Chapter I: A rescue gone wrong!/Who's that guy from the sky?
"We're not gonna' let him get through this time!"
"Load the Bill Blasters!"
"Hammer Brother squads have been armed!"
"Get into your positions if you don't want the boss to crush you!"
Upon a pair of tall wooden doors which blocked the pathway outside of a large, musty, classically Gothic in appearance hallway, some already sizable cracks were growing larger and larger with a loud banging sound accompanying them every few moments. As this happened, several groups of guards prepared to defend said hallway from whatever was on the other side of the towering hinged pieces of timber in front of them.
Now, although the guards preparing to defend their current whereabouts were all more than qualified to do so, it would have still seemed very odd to most people to watch as groups of talking turtles and mobile mushrooms ran around each other, as they all tried to get into the best tactical positions possible for a soon to occur battle.
"Bill Blasters are locked and loaded, sir!"
"Paratroopers ready for aerial assault, sir!"
"Everyone, hold your positions until my word!"
BAAAAANNNG!
The doors were almost falling apart by themselves at this point anyways thanks to the unrelenting thrashing from the outside forces being used against them but that last hit in particular had successfully knocked some of the bolts that were only barely holding the already overly stressed hinges of the doors in place out onto the floor below. The attack had also caused cracks to appear over any areas of the doors that had managed to go free of them seconds prior. The doors now looked as if a strong enough breeze would turn them into nothing more than a large pile of sawdust.
This event had the side effect of causing the amount of tension the various creatures in the hallway felt to increase tenfold, thus creating an atmosphere of fear and self-preservation which made each and every one of the creatures want to flee at that very moment.
However that urge was suppressed by the sole thing that they all knew they still had to do, which came in the form of a direct command from their Boss. He had, in a very persuasive manner, ordered them all to not let anyone so much as set foot inside this building, under any circumstances.
Nobody liked that but still, orders were orders.
"Get ready, this is it!"
After one of the many yellow, anthropomorphic turtles wearing a green and white helmet on their head and clenching a small hammer in their fist shouted this, a horribly strong silence befell everyone inside of the spacious passage for nobody-knew-how-long. All of the creatures eyes remained firmly fixated on the somehow still standing doors all the while, as they prepared to stop whatever was about to come bursting through them.
In a similar fashion, they also thought about what would happen if they failed to stop whoever the attacker was as quickly as possible, since their leader was not in fact someone who practiced the virtues of patience or forgiveness… ever.
CRASH!
Whatever minute force that had still been holding the pair of doors up had finally been completely destroyed by that last hit. This let the now useless remains of the doors fall away from their frame to reveal that the hallway served as an entrance to a castle.
Looking outside at the heavily overcast courtyard contained inside of the now visible, tall, deep gray stone walls just beyond the ex-doorway, it would've been made blatantly clear to even the most casual of observers that it had seen far better days in its past.
The small army of assorted, odd looking, knocked out monsters, whose ranks included many more creatures similar in appearance to those inside of the castle, such as more turtle-like creatures wearing football uniforms in place of shells and giant caterpillars with flowers growing on the tops their heads, along with the scorched patches of dirt which stretched off in all directions were the two largest factors as to why this was the case.
Regretfully though, none of destroyed soil nor any of the fallen creatures state of being mattered to their remaining comrades on the inside of the castle's walls, as a strong sense of dread had blocked out any and all chances for thoughts concerning things not directly related to the freshly splintered doors in front of them to form in their minds.
To be fair though, this mindset was also partially created by the large cloud of dust that had just been stirred up thanks to both of the fractured doors pieces slamming harshly onto the ground. This quite effectively prevented any opportunity to see whoever or whatever had done this to their castle, making it so the creatures didn't really have a chance to see or care about any of their fallen allies since, again, the whole "we're all going to die" part of their brains had fully taken over by now.
Needless to say was the fact that the groups of mushrooms and turtles needed no instruction on what they should do next but they were given some anyway.
"ATTACK AT WILL!"
Just as soon as the one turtle who seemed to be in charge finished barking out his second order to all the squads of creatures within hearing range of him, balls of fire started to fly out from the cloud of dust in a surprise attack on all of the unsuspecting guards that were closest to the doorway.
Some of the less fortunate creatures who couldn't dodge the attack in time would soon find themselves knocked out from heat based pain with new found crispy textures bestowed upon them.
