reflexes. After another pause of silence from the room, Mario let out a small sigh and hoped for the best this time.

"Hello everybody, my-a name is-a Mario Mario, and it's-a so nice to-a meet you all!" he let out in one breath, his uneasy feelings being swept away after getting an equally enthusiastic "Hello, Mario!" from the class, and teacher, back. With a smile beginning to take shape on his face, Mario skipped cheerfully back to his seat and allowed for the class to continue as otherwise scheduled.

"With that out of the way, let's begin with today's subject. Now, which one of you remembers what these are called?" Rosalina inquired, pointing towards the group of blob-like stars with her wand. Almost immediately, a hand was raised. "Yes, Mr. Olimar?" she gestured to the stout, brown haired astronaut from the middle row.

"They are known as "Lumas", if I'm not mistaken." he said mostly with confidence.

"You are quite right. Today's subject will all be about the mysterious, yet intriguing history of Lumas. Now, Polari, if you
will." she stepped to the side to allow the dark chocolate Luma from behind her to take center stage.

"Hello, all." he started, taking a deep breath before going on, "Lumas. We are a curious species. We come in many different shapes, sizes, and colors, and we have the power to transform into various, wondrous things. Even newborn stars in the sky. We also all share a common love for the wonderful, sugary clusters called Star Bits. So delicious, with a crunchy outer shell and oh so gooey inside that..." the Luma rambled away, beginning to drool before being interrupted by an annoyed cough from Rosalina. "O-oh! Right. Ahem, sorry about that," he squeaked out in embarrassment, trying to his regain a dignified posture among the crowd. "So, as I was saying..."

Everyone in the room listened intently to what the Luma described. Though, as time went on, Mario couldn't help but think about lunch, and how he hadn't eaten since breakfast. The longer and longer he stared at the Luma, the more his stomach growled.

Once class was dismissed, the brothers and Ness decided to all walk to lunch together.

"Polari sure is wise, isn't he? They say he's one of the oldest Lumas around, so apparently most of everyone just calls him "Grandpa Luma" and such." Ness started.

"You could almost say he's more suited for the role of class teacher than Rosalina..." Luigi inserted.

"Well, I'd say they're both pretty well suited for the job. And as a team, they're even better." Ness explained as unbiasedly as he could.

"Something about-a the little guys with-a the biggest-a brains..." Mario murmured, still lost in thought and hunger.

"But largest guys with the smallest brains?" Luigi mocked lightheartedly, poking an elbow at Mario's side.

"Ha, you two are so silly. And it looks like we made it early enough; the line hasn't started from outside the door yet..." Ness pointed out optimistically.

As the three approached the entryway, Luigi felt the need to pass on a few words of advice. "Alright, bro, I know we're all pretty famished here, but I have to warn you: under no circumstances must we be separated. During lunch hour, it's crowded to the point where it might as well be a human maze. If you were to get lost in there, chances are you won't be coming back out until class is back in session for everyone. Assuming you haven't died at that point..." he ended on a
grim note, seamlessly drowning out the pleasant aura from mere seconds ago.

"A-anyway, what I think he meant to say was, we should stick together. It'll make things quick and easier for us that way." Ness muttered out to try and put things back to a moderately pleasant tune. Mario just wanted to eat and simply ignored the both of them and their words, stubby sausage fingers pushing against the right hand side of the entrance door. Suddenly, Mario wished he had listened.

Swarms and clusters of students filled in every inch of the otherwise enormous area. The blended aromas of various foods, and B.O., created a rather appetite killing stench as it stunk up the air. In a way, it was a testing ground for how hungry one truly was, and if one should even bother plunging into such hellish depths for the sake of filling their stomach with mediocre-at-best food stuffs. And Mario was one of those people. With Luigi and Ness clutching to either of his shoulders, the three took a deep breath and took one synchronized step forward. This was only the beginning of their problems.

"Uh, guys, where do you suppose we-?"

"WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU! BRO, WHAT SHOULD WE-"

"MAMA-MIA, SPEAK-A UP, I-A CAN'T HEAR-A A SINGLE THING-A YOU'RE-A
SAYI-"

The room was as noisy as it was claustrophobic, and the three couldn't hear themselves think let alone one another. Attempting body movements for communication, Luigi pointed to the corner with his free arm. As the three fumbled together as a single, six legged being, their progress was hindered just as quickly. A big butt there, a mountain of muscles here, and the occasional cripple they didn't feel up to the task of asking to move. It felt like things were going nowhere fast, until a sound that wasn't screaming or choking caught their ears.

Noting a boom box being held above the general crowd's height, an unmistakeable hairy figure appeared once again to the brothers. "S'up, fellas. Comin' or goin'?" Funky Kong grinned to the trio, continuing to shake his groove thing as it were even when standing in place.

"We've been here for like ten minutes... Where does the line start?" Luigi squeaked out pathetically in defeat.

"No worries, my brothers, just follow the Kong!" Funky declared as he began to boogie down and create a consistent pathway for the three. His rather ingenious, yet probably unintentional, methods of blasting novelty rap music in the ears of everyone within a mile radius, forcing them to move as quickly as they could away from the noise, quite rather dumbfounded the three. Once their aching bellies reminded them what they were supposed to be doing, they hurriedly caught up with Funky and found themselves to what they presumed as the front of the line.

"Thanks again, Funky." Luigi said, shaking the Kong's free hand. Ness pretended to know what was going on and just nodded in agreement. Mario still too caught up in his hunger to pay attention.

"No prob, homes. I was just about to leave m'self, but when there's a friend in need, I just gotta help 'im. Indeed!" he attempted to rhyme, still tapping his foot out of sync to the beat from his boom box.

After the line made an inch of progress after another fifteen or so minutes, Mario began to make out the blurs of food from afar. "Oh, and-a by the-a way, Luigi, how IS-a the food-a here?" he asked, the thought only then just dawning on him.

"It depends," he scratched his chin in pondering, "I'd say stay away from anything that claims to come from an animal. Other than that, you should be fine." he finished after a moment.

After another forty minutes of waiting, mostly because of an emergency fish stick outage that had to be taken care off before the line could move any further, the brothers finally got to their much awaited turns, as Funky already ate and Ness packed his own lunch. As Luigi took nothing more than a grilled cheese and energy drink, Mario went all out in taking not only a full pizza, but a large bowl of spaghetti, a small plate of cheese stuffed ravioli, a few hot dogs, and some tater tots. And a small carton of two percent milk to wash it all down. With a bendy straw to drink it.

"Only take what you're gonna eat, bro." Luigi rolled his eyes, contemplating a granola bar for later.

"I-a am." Mario said as he piled on a dozen or so hot wings on his already lopsided tower of food. Once Luigi gave Funky the directions of his usual spot, that being the quaintly dubbed "losers table", the quartet slowly made their way there, with their food mostly intact, or in Mario's case, half eaten already.

"HI GUYS, HERE ALREADY?" Slippy welcomed, taking another audible slurp of his extra large size soda.

"I... I thought that size was banned since last year?" Ness thought out loud in confusion.

"He... he saved his last cup. He's been reusing it since the day before they initiated the ban..." Luigi said in mild shame for
remembering that. "...Anyway, how you've been doing Jeff?" he reverted his attention back to his own friend from the depressing group.

"...H-horrible..." he replied sorrowfully, taking a drop sized sip from his tiny styrofoam cup of water.

"Oh, you... saw him again, didn't you?" Ness said sadly in realization, wanting to pat his comrade on the back, but knew it would just make him jump out from his seat and make the situation worse.

"Thrice..." he cringed, still trembling uncontrollably at the thought.

"So-a, uh..." Mario attempted to brighten up the mood by changing the subject, but still couldn't quite think of what, "I-a guess Tails and-a that other-a guy couldn't-a make it...?" he belched out as he shoved the remaining butt end of a hot dog and half eaten tater tot into his gullet.

"Well, it's like he said, environmental science class is the only "free time" he has. I'm sure he's being tugged around by that annoying hedgehog, getting into who knows what right now. As for Louie? Probably with Olimar. You may have seen him during astronomy. He has a space suit not unlike Louie's." Luigi reminded, finishing the last bite of his own "meal" for the afternoon.

"You know what, little chubby guys?" Funky started, another wide grin forming on his lips, "How's about I give you guys a full tour of a the school when class is over? My treat!" he offered with the utmost generosity.

"Oh geez, you don't have to do that, Funky." Luigi scratched the back of his ear, not entirely sure how to politely turn down the Kong's offer.

"Well too bad; I insist! You guys are my new bros, after all!" the brothers were both tickled pink and a touch lost over the Kong's kind words. After all, they had only just met him some hours ago, only speaking for no more than a few minutes at a time, at best. But, considering they had no choice at this point, they both happily accepted. Even if it was mostly against their wills.

"Sweet! I'll come get you guys after my next practice session is done with! Later, dudes!" Funky bid his farewell for the time being, knowingly disobeying the "No wheels allowed in this area" sign and rolling off on his skateboard into the distance once again.