Creatures who had managed to dodge the attack immediately tried to retaliate by charging straight into the cloud for a full frontal attack against their unseen enemy. Just as quickly as yellow turtles and brown mushrooms charged into the dust cloud, they were all swiftly knocked back out of it in quite literal droves.
After seeing even more of their comrades fall to this so far unstoppable force, a few turtles who were positioned next to mounted black cannons emblazoned with cartoony skulls on a large walkway built back away from the Castle's entrance wasted no more time in immediately firing at the hidden enemy who had launched an all out attack on them.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A fairly sizable number of troops had already been taken care of, when two distinctly human shaped figures leapt out from the could of dust and began jumping, yes, jumping on what the cannons were shooting out towards them.
By doing this it caused the, oddly enough, bullet shaped ammunition with big angry eyes and small white arms, to drop to the ground as soon as either of the figures feet made contact with any one of the bullets, despite how physics would deem this feat to be quite impossible.
This development had made the captain turtle, who was now busy shouting out orders to two panicking groups of similarly green shelled, hammer holding, helmet wearing turtles on the same walkway as he, begin to idly contemplate whether or not he should simply surrender to these attackers right now.
Meanwhile, the two figures continued jumping from cannon-bullet to cannon-bullet as some more turtles, which had through some process sprouted functioning sets of wings on the outside of their shells, tried to swoop down on the invaders for a surprise aerial attack. The figures however soon noticed the rising reptiles and one of them retaliated by spontaneously creating some fireballs past the ends of their hands which they then threw towards their air born assailants, the whole process ending with the turtles spiraling straight down to the ground below with all of their knocked out brethren.
With another threat disposed of the figures, in a final rush of motion, used the momentum they had gained from jumping on all of the cannons' ineffective ammo for a final leap towards the overhang where the captain of the guards was situated.
"Yahoo!"
"Yahaa!"
After both of the figures let out a decidedly jovial sounding shout right before they successfully landed, the pair both pulled out their own comically oversized mallet from seemingly nowhere behind themselves and proceeded to use it to repeatedly pound the cannons and turtles firing them.
THWACK! BONK! SLAM! THUD!
The cannons would no longer pose a threat to the pair anymore, as all that remained of them now were small piles of smoking black steel where each one of them had respectively stood only moments before. The cannoneers fared no better than their weapons, as they too had been knocked to the ground alongside the piles of steel with newly formed goosebumps on all of their heads.
After this happened, the squads of helmet and hammer using turtles that were standing at either end of the walkway had finally managed to compose themselves enough to begin counterattacking these two unwelcomed guests by throwing a near constant stream of small hammers through the air in a large arch towards them, once they realized they would become this destructive duo's next target if they didn't.
Seeing this, the pair split from each other to avoid getting hit by the attack, then promptly dashed towards the group of turtles at the end of the walkway closest to them. As they ran, both figures held their mallet out from their body and started to spin around. Soon enough, the figures had built up enough momentum from doing this that they both shifted form into that of a pair of miniature tornadoes.
Using their new found power and speed, both of the intruders twirled straight into their group of hammer chucking turtles and sent them all flying over the edge of the overhang in one swift swinging motion before slowing back down to a more reasonable speed once again.
Now that the way was clear, the two figures turned their attention away from the rapidly closing in reinforcements coming from the lower level of the castle, to the currently paralyzed with fear captain turtle.
As they approached him, the captain turtle took a moment to reflect on the fact that this entire hall was only moments prior filled with many a highly trained soldier, who were all dead set on stopping these attackers; which they had been completely prepared for no less, from advancing even a single step inside their stronghold. Nearly half of those same soldiers were now strewn across the floor below utterly defeated, after a fight which had at most taken place over the course of five minutes. This didn't even account for all of the soldiers who had been knocked out beyond the castle's walls either.
Yeah, this was pretty bad.
The leader of the soldiers broke away from his thoughts long enough to notice that standing directly in front of him were the very same figures he was just thinking about.
Only an arms length of space resided between himself and the figures now but even if there had been a mile of emptiness separating them, he still would've felt the pairs determined glares on him from under the hats they were wearing.
His erratic breathing and stunned stupor lent more then a hand to his sudden bout of speechlessness he was experiencing, which only further agitated the Captain's unease as he needed to get these two away from himself as quickly as possible.
"Bo-Bo-Bowser has P-Princess Peach d-down a se-se-secret s-staircase behind th-that sta-statue o-of himself in th-the L-Laboratory."
Without a word, the pair nodded to him and shared a brief glance with each other before jumping down from the overhang, which was impressive considering it was suspended about forty feet up in the air and probably should have injured their legs to some degree after landing, to continue their destructive venture down into the depths of the castle.
They continued to use their mallets to knock away all of the remaining troops who still dared to stand in their way as they began descending down a stairwell, which was hidden behind a statue of a turtle who was far larger and more intimidating than any of the others the two had fought, the Captain of the guards had told them about.
As he watched this happen, the Captain turtle tried to imagine just how positively furious his boss would be with him later for allowing this to happen. He guessed that this was going to end up with him being so severely reprimanded that Goombas would be able to hear his boss yelling all the way down in Rogueport; though despite his best efforts, the turtle felt he failed to capture just how bad it would actually go over with him and gave up on trying to do so rather quickly. Also he had fainted before there was even a chance for him to imagine so much as a single syllable word so that probably didn't help.
Despite this, he did manage to squeeze out another, happier thought before he lost consciousness, it being about how sorry those two would be for messing with him once they went downstairs to meet with his boss in person.
...
Beakers and vials filled with different colors of liquid bubbled away madly on tables, shelves upon shelves of books lined the room's walls with topics ranging from chemistry, biology and engineering, to even a book simply titled "Magic: where it is and how you can channel it" and symbols which looked to be nothing more than common geometric shapes were etched across the surface of the otherwise dark room's ceiling and gave off a steady, soft, yellow glow so you could see within the confines of it.
More noticeable than these things however, was the massive collection of machines which were lined against the back wall of the room. Collectively they covered all of the surface area of that particular wall, fitting together perfectly like a large metallic puzzle.
While the machines exact purpose weren't quite obvious, it was obvious that they housed an odd, blue hued liquid which pulsated with an other worldly aura as it flowed throughout each of the pipes, tubes and hoses that connected all of the individual parts to one another. Honestly, the blue hued liquid almost seemed to breath in its own way as it continuously flowed in and out of the different metal capsules which held it within the large frankensteinesque contraption.
This was all very fascinating to the small shell-less turtle who was wearing a light blue robe and matching pointed hat, as well as a pair of glasses so thick that he might as well of had a pair of binoculars strapped to his head.
He was running around whilst muttering things to himself, making adjustments to all of the separate mechanisms lined against the back wall of the room, while frequently consulting with several books laying on top of a table off to the side of the machines.
However, a larger turtle who was directly across the way from him did not in fact find anything happening in front of himself interesting.
No. Not in the slightest.
"GrrrAAAWAAWWAAW!"
Sitting on top of an adequately regal looking chair, he yawned loudly enough that it startled a pair of armor clad turtle guards who were slouching at the entrance of the room back to full consciousness after they had begun to doze off from the same boredom that was afflicting the much larger turtle beside them.
Because he matched the statue from the hallway above to a T, this creature was presumably Bowser.
"Kamek!" Bowser said as he glared at the smaller turtle in a very distasteful way.
"How much longer until this stupid portal of yours is done?"
Kamek was still preoccupied with running back and forth between all of his books and the different sections of the wall of machines but after he had turned some dials and flipped some switches he found a moment to respond to Bowser's question.
"It will be ready sooner than a starving yoshi could eat a freshly plucked batch of berries your Horribleness!"
"Hmmph."
This bit of news made Bowser slump even further back into the throne he had already been slouching in, as he reluctantly resigned himself to resting on it for some unknown length of time more until Kamek could relay new details regarding his machine. This made him look no less threatening however.
He was big, huge even.
He stood at least twice as tall as the guards who now stood fully alert at either side of the room's entrance, easily putting him at seven feet tall. He had rough yellow skin and a grass green shell similar to those turtles as well but with a single major difference. Rather than his shell simply being rounded, it had ten, short, thick spikes growing out from it in a symmetrical pattern.
The only articles of clothing on him were black metal bands on each of his back and fore arms which had sets of six small spikes on them. His hands had fat, rounded, razor sharp claws at the ends of their fingers to which the tips of his toes had sets of the same caliber. As menacing as one might have found his appearance already, all of those things combined could only hope to have half the menace of Bowser's face.