"Such a mysterious guy... He's too cool to be in the Kong family." Luigi mumbled under his breath.

Coughing, Mario added, "Cool isn't-a the word I'd-a use, but-a anyway..."

As the pair strolled off to their next destination in silence, Mario couldn't help but wonder if he had arrived to class, or had plunged himself in the deep depths of a forest.

"...Luigi, what-a kind of-a class is-a this...?" Mario asked, looking curiously all around the classroom, which was filled with lots and lots of mushrooms. Big mushrooms, little mushrooms. Tall mushrooms, short mushrooms. A seemingly endless amount of mushrooms, and mushroom posters, mushrooms filling the blackboard... It was sort of unsettling to Mario, though at the same time, it made his stomach grumble and growl loudly, even though he had just eaten lunch.

"Well, normally this is English class but, uh, I guess they're doing something special today. Your guess is as good as mine, bro." Luigi answered as best he could, figuratively as lost regarding the situation as his brother.

"The hell kind of place is this?" Came a crass, irritable voice from the back of the class. As Mario glanced back, he caught a glimpse of a somehow even more miserable looking Tails, along with the hedgehog and echidna whom he had seen him with in the principle's office earlier that day. Immediately, he could tell that the voice had to belonged to this dreaded Sonic character that Tails had warned him about earlier. "What the hell's up with all these goddamn mushrooms, and why are they all staring at me?!" Sonic said, poking one of the mushrooms in one of it's unblinking, always staring eyes.

Mario gulped and cocked his head back away from eye sight from the hedgehog's singular gaze, and tapped on his brother's shoulder incessantly. "B-bro, uh, when... when is-a class going to-a start? I'm beginning to-a get a tad antsy-a here..."

"Uh, w-well, it should be starting any moment now..." Luigi said anxiously, looking up at the clock on the wall. "Actually, it
should've already started two minutes ago... I guess the new teacher must've gotten caught up on the way here, these hallways DO tend to get cramped and cluttered during class times... And... Every other time of the school day..."

"O-Oh-a..." Mario mumbled, glancing back and forth nervously. Amid the sea of mushrooms, something caught his eye... It was... An egg...? Sitting at a desk like a student...? As Mario stared absentmindedly at the egg, he was instantly startled back to attention when it popped open and turned to stare right back at him.

"What're YOU lookin' at, bozo?" the irritable, yellow, beaked... thing, talked back sassily, making Mario jump in his seat somewhat.

"A-Ah, n-n-nothing, I-I-I-a just... Just-a..." Mario stumbled over his words, struggling and panicking to come up with an excuse. "U-Uh, I-I thought-a you were-a somebody else...?"

"Oh, is that so? And what other "talking eggs" do you know of, huh? Huh?" he badgered in an obnoxiously mocking voice, staring a hole through Mario's profusely sweating face.

"...U-U-U-U-Uh... W-Well-a, y-you-a see, th-th-that..." Mario's brow began to sweat, as he dug himself deeper and deeper into his hole. Wracking his brain, a light bulb suddenly went off, and he reached behind himself without looking to get his brother's attention. "AHA! ...I-I mean-a... L-Luigi... Y-You-a remember that-a weirdo exchange-a student from elementary school-a, r-right? His-a name was... Uh... Nausea... O-Or... Dizzy... Or something... B-But he looked-a just like-a him, right-a, Luigi?!"

Without a second thought, Mario had unknowingly grabbed at someone who was his not brother, who was in fact sitting beside him for this class, but instead clutched a pink and white polka dotted bow that was placed atop a now very miffed Koopa's head.

"...L-L-Luigi...?" Mario stuttered, coming to the slow realization that the person he was continuing to grope was, in fact, not his brother, but was too petrified to turn around to make absolute certain that Luigi didn't happen to just put a bow on in place of his hat since coming into the classroom. "...Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-"

"P... Per... PERVERT!" the Koopa shrieked, failing her arms wildly to shake off the panicked Italian's grubby mitts off as the other brightly colored Koopa children were flung in a tizzy with her.

"...This creep botherin' you, sis?" Said one of the other koopas coolly, a burly, bald, pink headed one wearing shades and standing almost as tall as Mario, and twice as wide.

"She's being touched in a way that makes her feel uncomfortable and that's NO GOOD. What do YOU think, doofus?" Sonic quipped from across the hall, sniggering to himself as his lackeys sat in place in embarrassment.

"...What the blue haired idiot said." she admitted, disregarding Sonic's unsavory reaction to her insulting choice of words. They were quills, damn it, QUILLS.

"You... How dare you lay a finger on my darlin' little... Er... Big... On my darlin' sistah, you greasy lookin' shlub?" The bald koopa said coldly, walking right up to Mario and getting in his face. "You think you can get away with touchin' pretty girls in places you shouldn't?"

Mario continued to stammer as he looked onto his brother for any and all assistance, but the green twin simply avoided eye contact and whistled away innocently pretending he had nothing to do with the other.

"You know who I am, fat boy? Who WE are?" The koopa sneered, as he grabbed Mario by the collar and began to pull him towards him. "Do you have any idea who our dad is? Because believe me, if you think what I'M gonna do to you is bad, just wait until dad gets wind of this!" A smug smirk spreading across his face, the koopa lowered his shades to look Mario in the eyes. "And unfortunately for you, that'll probably be any moment now..."

Suddenly, as if on cue, the door to the classroom burst open, and a loud, angry roar resonated and echoed in from the hallway outside. "GOD DAMN IT YOU LITTLE INGRATE, YOU GET YOUR CROSS EYED ASS IN THAT CLASSROOM RIGHT THIS SECOND, OR I'LL GET YOUR BROTHER ROY OUT HERE AND HE'LL MAKE YOU GET INSIDE!"

As the rest of the class looked on in horror as their bladders were teetering on the edge of wetting their pants, the shouting from afar refused to wane. "But daaaaaaaaad," the stouter koopa whined, breathing in deeply through his stuffy nose, "I told you I was siiiiiiick..."

"...MY GOD, HOW DID I RAISE SO MANY SCREW-UPS...?" The loud, snarling voice boomed to himself in utter disappointment, the audible sound of a hand slapping into a forehead clearly heard immediately after. "JUST... ROY! DO YOUR DEAR OLD DAD A SOLID AND GET YOUR RETARDED ASS BROTHER INTO HIS SEAT!"

The called for koopa cracked his knuckles and walked menacingly over to his cowering brother. "No prob, pops." Mario grasped for his throat as he was dropped to the ground, gasping for air and trying to stop himself from hyperventilating any more than he already was.

"OH, ROY'S KILLING JUNIOR!" Mario could hear a shrill, screechy voice, somehow even more irritating than Sonic's cry out from... Somewhere in the room. Everything was going dizzy for the poor Italian, and he couldn't tell left from right. Unfortunately for him, the voice continued. "ROY'S A MURDER! A MURDER! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH..." The voice finished in a bizarrely dull tone compared to the rest of his shrieking speech.

"And for the love of KONG, Larry, you better be taking those damned speech lessons I've splitting up your brothers' allowances over! I MEAN PAY FOR OUT OF MY OWN POCKET." Bowser quickly tried to correct himself, but it's not like his children ever listened to what he was saying in the first place and reverted his attention back to the imminent carnage that was about to unfold.

"Oh man, this is gonna be good!" Sonic said with a sneer, before punching his red furred associate without warning and barking out orders at him. "Knucklehead, you brought the emergency popcorn, right?"

"B... but no food's allowed in class..." Knuckles whimpered, making it clear he wanted to steer away from any additional issues with the principle regarding rule breaking he wasn't responsible for in the first place.

"...KNUCKLES!" Sonic shouted, once again doing his best to draw all the attention in the room to himself. "WHOEVER THE HELL THAT WAS YOU SHUT YOUR KONG-DAMNED ASS WHILE ROY'S WORKING OR YOU'LL BE THE NEXT ONE TO ANSWER TO HIM!" Snarled the voice from out in the hallway. Both Sonic and Knuckles cringed in unison, though Tails remained unfazed as his forehead remained glued to his desk table, wishing everything could just go away in an instant.

"...Way to go, Knuckles, as usual you screw everything up and get everybody in the class pissed off at you for being such an idiot." Sonic hissed out in a whisper, glaring at the echidna. "When will you ever learn?" As hard as he tried to shrug off the hedgehog's words, that forcefully stabbed into him like dull knives, Knuckles lightly sobbed in his crossed arms against his desk as the rest of the madness continued to ensue.

Meanwhile, Luigi took this opportunity to check on his brother to make sure he wasn't dead or anything. "M-Mario, you alright? Speak to me, say a few syllables!" He whispered, eyes darting back and forth from his brother to the doorway.

"U-urgh..." he let out, but barely, "Muh... mama-mi... a..."

"Oh, brother..." Luigi muttered, rolling his eyes at his brother's already worn out catchphrase.

"Alright, now that we have THAT out of the way, you little bastards better all be seated." Bowser grunted as he made his way to his desk. Rubbing his temples, Bowser let out an amazingly aggravated groan. His gravelly, hoarse voice spoke tersely and demandingly. "...No more interruptions. We're starting this kong-forsaken class already. Roy, just... I'm sorry, but please sit down, you can settle your disputes after class, but I have no more time for such trifling matters. I haven't slept in three days thanks to your brothers and sister, and as it turns out, the school sold off all the coffee machines to make way for 'herbal tea' machines in their continuing efforts to go green... I'm ready to snap at any moment, so please, children, sit down, shut up, and pay attention to me."

Not wishing to anger the beast before them any further, the class listened to his cryptic demands and allowed for things to begin as proper.

"...Okay... Good..." Bowser said, breathing in deeply to try and calm himself a bit. "...Now, you're all probably wondering, 'what's the deal with all these mushrooms'. The answer: I don't even remember." Slumping down in his seat, Bowser rested his elbows on his chair's arm rests and cradled his face into the palms of his hands. "...Something to do with some
kind of retarded psa about the hallucinogenic properties in mushrooms being bad for your growing young minds, or some such bullcrap, that the school board decided to hand down to me, the damned English class, and then flood my room with all these disgusting, kong damnable mushrooms, even though I TOLD them I would bring my own! I mean, for the love of all that is evil and vile, why all this has to happen to ME, I just... I don't..."

"Calm down, daddy, it's alright." Wendy tried to ease her father's suffering, but gained nothing but a glare for her efforts.

"Don't think you're forgiven for kidnapping that KONGAWFUL 80's band and forcing them to sing for twenty four hours straight with said singing being PIPED INTO EVERY SINGLE ROOM OF MY CASTLE NON-STOP AND ON FULL BLAST." Bowser retorted, shaking his head bitterly at his daughter.

"S-sorry, daddums." She piped down, turning her head away in shame.

"Yeah, if I had a coin for every time I heard that word come out of one of your mouths..." Bowser snorted with indignation and shook his head in disgust, before he went off on another tangent, mimicking his various children's voices mockingly. "'Oh daddy, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to break your priceless marble bust of your glorious visage, please forgive me!' 'Daddy, I'm SO SORRY, I didn't know that was the shell that grandma gave you for your tenth birthday, I'll go buy you a new one, okay?' 'Oh dad, sorry, I had no idea those were your emergency savings that was hidden in your piggy bank, I'll totally repay you once I can get a steady job, okay?' WELL GUESS WHAT, IT'S NOT OKAY. NONE OF IT IS OKAY. I'M SO SICK OF EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU LITTLE INGRATES, barring you of course, Roy, MOOCHING OFF ME AND ACTING LIKE YOU RUN MY CASTLE! WELL GUESS WHAT ELSE? YOU DON'T!"

As the rest of the class grew more unbearably uncomfortable over how more personal the tension was getting, Mario soon began to awaken from his desk coma.

"...Uh... Pops..." Roy said quietly, seemingly mulling over whether he should speak up or not, before coming to the conclusion that family, no matter how horrible and unbearable, comes first in the Mushroom Kingdom. "...Pops, why don't you just... You go ahead and take a nice, long nap in that pile of soft Goombas in the corner, I can take over from here."

"Oh, Roy..." Bowser sniffled as a single, leathery tear shed from his eye, "I know I can always count on you, son." he took the lad's advice and did exactly that as he passed on the reigns to the only reliable child of the Koopa family.

Clearing his throat, Roy walked over to his peacefully slumbering father, removed his clip on tie, and attached it to himself, as he walked to the head of the class. "Now, class... I do believe it is time I told you of..." he paused for dramatic effect as he picked up a white and red shroom, "Mushrooms." he finished darkly.

"Oh, so this is a class about mushrooms? Wow, I never would have guessed that!" Said Sonic, the only student who didn't get chills sent down his spine the moment Roy said 'mushrooms', snidely, rolling his eyes and chortling to himself over his 'wit'.

"Zip it, pincushion." Roy's voice lowered, shooting a daunting glare to the hedgehog.

"...Hngh." Sonic grunted irritably, as he shifted in his seat uncomfortably, his laughter dying instantly. Sneering, he glared at Knuckles and shook his head at him with disdain, giving him another 'Good job getting us in trouble, moron!' look.

Not that the hedgehog bothered to notice, but Knuckles was still in his fetal position in his chair, shutting out any and all sound from the outside. After a quick clearing of the throat, Roy continued. "Anyway..."

"Mushrooms." The Koopaling repeated, spinning the mushroom around on his claw. "Sure, they may look harmless and innocent, what with their doe-eyed expressions and playful color schemes, but looks, as they say, can be deceiving..."

"Sure, they may look... adorable," he gagged on the last word, swallowing his disgust back down slowly before carrying on, "But do you know of just how dangerous exactly those "helpful" side effects are?"

The class all stood stiffly in their chairs, nodding out of sync with one another but all equally clueless nonetheless. "Well, I'll TELL you what, you poor fools!"

"Do you know just how much damage these do to your body? Can you even begin to comprehend how badly they can effect one's growth development? I bet you don't. And that's why I'm here. Let's start with the most common of Mushrooms, such as the one I'm holding now."

The students looked on in terror as the Koopaling described every gruesome detail of the fungus he fondled carelessly in his grasp. "You may think, "But Master Roy, these are helpful with becoming big and strong! What could possibly be wrong with them?" and to that I say, you don't even know the HALF of it."

"Sure, they may help you get big and strong for a while, but you ever hear about what happens to ya once the effects wear off?" Roy questioned, and as the students all anxiously shook their heads no, he suddenly smashed the mushroom into his desk without warning, causing the entire class (sans Knuckles) to jump straight out of their seats. "YA SHRINK DOWN TO THE SIZE OF A PUPPY, THAT'S WHAT! And the more ya eat, the smaller and smaller ya get, until you're a horribly disfigured midget with an attitude problem, an addiction, and the most heinous case of back acne you've ever had the misfortune to mentally picture! And that's just THIS variety of mushroom!"

"Now let's take a gander at this wretched thing," he hissed in disgust as he picked up a bright green variant of what he just smashed into a fine goo. "THESE may make you believe you're on air, on cloud nine, whatever the damn metaphor is, but the fact of the matter is; it don't make you no cat, that's for sure. You only live once, and because of these deceitful little sons of fungus, the suicide rates have spiked tenfold."

"Any of you shlubs remember the news report about that cruise liner that was found wrecked in Hoenn with all of its passengers and crew mysteriously vanished without a trace a few years ago?" Roy asked grimly, to which the students all subconsciously shook their heads yes, whether they really had or not, hanging onto every word that came out of his mouth with wide-eyed fear. "Yeah, well, that wasn't no accident. As it turns out, money really CAN buy anything, including
copious quantities of globally outlawed fungus. And guess what happens when you have a bunch of rich idiots who only care about getting their next high in close proximity to something that's supposed to make you feel like a million bucks, all alone out in the middle of the open ocean? ...Of course, all the news channels covered it up as some freak accident to protect the reputations of all the famous people who disappeared from it, but my dad has, shall we say, 'connections' to
various organizations around the globe, and well, just be glad I'm only tellin' you the condensed version of this story..."

The class was on pins and needles as the Koopa went on with his horrific tale, going on and off between paralyzed with fear and shaking uncontrollably in... more fear.

"...Anyways..." Roy said with a smirk, after savoring a few deliberate moments of tense and agonizing (for the class anyways) silence. Carelessly chucking the vile, green mushroom over his shoulder, where it landed with a disgusting splat on the chalkboard behind him, Roy grabbed the next mushroom that was on the teacher's desk, one that looked almost identical to the first one, only with a slightly darker and paler tint.

"And it should without saying to you ignorant chumps to avoid these like the plague, above all else. Would anyone else like to remind the class why exactly that is?" he pointed with his free hand loosely towards the right hand direction of the class. "How about you, Mr. Troopa?"

"Urgh..." Came the voice of the egg, who dipped his head back into his shell slightly as all eyes in the room turned to focus on him. "...B-Because... They aren't called Poison Mushrooms as a clever ploy to get people to avoid eating them because they have amazing, god-tier powers that dwarf all other mushrooms' powers in comparison and that are far too terrible to unleash upon the world, they're called Poison Mushrooms because... Well... They're poisonous... And... As it turns out, they have the same side effects as regular mushrooms... Only... Hrngh... Worse..."

"LOUDER, LESS-THAN-HALF-PINT." he snarled, squeezing the mushroom into a toxic puree in his twisting fist. "Oh, NOW look what you made me do..." he growled out at the mess all over his furiously fidgeting hand, glaring viciously at the trembling egg before him.

"O-O-OH GOD, I-I'M S-S-S-SORRY, M-MASTER ROY, L-LET ME CLEAN THAT UP FOR YOU!" Cried the egg in absolute terror, as he rushed over to the teacher's desk, where he hastily began to scrub the mess from Roy's hand using a handkerchief he had procured from his shell.