He had large bushy eyebrows which were seemingly locked in a furrowed position and a somewhat long tuft of spiky hair that pointed backwards. All of his hair was a shade of bright, burning red. His mouth looked large even on himself, it stuck out from the rest of his head slightly and had one row of smooth, knife like teeth lining its inside. He had a pair of horns sticking out from high up on the sides of his green face that curved up into the air and ended in needle sharp points. His eyes served as the perfect final touch to complete his horrifying appearance.
Beady, blood-red, unforgiving and wrathful. They were truly the eyes of a monster.
Honestly, he looked more akin to some unholy hybrid of a turtle, human, bull and dragon more so than he looked like a normal turtle, even by this world's standards.
If nothing else, all of this made one thing certain; if there was a thing alive worthy of being feared in this world, Bowser was certainly more than qualified to be that thing.
Bowser cast a bored glance over the Dimension Opening and Portal Entrance doorway in the center of the room as he recalled Kamek referring to it by before, once more to see if there were any discernible changes on or around it. After he did so, he was only once again equal parts disappointed and aggravated to see nothing had changed since he had last checked it.
It still had the same boring illegible symbols engraved on it that were barely flickering blue in the same boring way they had been before. It also still had the same boring barely audible humming sound coming out from the center of its boring halo shaped exterior which had pipes connecting it to the boring wall of machines that was clearly not working as Kamek had intended it to. Bowser concluded that this machine, which simply refused to work, was boring.
Now, Bowser knew well that he wasn't famous for being patient or anything like that. Heck, if anything people knew him for wanting to have things his way all the time anytime he wanted. Even so, this was easily becoming one of the most boring periods of his rule over the many odd creatures of this land that he could recall from his recent memory.
Yes, it was times like this when even he, Bowser, King of the Koopas, tired of his position as an unfair and cruel leader.
He Especially tired of it during the parts when waiting was involved.
He wanted something, anything to happen that could help alleviate his boredom, right now.
...thud..thud..thud…
The king turtle's self observations and pity were interrupted by something that sounded vaguely like thudding in the distance. His eyes widened slightly after he caught onto the fact that something was quickly coming his way.
He didn't look like it but Bowser was now dedicating the entirety of his attention to figuring out what that noise was.
...Thud..Thud..Thud…
"Thwomps slamming into the ground?"
A mischievous grin grew across Bowser's face after a second passed.
"I have to admit, that wimpy plumber is getting a lot faster at this."
Bowser finally decided to stand up from his throne and stretch out a little bit before focusing solely on the entrance to the small room he currently occupied, allowing himself some time to fully prepare for whatever the "wimpy plumber" closing in on his location was.
Both guards followed suit in readying themselves shortly after seeing their leader get up from his throne by turning their full attention to the entrance of the room as well.
Kamek payed no heed to any of them however, as he was currently in the middle of one of his books more descriptive paragraphs and wasn't willing to tear himself away from it.
Unfortunately, this caused Bowser, the guards and Kamek to completely miss the fact that the halo started to let a blue light shine brilliantly through all of the symbols scattered across its surface area for a time, before it dissipated slowly and returned to an inactive state again.
THUD! THUD! THUD!-CRASH!
At long last, the final obstacle standing between the invaders and their target had burst open. The two castle crashers were now in plain view of Bowser as he had seen them so many times before.
Bowser looked over the pair he had come to loath so much for a brief moment to see if they had any hidden weapons that could complicate things but all he found from his once-over was each of them wearing their usual matching attire and gripping their own well used mallet.
They both wore long sleeve shirts which matched the color of their respective hats underneath a pair of bright blue overalls whose straps were held in place by bright yellow buttons. Both wore matching pairs of rounded, dirt brown work boots and soft, snow white gloves which held the handles of their mallets. The most notable thing about the figures were the unusually striking large flat caps they both wore.
The shorter one that had a bit of a belly, bright blue eyes and a small, well trimmed mustache underneath a large bulbous nose, wore a neon red cap with a capital M in the center of a white dot on the front of it.
The taller and skinner one also had the same bright blue eyes as his companion and a similarly well kept mustache underneath an equally oversized nose on his face as well but his cap was neon green and sported a capital L in its white dot in place of an M.
Also worth mentioning, is that these defeaters of an entire army of soldiers, successful invaders of a fully armed fortress and possessors of such incredible strength and speed we're only slightly over half the size of Bowser.