"SO, WORMS, CARE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ONE INGESTS THIS POISONOUS GUCK?" he roared, swiftly punching his large fist into the egg's much smaller maw. "THIS." he hollered, watching in pure delight as the egg began to seize and vomit violently within seconds. "HHHNNAAAAAAAARGH IT BUUURRRRNS!"

The class watched on in terror and shock, with even Sonic looking away with a cringe as the egg convulsed violently on the teacher's desk, making some of the most guttural, sickening noises any of the students had ever heard. All the while, Roy looked on with a sick glee, even beginning to laugh a little as if the scene he was causing was the most hilarious thing in the world. And somehow, amidst all of this, Bowser slept soundly atop his billowy pile of roughly equally pained Goombas.

Perhaps none of the students were cowering in fear quite as much as Mario himself was, as the only thought that was running through his mind was "MAMA-MIA, WHY DID-A I HAVE-A TO GET ON-A THIS-A GUY'S BADSIDE?!", as he realized how minimal the chance of the koopa forgetting their earlier transgression was.

As soon as the egg's convulsing died down even slightly, he was whisked away back to his seat as Roy let the moment sink in, hoping he had made his point. Soon, he continued with the rest of the speech.

"Well children, unfortunately, that's all that we have time for in today's class." Roy said regretfully, as the entire class let out a collective sigh of relief. "But I hope you all learned a valuable lesson today about the global menace known as mushrooms and the harrowing and traumatizing effects that they all have on your mind AND body... And rest assured, there are many, MANY more varieties of mushrooms out there, each of them as sinister and heinous as the three you learned about today... Hehehehe..."

As soon as class was dismissed, the two hastily made their way out. Teeth chattering and hearts pounding fervently.

"Are there-a ANY normal-a teachers here...?" Mario felt compelled to ask even though he knew the answer deep down in his gut.

"If I said yes, then I'd be lying through my teeth..." Luigi scratched at his nose, wishing he could've been wrong.

"Mama-Mia..." Mario muttered, looking at the ground and shaking his head while Luigi let out a sigh of disgust of his own in response.

"...So, what-a are we going to-a do now?" Mario asked, once he realized he had no idea where he was going as he was simply following his brother. "My mind is-a kind of-a... Frazzled..."

"...Uh..." Luigi stopped in his tracks, putting his finger to his chin as he wracked his brain to try and remember what their next course of action was himself. Suddenly, it popped into his head, and he snapped his fingers in realization. "Ah, that's right, we were supposed to meet Funky so he can give you that tour around the school that you so desperately, DESPERATELY need!"

"That-a I so desperately-a need?" Mario shot back, giving his brother an annoyed look. "I-a seem to recall-a that-a the offer was-a for BOTH of-a us, dear-a brother..."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever..." Luigi said in the most ignoring voice he could muster. "Let's just go already, I think we've ticked off enough people today already, let's try to make and keep at least one friend, capiche?"

Grumbling to himself, Mario nonetheless nodded in agreement and followed his brother as they made their way outside and made a bee line for the outdoor basketball court. It was also Mario's first good look at the outside of the school, as well. As he surmised, it seemed to be about as easy to get lost as it was inside. Thankfully, the stone pathways on the way to their respective fields were color coded, making it a significantly less difficult trot to navigate through.

"That's-a the basket-a ball court?!" Mario gasped as he slowly let the vastness of the layout sink in.

"Heh, just wait 'til you see the football field, then." Luigi chuckled as the two made their way to the front.

"Oh hey, guys! What're you two doin' here?" Funky asked in apparent obliviousness, gaining a pair of puzzled looks from the brothers.

"You... You were gonna give a tour of the school, remember?" Luigi coughed out, beginning to question himself if he had his facts straight or not.

"...Oh, right! Dat!" Funky suddenly recalled, laughing to himself so loudly that he drowned out most of the noise from around them, causing Mario and Luigi to wince slightly in unison by the frequency. "Ah ha... So, anyway, yeah. Just lemme grab my wheels and we can do dat right away!"

"There's also an indoor court, although it's way smaller than this. Same can be said for all the other ones, too." Luigi remarked, looking around the seemingly miles of concrete flooring aimlessly as he waited in place.

"I-a guess they-a have so much-a money, that-a they can afford-a such... redundancy." Mario mumbled back, doing the same.

"I guess on one hand, it's nice to have a second option in case the other becomes damaged." Luigi added thoughtfully. "You'd be amazed how rowdy some of the players can get. Why, one time, during a tennis match, someone-"

"Alrighty fellas, let's get dis started!" Funky interrupted as he stumbled back with his skateboard in tow. "First stop, the Football Field!

---

"So, as you can probably tell, dis be the school's state o' the art football stadium, Laughing Hills Field." Funky said, motioning out to the wide, enormous field of green that sprawled out before them. "It got its name due to our student body's... 'unique' way of heckling the other teams, if you catch my drift... Anyways, you can see our indoor alternate stadium way off in the distance there, that's the Iwata Dome, it's usually only used for playoff games or when Laughing Hills is wrecked."

As Mario looked on in awe at the stadium, his eyes focused on a group of what he assumed was football players, who were casually tossing the pigskin back and forth to each other at midfield, as one of them seemed strangely familiar to him. Squinting his eyes to get a better look at the man, he gasped in shock when he realized who the man was.

"Luigi, look!" Mario said excitedly, pointing at the tallest, helmeted member of the group. "That's-a the guy who saved us-a earlier!"

"Huh?" Luigi said, shifting his own attention to the man. "Kreepin' Koopas, you're right, that is him!"

"We-a never got-a the chance-a to thank-a him earlier..." Mario muttered regretfully.

"Well, why don'tcha go an' thank him now?" Funky said with a grin. "Contrary to whatcha may be tinkin', the so called 'jocks' tend to be some o' the nicest students in the whole school, and dey get a terrible reputation due to that unfortunate stereotype... Well, most o' dem, at least..."

Nodding enthusiastically, the brothers, along with Funky, began making their way towards the football players, who caught glimpse of the trio as they were walking towards them and all grouped together to greet them, some with much kinder expressions than the rest.

"Well, well, if it isn't the Funkmeister!" Came the jovial voice of the helmeted mystery man as soon as the trio had reached them. The man grinned at Funky before eying the two brothers curiously. "You come to bring us some new recruits?"

"Ah, sorry Falc, mon, I an' I was just showin' dese guys around the school grounds." Funky explained, motioning to the Mario Brothers. "Dis is the red dude's first day, and his brother Mr. Green seems to have forgotten a lot of the layout too since last year, so ol' Funky decided it'd be a good show of school spirit and courtesy to get 'em acclimated to the environment, so dey won't feel totally lost for the rest o' the year, ya dig?"

"Oh, yes, I most certainly DO dig, Funk-Man!" Falcon responded, a goofy grin spreading broadly across his chiseled face. Glancing at the Mario Brothers, who both looked back at him with wide-eyed wonderment, Falcon placed his hand on his chin thoughtfully and raised an eyebrow. "Hmm, now that I think about it, you two look sorta familiar..."

Mario swallowed nervously, before taking his cap off and speaking back to the muscular, helmeted man who stood before him. "You're-a the guy who-a saved me and-a my brother earlier-a today!" Mario proclaimed in admiration, marveling at the overall aura of radness that seemed to radiate from the man. "I-a don't know what we can-a do to possibly-a repay you!"

Chuckling, the man shook his head lightly with a grin, and made a dismissing motion with his hand. "Ah, well, think nothing of it, it's all in a day's work for a harbinger of justice such as myself. You see, the burning flames of justice and righteousness course through my veins, much the way blood does for a normal person, and whenever I see a blatant miscarriage of justice such as the scene that transpired between you two and Gary and his stooges, I get the overwhelming urge to dispense a heaping helping of manly justice to any and all offending parties. Yes, you might say that 'justice' is my middle name, and as a matter of fact, it is!" Putting his fingers up to his head, the man gave the group an enthusiastic salute. "Douglas Justice Falcon, Captain of the Sakurai High Fightin' Landmasters, at your service!"

"A-Ah, w-well, thank-a you so much for-a to saving our lives!" Mario exclaimed, smiling warmly and nodding deeply in respect.

"Yeah, if you wouldn't've shown up when you did, we'd a' been turned into parts of the school's architecture for sure, so thanks a bunch!" Luigi added, nodding along with his brother.

"Oh, stop it you two, you're gonna make me blush!" Falcon said with a laugh as he scratched the back of his helmet sheepishly.

"Ugh, enough with this huggy feely crap, already!" Came the crass, Brooklyn accent of one of the other players, a blue falcon with an expression almost as smug as Gary's adorning his beak. Glowering at the brothers, he began to open his mouth, presumably to insult the both of them, before he was interrupted by another player elbowing him roughly in the ribs.

"Falco, still your tongue! What kind of first impression are you trying to give us?" Snapped the burly, muscular fox, who folded his incredibly ripped arms and gave the bird a look of disapproval much like one that a father would give his son when he found out that he was the one who put the screw in the tuna. Lightening his expression, he turned to the brothers and gave them a friendly smile. "Pay no heed to Falco, he's what you'd call a 'bad apple', to put it lightly." As the bird muttered curse words under his breath, he slumped away from the rest of the group, making sure to flip them all the bird as he sulked off. Chuckling, the fox shook his head in amusement. "Anyways, my name is Fox McCloud, I'm the Tight End slash Middle Linebacker, happy to meet ya!"

While the brothers were somewhat unsettled by the wink that Fox shot their way, they nonetheless politely smiled back and introduced themselves.

"I'm-a Mario Mario, and this-a is my brother Luigi." Mario said plainly but courteously.

"Yeah, great to make your acquaintance, uh, Fox..." Luigi added, waving absentmindedly.

The awkward silence was quickly filled with the loud, boisterous voice of a tall, blue haired lad with a physique almost as jaw-dropping as Fox's. "Oh, dudes, those are some SICK 'staches you got goin' there, bros!"

"A-Ah, w-well, heh, let's just say they 'run in the family'..." Luigi stated, scratching the back of his head in a strangely embarrassed way.

"Yeah, it's-a just one-a perk of-a being an-a Italian, hahaha!" Mario added, his actions mimicking those of his brother.

"...Italian...? ...The family...?" Ike repeated under his breath, suddenly much more subdued, as he looked back and forth between the brothers with shifty eyes. "...Dudes... You don't mean... Wait, n-no, never mind, I-I don't need to know! I-It's totally cool with me bros, a-alright?"

The brothers stared at the jittery jock and then at each other with baffled expressions, before eventually just shrugging it off.

"S-So, we're cool then, right bros...?" Ike asked in an incredibly panicked tone. At the sight of the brothers' confused nods, he let out a huge overblown sigh and went right back to the way he had been originally without missing a beat. "Awwwright, that's DOPE, yo! So, yo, bros, Mario Bros, you wanna meet the rest of our hella sweet crew?"

Looking at each other with slight apprehension, the brothers nonetheless nodded in approval, so as not to be rude.

"Aw yeah, I knew you would!" Ike said, folding his arms and nodding with a smirk. "Now all y'all just be holdin' tight for just the most minor moment, I'mma be right back with the rest of our peeps!"

With that, Ike rushed off towards the building that Falco had just disappeared into. Moments later, he exited the building, leading a parade of identically dressed but radically different looking jocks wearing the same form fitting letterman jackets that the rest of them wore back towards the brothers.

As the reached the brothers, the jocks all formed a wall of sunglass wearing, arm folding manliness, with Ike standing in front of them, a microphone in hand. "Damn, it's a total bummer, but some of the crew ain't here yet, but anyways... Dudes, bros, you chill on back and lemme formally introduce you to the ILLEST, most RADASS football squad in the entire COUNTY, the Sakurai High Fightin' LANDMASTAHS~!"

Glancing quickly at the group, besides Falcon, Fox, and Ike, Mario saw a tall, green crocodile wearing a padlock on a chain around his neck, bopping his head in tune to the phat beatz; a large, rotund, purple cat who appeared to be spacing out harder than that Louie fellow had earlier; another, shorter crocodile wearing a black skull and crossbones vest over his jacket and no pants in sight; a short, anorexic dark skinned man wearing a ridiculous looking purple mask with a giant nose and a palm tree sticking out of the top, with matching oven mitts; and another incredibly tall, blue haired, musclebound man who looked vaguely similar to Ike, only he seemed to be at least three feet taller than everyone else in sight.

At the utterance of 'LANDMASTAHS~!', a sick beat with a heavy bass began to play in the background from a boombox that Ike procured from the same place he had assumingly gotten his microphone, and Ike slid down to the leftmost player in the wall, m-phone all up in his grill, and began introducing the entire team.

"First and foremost, is our team captain and the gosh darned NUCLEUS of our team, the incomparable CAPTAIN FALCON! Y'all already know how rad this guy is, aw yeah!"

Grinning, Falcon did some flashy martial arts kicks, ending in a fist pump of justice.

"Next, we have our team's ironman, and this year's very first winner of the massively prestigious 'Bro Of The Week' as a direct result of his heroic and incredibly manly feat of saving a poor, innocent, melting hedgehog, along with the entire 23rd floor, the crunkest of all musclebeasts, Fox 'Manmuscles' McCloud!"

Dropping to the ground in an instant, Fox effortlessly began to do a series of squats at an incredible speed and pace, before jumping back to his feet, spinning around, flexing his muscles, and winking at the brothers, all in one fell swoop.

"Next you got-"

"OH BIG BROOOOOOTHEEEER~!"

Ike's gruff, masculine voice was cut off instantly by a voice at the complete opposite end of the vocal spectrum; high-pitched, bubbly, and adorable. As everyone turned their attention towards the sideline where the voice emanated from, Ike's face broke out into a huge, googly eyed, ear-to-ear smile.

"LIL' SIS!" He cried out jubilantly, as he held his arms open wide for her to run into, wrapping her into a great big hug that she was only too eager to return. As everyone else stood around awkwardly for about half a minute, the siblings finally broke apart their tender embrace, and suddenly Ike seemed to snap back to reality, and his look of joy turned into one of distress instantly.

"Misty! What are you doing here?" Ike said, ruffling his sister's long brown hair playfully, then getting down on his knees and putting his hands gently on her shoulders to get on face level with her. "You know I don't want you hanging out anywhere MEN are!" Spitting out the word 'men' as if it were poison, Ike put his hands on his hips and looked at his sister with deep concern.

"Oh, Big Brother, stop, you're embarrassing me! I told you to call me Mist, remember?" Putting her hand up to her mouth and giggling cutely, Mist continued to smile back at her brother's troubled expression. "Anyways, I know you don't want to ever see me around another boy besides you, buuuuuut..." Sticking her lip out and pouting like a spoiled little kid, Mist pushed her pointer finger softly into her brother's nose. "...I'm lonely, Big Brother! I mean, I know I have my female friends to hang out with, but I want to spend time with YOU!"

As Mist wrapped her arms back around her brother's thick frame and continued to look up at him with a pouty, puppy-dog-eyed expression, Ike chuckled and patted her on the head.

"Oh, sis... What am I gonna do with you?" Ike said, shaking his head lightly as his lips curled into a grin. "Now, come on, be a good girl and go back to your little friends, I'll have plenty of time to spend with you when school gets out, okay?"

"...Oh, alright..." Mist sighed dejectedly, as she forced herself to pull away from her brother's torso. Gazing longingly into his eyes one more time as she wiped away the tears that were forming in her own, she hastily got to her feet and ran back off towards the school's main building, calling back to her brother and waving as she ran. "OKAY BIG BROTHER, I'M HOLDIN' YA TO IT! NO BROS, NONE OF THOSE HUSSY CHEERLEADERS THAT LIKE TO HANG OUT AROUND YOU, JUST ME AND YOU~!" Mist winked back at him as she turned her attention to the school and began to skip merrily the rest of the way.

Ike continued to shake his head as his grin grew wider. "Oh, Mist... So precocious... Ah, right, anyways, where was I?"

Ike turned his attention back to the Marios and Funky, who all just stood silently, staring back at him with blank expressions on their faces, as did the rest of Ike's crew, sans Fox, who had a 'oh, how sweet' expression on his face.

"...U-Uh..." Funky stuttered, clearing his throat as he hastily diverted his attention away from Ike. "...A-Ah, sorry, mon, but I think I better get on with dese guys' tour..."

"H-Hey, u-uh, great timing, I think I'll go with you guys!" Falcon exclaimed quickly, stumbling over to the brothers and Funky with a hokey fake smile plastered across his face. "G-Gotta get my recruitin' drive started after all!"

"...Oh..." Ike said quietly, before nodding in understanding and grinning broadly back. "Ah, well, alright bro, I totes gotcha!
Choicest luck bro, we'll all be here, pumpin' iron and doin' some INTENSE trainin' regimens! And bros, Marios, you should totes join us sometime, if you wants muscles like THIS!" Ike went into a short series of flexes showing off his well-toned body.

"...Or THIS!" Fox added, doing a little flexing of his own, putting his rippling musculature on full display.

"...OR EVEN THIS!" Ike and Fox flexed together, bending and stretching their muscles in the tightest, manliest ways imaginable.

"...Then yeah, you should join us sometime, there ain't NO work out that can compare to Fox's Secret Training RegiMEN, ain't that right, broskis?!"

As he turned around, Ike noticed the rest of the players had already fled, besides the corpulent purple cat, who stood as stoic as ever.

"...Uh... Well..." Ike scratched his head, before shrugging and sighing. "Ah, see you later broheims! Come on Fox, do me a solid and help me put Big away, awright?"

"Of course." Fox said, nodding dutifully. With one last wink and wry smile at Mario's group, Fox walked over to the cat, and along with Ike, propped him up on their shoulders, walking off into building from before.

"...Aaaaaanyways..." Falcon said after the others had left, rubbing his neck awkwardly. "...Try not to mind Ike, he's a good guy, he's just... Really, REALLY overprotective of his sister..."

"No kidding..." Luigi responded dryly, still shaking his head in mild disbelief.

"...Right, anyways, you guys don't mind if I tag along with you for a while, do ya?" Falcon asked, clearing his throat. "I really DO need to try and get some recruitin' done, and plus, you all seem like pretty cool guys, so who better for the Falc to hang out with, ey?"

"Oh-a, not at all-a!" Mario said pleasantly. "You know what-a they say, the more-a the merrier! ...R-Right-a, guys...?"

Luigi and Funky quickly agreed in unison, much to Mario's relief, as he was afraid his sudden taking charge of the situation and answering for the whole group might've rubbed them the wrong way.

"Awright then, I get the feelin' this is the start of the raddest type of friendship, so let's get this party rollin'!" Falcon proclaimed, saluting the group before snapping his fingers together and pointing into the distance dramatically.

Leading the way, Falcon sprinted ahead, beckoning for the others to follow as best as they could, as they all headed in the direction of the lush, green rolling acres that was the school's golf course.

---

"And here, we have the school's famous, radtacular 9 hole golf course! These lush and gnarly greens are watered and trimmed daily. Mondo props to that gardening team, am I right?" Funky laughed to himself in his usual manner as the others looked on in slight intrigue.

"Just how-a many acres does-a this property take-a up, anyhow?" Mario said mostly to himself, but prompted a response from the good Captain.

"I'm not the most well versed in that math mumbo jumbo, but unless I miss my guess, I'd say "a lot" would be the your answer." he said unhelpfully, smiling broadly to himself.

"Oh, sweet, they have those go-kart things here, too! Good timing, as my legs are starting to kill me!" Funky let out happily as he hopped over to the row of parked vehicles.

"Uh, Funky, bro, I'm pretty sure those are only for the player-" Luigi tried to forewarn but his efforts were for naught, as the Kong had already made his way into the nearest available one and began to drive off ever so slowly, but surely, away from the others in a mad "dash" to the other end of the grassy plains.

"It would probably be faster if we just walked to the end ourselves," Luigi sighed, "Welp, let's go, guys..."

As the brothers and Captain made their way across the sidewalk to the "backyard" of the school, Mario caught a glimpse of someone in the middle of a shot. Though her bright blonde hair bunched in a sporty ponytail and pink outfit were an unorthodox look, he could easily make out that the figure was the apparent royalty whom he saw earlier during the ceremony from this morning. Beside her an unrecognizable, brown spotted Toad gentleman with a mustache almost rivaling his own.

With his gaze uncontrollably glued to the princess, his brother gave another audible sigh and rolled his eyes. "Pauline is too good for somebody like you..."

Falcon smirked impishly, "Ah, so we have a polygamist in our mist, do we?" he butted in, grabbing the shorter Italian's shoulder teasingly.

"Wh-what?" Mario cried out in objection, shaking his head vigorously. "I-a- No! It's-a not what it-a looks-"

"Ha ha! Just a joke, bud. No need to get so flustered, now." Falcon grinned at the chubby brother, who didn't seem to be very reciprocative of his 'joke' at all.

Before Luigi could intervene between the pair's childlike bickering like a frustrated father, he felt a blunt force strike against the side of his head. The object being so powerfully propelled in his direction that it knocked the slender Italian down to the pavement. As the sight of his brother falling down like a body being violently shot away at, Mario gasped in terror as he ran up to him in a panic. Falcon following close behind.

"Luigi! Luigi, say-a something! Please!" Mario shook his brother's shoulders as he begged for a response, but there was no answer.

Falcon clutched his fist as his forearm began to heat up in a flurry. "What vile fiend could have done such a heinous act?!" he spat out through gritted teeth. The two's attention temporarily switched over to a voice shouting to them from the distance as they drew closer.

"Oh man, oh gosh, oh man, oh gosh, oh man! I'm SO sorry!" the brunette lass sobbed, "Is he out cold? Oh maaaaan, somebody call an ambulance or something!" her chattering teeth wreaking havoc on her finely manicured nails as they gnawed away at them in a tizzy. Falcon, being the hero he was, jogged across the field to fetch a nurse. The rest still frozen from shock.

"I say, whatever is all this commotion going on for?" an accented older gentleman muttered as he approached the vicinity.

"Toadsworth, don't be so rude! Can't you see a serious accident has just happened?" Princess Peach said in a huff as she walked over to her friend who was still in the middle of a mental breakdown. "Now, now, Daisy. Just calm down. Tell me what happened, slowly." she said in a more hushed tone.

"I... Ggh... I..." she choked, swallowing hard before continuing. "So, I was in the middle of a practice match with Birdo, and- and, it was match point. So, I hit the ball with everything I got, and this guy... he came up from the corner and the ball... it... it..."

"It-a nearly killed-a my brother, that's-a what!" Mario let out in a rare spontaneous fit of anger to the girl, guilt quickly creeping in as his words soon after caused the girl to begin to bawl her eyes out again.

"There's no need for that kind of language! She clearly didn't mean it!" Peach snapped back in a more controlled manner, making Mario feel worse.

After a few more awkward seconds of waiting, Falcon made his way back to the scene with a medic in tow. The others hastily moving out of the way to allow room for the yellow jumpsuit wearing man in question. "Alright, Doc, do your best!" Falcon pepped as he gave the man a firm pat on the back.

"Let's see..." he examined the swelling lump protruding from Luigi's right cheek bone. "It appears he was struck with a blunt object. Circular." he surmised after a moment.

"Brilliant, Doctor Stewart! Brilliant!" Falcon let out in awe, giving an eager look for him to continue.

"It seems that he is completely out cold, and has been for some minutes now. Oh, right, and the victim seems to be Caucasian. Age, maybe-"

"Are you for real? You're no help at all! Forget it, I'm taking him to the nurse's office myself!" Daisy declared as she dried the last of her tears. Hoisting Luigi up with her almost man-like strength, she rushed off at a steady pace to the nearest entrance to the school as Mario, Peach, and Toadsworth followed close by.

"Oh, and judging by that nose, I can also deduce that the victim is most definitely a Jew! And also-"

"F-forget it, doc..." Falcon said sadly, pushing his hands into his pockets and looking down at the ground. "They're already gone."

"...Well, shoot..."

---

"Is-a... Is-a he gonna be al-a-right, Nurse?" Mario asked with worry and fear straining his voice.

"He'll be just fine. All he needs a little bit of rest." the pink haired nurse reassured, pulling the curtain around Luigi's bed as she gestured for Mario to go back into the waiting room.

"How is he doing?" Daisy spoke up as Mario made his way back out.

"The-a nurse said he-a just needs a bit of-a rest." he repeated as he sat himself back down.

"Peach had to leave, but I'm gonna stay here until he wakes up... I want to apologize to him in person." she said under her breath, staring up at the ceiling. Mario couldn't find any words to say and did the same, only staring at the sparkling pearl tile that mocked him with his own reflection. The sound of squeaking sneakers breaking his attention.

"Oh, hey, Mario..." Ness tried to let out enthusiastically. "What're you doing here?"

Mario's head drooped again as he answered the lad. "Luigi-a got in-a bit of-a an... accident. You?"

Ness sighed, staring off into the potted indoor plant that was placed snugly in between the chairs. "Jeff. He had a little incident of his own when someone poked him in class. The nurses are still trying to calm him down." The two sat between each other, moping as the clocked ticked on aggravatingly. "Link's here, too..." Ness decided to bring up to try and form some kind of conversation, though nothing positive. "He was "challenged" to an arm wrestling contest, and his arm was the true loser of it."

Mario gave him a confused look. "Who would-a do something like-a that?"

Ness sighed uneasily before answering. "Groose. Him and his band of "merry men" pester Link on a regular basis. Always picking on him, bullying him, trying to prove something to him. He's like Link's own mini-Gary, but Link doesn't seem to care much, for whatever reason." he explained longwindedly, "Zelda, his "not" girlfriend is in there with him now. But enough about that, I don't want him hearing me. Wasn't Funky giving you guys a tour of the school?"

"He-a was, until he-a drove away-a in a golf-a kart without a trace." Mario explained in a still somewhat confused manner. "And-a then, well-a, this, happened."

"I see..." Ness responded quietly.

"OH GOD, NO. PLEASE GOD, NO! NO NEEDLES! NO, NO, NOOOOOOO!"

"...Was-a that...?" Mario asked hesitantly, almost not wanting to
know.

"...Afraid so." Ness replied with a sad nod and a sigh. "Poor Jeff..."

Another hour or so came and went and entering the waiting room were none other than Falcon and Funky. "Ah, here we go! Finally found the right room!" Falcon exclaimed as they made their way in.

"You'd be surprised at how many nurse's offices are on the same floor, mon!" Funky chuckled to himself as they sat themselves down next to Mario and Ness.

"Funky? Where-a were you?" Mario asked in a somewhat irritated tone.

"Somehow, this crazy ape managed to crash and and wreck his cart in a shallow pool of water! It took me forever to try and find 'im. I only disturbed about one or two players as I yodeled for him, though,
thankfully." Falcon blatantly lied, not that he had a care in the world over the dozens of complaints that will surely be sent in from players over the course of the next few days thanks to his disruptive behavior.

"I promise I'll try to squeeze some time into my ever-tight schedule so we can continue from where we left off, though!" Funky's words only resulting in a groan from Mario. Ness not reacting much because he wasn't involved, and Falcon being as oblivious to everything that isn't himself as always.

"And you promise you'll be a bit more careful when that jerk comes near you again?" a gentle voice said as an agitated, nodding Link came out from his room with a concerned female at his side, Mario presuming to be the "Zelda" girl Ness had mentioned earlier. "And remember what the nurse said; no more archery or sword practice until it heals." Even if Link did speak that much, he wouldn't dare talk back to the blonde as he knew the kind of hell he'd be in should he anger her at all. "And no horse riding, either."

As the two's seemingly endless one-sided bickering went on, it was killed abruptly as Luigi carefully made his way out of his room with a large, pink rabbit-like creature wearing a nurse's cap close behind him.

"I think I'll be fine from here on out, now, thanks." Luigi said softly, allowing for the nurse's assistant to scurry back to their duties. "Audino. Aud." it nodded sweetly, before disappearing back into the room.

"Luigi!" Mario beamed as he ran up out from his seat to not-so-tenderly hug his injured brother.

"Yeesh, not so tightly, will ya?" Luigi choked out, pushing his blubbering brother off of him as gently but abrasive as he could.

"U-um... Excuse me..." Daisy spoke up, drawing the italian's attention onto her.

"O-oh, u-uh, yes, miss...?" Luigi fumbled on his words, tongue tied. Looking over to the young lady in question, his heart felt as though it skipped a beat. An embarrassing feeling, for him, that he hadn't felt in quite some time.

"I, uh..." she twirled her index finger around her hair anxiously as she struggled to find the words. "I'm... I'm sorry, about, uh, this..."

"It's no problem at all!" Luigi responded without thinking, garnering a puzzled look from Mario.

"O-oh!" she gasped lightly, surprised over how easy that was. "W-well, I guess I'll be going now... Get well soon!" she pardoned herself with a curtsey before closing the door behind her gingerly. The loud, thumping noise of her jogging footsteps trailing off as she exited from the area.

"Anyway, what are you all just standing around here for? Let's get out of this musty place and get some fresh air!"

And with Luigi's final words, the group set out to enjoy the remainder of their recess in peace. The gardens outside being the perfect place for such ideal serenity. As the friends enjoyed casual chatter and many a hearty laugh with one another, things finally felt like they were going well for a change. That was, until a shrill voice came from behind Mario as he was in the middle of enjoying his mid-afternoon snack.

"I finally found you, Mario! Now that class is over... I do believe that it's time you gave me that answer, bucko." the egg from before threatened, crossing his stubby arms as best he could as a means of trying to seem cool and imposing.

"Oh... It's-a you..." Mario let out unemotionally, jamming the last chunk of his second meatball sub into his maw as he moved onto the third.

This blatant act of uncaring invoked steaming anger from the egg. "W-why you!" he stomped his tiny foot on the stone ground in a hissy fit, cussing under his breath when he realized the pain he was inflicting on himself.

"Hey fellas, I have a novel idea!" Captain Falcon interjected joyously, "How about we finish our snacks at the grassy hill nearby? It has a mighty fine view, if I do say so myself." everyone nodding in agreement, getting their belongings together and beginning to head off, abandoning the egg to his childlike tantrum.

"W-wait! I'm not finished yet, you-" he failed to stop them, soon feeling an eerily familiar clawed hand grip onto his shoulder. "Out of the way, pipsqueak, or I'll shove anotha' heapin' helpin' of purple 'shroom down ya' throat."

"R-R-R-R-R-R-" Troopa stammered in horror, the flashbacks of earlier flashing through his mind, making him froth at the mouth at the thought. In his petrified state, Roy easily pushed the screeching egg to the side as he approached the current location of Mario and posse, like a serial killer moving on to their next victim...

"...And somehow, the nurse's office had better food than the cafeteria. It was weird." Luigi finished before taking a sip of juice.

"And how about that Nurse Joy family, eh? Quite the lookers, those ladies. Stupid lucky Dr. Stewart..." Falcon mumbled bitterly, taking furious, chipmunk-like nibbles at his sandwich.

"Are you sure he's actually a doctor? I've seen his work, and honestly, I can't help but doubt it..." Ness pondered aloud, taking a bite from his peanut cheese bar and chewing it carefully. The majority of the gang more or less lost in their own thoughts before a deep, maniacal laughter disrupted their quiet time.

Before Mario could even finish his 5th sub, his jaw dropped to the ground, his half-chewed food falling out with it. His hands jittered, every pore began to behave like a fountain on the fritz, his mouth once again becoming a broken record much to the dismay of everyone around him. "MA-MA-MA-MA-MA-!"

"Don't think I've forgotten what you've done to my sistah, you fat lump a' grease. Now put 'em up, put 'em up!" he commanded, fists raised and shades reflecting blindingly in the sunset.

"O-o-o-o-oh m-m-m-mama-m-m-m-mia... Wh-what am I-a g-g-g-gonna d-do...?" Mario stammered through gritted, chattering teeth. Then, like a guardian angel swooping down gracefully from the heavens, Captain Falcon came to the Italian's aide with surely useful assistance in tow.

"Wanna a few choice fighting tips, my well 'rounded' friend?" he playfully jabbed, taking the red brother's desperate looks as a 'yes.'

"Alrighty then, let's get on with the breakdown. As you may or may not know, this is Roy Koopa. Roy being the most treasured of Bowser's motley crew of children. Definitely not a guy you want get on his bad side, but seeing how you already did that, all I can say is... It was nice knowin' ya'. ...Heh, just kidding. Mostly." he chuckled to himself, reequipping a serious expression upon looking at Mario's intensely terrified face.

"But, anyway, yeah, he's a really tough guy. Known to take candy from babies and make grown men cry and all that horrible stuff Bowser's family is famous for. Well, with him being a Koopa and all, jumping should work fairly
fine, I guess. You and your brother are good jumpers, right? So, jump, jump, jump away!"

Trying to heed the man's advice as best he could, Mario buckled down and stiffened his quaking knees as the Koopa charged at him wildly like a bull to his red cap. As he came closer, Mario took a leap of faith and propelled himself into the air.

"TAKE-AAAAAA... THIS!" Cried the portly Italian lad, as he stomped down with all his force and power at the very moment Roy had reached where he was just standing, smashing the Koopa's head back into his shell violently. Taking another short hop back to the ground, Mario turned around with a look of shock on his face that almost rivaled those that his friends were giving him, unsure of what he had even just done.

"Whoa..." Luigi let out from under his breath, looking on at his brother in complete awe as the others did the same.

"U-uh, good job and all, buddy, but uh..." Falcon gave a shifty eyed look to the plumber, wanting to bask him in praise for his efforts, but his sudden boost of confidence was about to take a nosedive with the Captain's following words. "L-look behind you. It ain't over yet, and hooo boy, does he look pissed."

"W-W-Wha-" Was all that Mario managed to get out, as the moment he turned around, he was throttled right in the kisser by a mean right hook from out of nowhere.

As if the red from Mario's clothing didn't make the Koopaling enraged enough, the sight of his own blood slowly dripping out from his mouth made Roy an even more dangerous force to be reckoned with. Hopping mad, he dashed towards the Italian again, headbutting the stunned italian firmly in the back and plunging him straight into the air where the rest of his group couldn't make out where he went.

"MARIOOOOOOO!" Wailed Luigi, as he watched his brother disappear into the sky before his very eyes.

"If my estimates are correct..." Ness tried to remain calm during the frenzied panic amongst his peers, "He should be landing near the fishing ponds east of here right about... now." And right in time with his finished sentence, the party of five heard a loud splash come from miles across from them, seeing a faint blur of water shoot up into the sky, as if a cannon ball had been shot directly into it.

Wasting no time, Falcon began to charge his fist with his fiery rage, as he spoke frantically to his pals. "Quick you guys, you go and make sure the poor guy's still in one piece, I'll take care of this... Bully...?" Turning back around to where Roy had just been standing, Falcon let out a confused grunt at the fact that the Koopa had suddenly... disappeared. "Buh-wah? Wasn't he just standing right...?" Quickly shaking the thought from his mind, Falcon realized he had more
urgent matters to attend to, and he began to rush after the rest of the group to Mario's crash site.

As his worried comrades came to his aid, the only thing Mario could see was water. The only thing he could taste was water. The only thing he could breath in was water, as well, as he was already several kilometers deep in the fish infested pond he was flung into. Once realizing this, Mario unintentionally wasted every last ounce of air he had left in his lungs as he screamed out in shock, flailing his stubby limbs rampantly as he sunk ever lower into the green tinted depths.

"M-M-M-MARIO, S-STOP ALL THAT FLAILIN' AROUND!" Luigi cried out to his brother from the shore. "O-O-Oh geez, oh man, m-m-m-mama... H-HOLD ON MARIO, I'M-A COMIN'!" Without a second doubt, Luigi dove into the murky depths after his brother, the only thought on his mind being to get his brother back to the surface by any means necessary.

"Now don't be so hasty, mon! We don't needa be savin' BOTH o' you, now!" Funky urged, but to no avail as Luigi was already well on his way after him. "Oh, mon..."

"...I don't suppose any of you three can swim...?" Ness asked the others anxiously as he watched Luigi disappear into the depths after his brother.

"Pft, are you kidding?" Falcon scoffed, "You're all looking at a pro athlete swimmer right here. Yep, dabbled in it for a few good years in my youth, but those were a pretty damn impressive few years from my youth, if I may add." he smirked cockily.

"Ah, well, that's a relief..." Ness exclaimed, exhaling lightly. "Hopefully it won't come to that though... But Captain, if the
brothers don't surface within the next minute..."

"No worries, gentlemen, I'm sure they'll be up ANY second now." he said with the utmost confidence. "Annny second..."

The four friends all stood and stared at the pond anxiously, watching for any signs of movement, a wave, a ripple, anything...

Then, bubbles. Air bubbles. Many large air bubbles rose to the surface, insinuating all the wrong things regarding the status of their twin Italian companions.

Gasping, the four quickly got to their knees and huddled around the waters edge, trying to see any sorts of shadows or silhouettes that would indicate their assumptions were wrong.

"C-Captain..." Ness stuttered, gulping as he turned to look at the helmeted man pleadingly.

"You don't need to say another word," he said heroically, as he began to strip down to his skivvies, helmet still firmly in place on his head.

Then, just as Falcon was finished doing his warm-up stretches, a soggy, green sleeved, gloved hand reached up out of the water, grasping onto the land's edge for dear life.

With a collective gasp from Ness, Link, and Funky, the three all began to tug and pull the pair out from the death defying waters, Falcon still totally immersed in his own warm-up routine to notice.

Finally, with great effort from all three of them, the trio managed to pull the two brothers, drenched and gasping for breath, to dry land.

"Alright fellas, don't worry, Captain Falcon's here to save the day yet again!" Falcon cried out triumphantly as he finished his warm-ups and prepared to dive into the frigid depths below.

"MAMA-MIA..." the two let out in unison, collapsing to the ground after letting out their last ounce of strength. As things finally began to calm down, a familiar threatening, accented voice had decided now was the time to reappear before the relieved bunch.

"Now, where were we?" Roy said with even more menace than usual, cracking his knuckles together as he flashed the group a malicious, fanged smirk.

With neither brother in any sort of fighting form, the Captain took it upon himself to try and handle business himself, speedo still tightly snugged around his lower abdomen proudly.

"Hey, you!" The Captain uttered with rage, pointing furiously at the pink headed Koopa. "Thought you'd just sneak away while my back was turned, eh? Well, if you wanna pick on someone, why don't you pick on somebody who's three times your size, huh?!" Outstretching his burning, glowing hand at the Koopa, Falcon gave him a smirk of his own. "Come on, tough guy, and show me your moves!"

The Koopa merely scoffed mockingly at the man's words. Getting down on all fours, he began to spun rapidly from within his shell, and made a bee line straight in his direction.

"HA HA, BRING IT!" Falcon cried out with a manly gusto, not budging an inch from where he was standing as the koopa barreled towards him at a breakneck speed.

In classic Sakurai High fashion, the Koopaling aimed straight for the man's well toned legs, in an attempt to trip him, but through some supernatural occurrence, he bounced clean off, leaving the Captain without a single scratch.

"Hrgh! What the-?!" Roy snarled, glaring daggers back at the man as he began to charge up for another go.

Smirking, Falcon simply put his hands on his hips and let out a deep belly laugh. "HWUAHAHA! YOU PREDICTABLE FOOL! Do you not see the glistening shine that radiates from every pore of my body? That, my scaly, magenta headed fiend, is 100% pure, crystalized justice, and so long as the solidified sweat of the righteous drenches my body, not a drop of evil of any kind can penetrate my heroic barrier!"

"...Er... W-Well, actually..." Ness muttered quietly to himself, scratching his head as he glanced tentatively at the Franklin Badge that he had (psychokinetically) stuck on the rear of Falcon's speedo at the last second before impact, before quickly shaking his head and deciding to let Falcon have his moment, whistling innocently in case he had attracted any attention. "...Never mind."

Not believing a word of the Captain's obvious horse manure, Roy gave it another go, chugging at the speed of a bullet train, faster and more powerful than before.

Falcon merely stood in place as he had before, grinning cockily at the Koopa as he once again seemingly bounced right off him with a resounding, metallic clang, and unfortunately for Roy, the extreme speed and power he had built up turned against him, as he was shot like a silver bullet in the opposite direction, crashing straight through the base of the school's bell tower, shooting straight out the other side until he eventually disappeared from the group's view, roaring expletives and death threats at the top of his lungs all the way.

"Welp!" he said with a dopey grin stretching across his lips, "That takes care of that, right, er... f-fellas..." Falcon turned around, only just then realizing how badly damaged Mario came out from that single blow alone. "A-ouch, we should, like, maybe, take him to the nurse's office or something, I guess..."

And so, without even taking the time to redress himself, Falcon tossed a Mario Brother over each shoulder and swiftly led the group back to the nurse's office for the second time that day.

---

"Well-a, the doctor-a said that-a I should-a be a-o-a-kay-a as-a long as I-a don't sustain anymore-a trauma to-a my nose for the rest of-a the day..." Mario explained to his friends, as they all walked down the school's main hallway towards the exit, the school day having ended while Mario was receiving treatment.

"Hey, that's great, mon!" Funky replied with a grin. "After what you've said happened to you all day, comin' out of it with just a broken nose seems like a small miracle!"

Mario laughed bitterly, but swallowed his resentment and turned it into a more sincere smile. "What a way to-a end my first-a day, though-a, huh..."

"Yeah, well, you should've been here for MY first day..." Luigi said in an attempt to reassure his brother, letting out a wheezing, disdainful laugh. "I couldn't walk for a WEEK, remember?"

"But that-a wasn't on-a purpose," he retorted, "It-a was but a freak-a accident in-a your case. Wrong-a place at-a the wrong-a time and all of-a that..."

"Yeah, well..." Luigi muttered, straining his brain to come up with a retort. "Hngh, what I mean to say is, just, don't worry, it gets better, high school isn't USUALLY this bad... R-Right, guys?"

Ness, Link, and Funky looked away in hesitation, Falcon still caught up in his petty hopes of wishing one of the nurses would take notice to his well defined, not to mention still scantily clad, body.

"...GUYS?" Luigi repeated, folding his arms and giving the group a particularly dirty look.

With the added nudge, he received many a "Oh yeah, sure"s and "Totally"s from the group, most untruthful, but nonetheless.

"There, you see?" Luigi said, forcing a smile at his brother, who still looked wholly unconvinced and reprehensible of showing up for even one more day.

After an awkward moment of silence, the group all shared a hearty laugh together. With all the friendly conversation, joking around, story sharing, and overall good times he had, Mario had completely forgotten of all the bad that happened alongside it. Perhaps this daunting enigma known as "High School" wasn't so bad after all, but as of now, his adventures have only just begun...

---

Luigi: Making friends is the best part about going to school!

Mario: But, it's-a kinda hard, too...

Falcon: It is, as the old saying goes, my spaghetti loving pals, "You don't find true friends, true friends find YOU", and I'd say that holds some truth, wouldn't ya' say?

Ness: I agree.

Funky: Indeedomundo, mon.

Link: *Nods*

Luigi: So long as you have someone to watch your back, and vice versa, school isn't as scary as it really seems.

Gary: *Barges in rudely* BLEH! Friends, shmends. Who needs 'em? So long as you have an army of enslaved animals to fight your battles, and a beautiful group of women to accompany you wherever you go, friends ain't worth ZILTCH. Ain't that right, baby?

Eevee: Eevee! Vee, Eevee!

Gary: Ugh, no, my OTHER baby. Where did that fine thing go, anyway? Well, whatever! Let this be a lesson to you chumps-

Luigi: Sorry, Gary, but we're running out of time.

Gary: Say WHAT, mozzarella for brains?

Mario: Anyway! See you-a next time!

Everyone (Except Gary): AND KEEP ON SMASHIN'!

Announcer: GAME, SET, AND MATCH.

On the next episode: Love is in the air! ...Or is it? As Mario continues to get the hang of the every day school life, many romances spark anew, and many go on the verge of burning out. Can Mario make it through just one day without getting caught up in the heart ache? Tune in next time to find out!

---

A/N: Hope you enjoyed my story! Worked really hard on it. Anyway, please review and all that good stuff! Any and all critiques and suggestions would be MOST appreciated, bros! Peace out, homies! ;)