Not quite what one would have expected but nobody else seemed to care as silence overtook the inside of the laboratory for a short while, as everyone waited to see if either opposing party would do anything right away. A short moment passed by without anything of interest happening, which Bowser responded to by suddenly opening his mouth and letting out a loud, booming noise.
"GWA HA HAAAAA!"
The monster of a reptile laughed heartily with an extremely unsettling tone in his voice that wasn't present before or maybe it had been and he was simply amplifying it now. Whatever the case, it reverberated in an unnatural sounding way in far too deep a tone to resemble anything even remotely close to an actual voice a person might have.
"Mario! I expected you to come and try to stop my plans but you brought Luigi along too?" Bowser said as he eyed the taller of the duo for a moment before continuing.
"I suppose it must have been- BRING A COWARD TO WORK DAY! Or you just wanted me to defeat you both in one go so we could get this over with quickly."
Satisfied with what he said, Bowser broke out into a similarly sinister sounding snicker at the expense of Mario and Luigi. They both steeled themselves as he did this, preparing for whatever he was going to do next; although Luigi appeared to be having quite a bit of a harder time doing so when compared to his companion.
Actually, he looked quite horrified by Bowser's previous comment as his whole body shook involuntarily.
While this confrontation still had everyone's attention, the halo flickered back to life again. This time its lights shone slightly brighter than before. The hole in the halo's center almost looked like it too was filled with the same blue liquid that was powering the machine for a brief moment before it, along with halo's glow was lost for a second time. This event had, again, gone completely unnoticed by all of the room's inhabitants who were still preoccupied with watching this meeting of the minds.
Kamek, who had been quite up to this point, finally made the connection in his mind proper that Mario and Luigi had just broken down his secret Laboratory's only door and were now standing inside of his most sacred facility, undoubtedly preparing to rescue the Princess, in what would surely be a very destructive way...
Kamek saw the Super Mario Brothers in his Laboratory.
The glasses wearing wizard was furious at the very idea of this situation and quickly turned to the two guards who had completely forgotten what they were supposed to be doing since falling to the floor from the explosion of the second door destroyed that day by their attackers and since then simply gawked at the pair in awe.
Kamek proceeded to shock them out of this state by yelling an order at them in a high-pitched, nasally voice.
"By the Star Spirits, if you two don't get them out of my lab this instant, I'll turn the both of you into common BRICK BLOCKS!"
That looked like it did the job. The guards realized he wasn't kidding and in a flash were at either of Bowser's sides.
"Sir, Bowser your awfulness, should we remove these unwanted intruders from the Castle grounds, sir!?" They said in a militaristic unison to their leader.
Bowser looked down at his guards and let another crooked grin grow on his face.
"GWA HA HA HAAAAA! Sure, the defeat of Dumbio and his nobody brother is something I wanna' watch!" Bowser said as he sat back in his throne with a grin still on his face.
Realizing his mistake in adding to the conflict a little too late, Kamek looked between the two opposing groups of allies and foes and saw that a fight was about to happen inside of his lab. He didn't like the thought of that one bit.
Kamek started trying to formulate a plan on what he could do to stop the confrontation before anything serious happened which might cause irreversible damage to his equipment. While he was trying to do so, he watched as both pairs of warriors got into fighting stances.
Just then, a proverbial light bulb went off inside of his head.
"Hold it right there, STUPID MARIO BROS.!"
This had successfully caught not only both of the Brothers attention but Bowser's and the two guards as well. With all eyes on him, Kamek yanked a lever on the wall nearby downwards. Immediately afterwards, Gears could be heard turning as something began to happen. When the gears stopped, the brothers were both deeply worried by what they saw.
First Mario shouted.
"Oh, No!"
Then Luigi followed suit.
"WHAAA!"
Over the center of the room a hidden panel had split down it's middle, from which an oversized bird cage came down from the inside of room's ceiling on a chain. It was left to dangle a couple feet above the halo structure.
Inside of the cage lying on her side was a tall, blonde haired, elegant woman wearing a simple pink ball gown style dress which had a large blue gemstone placed over its chest area. She also wore elbow length white gloves, hot pink high heels and a pair of large blue pearl earrings and on her head sat a golden crown which was adorned with more blue and red gemstones of the same variety as the one on her dress.
Presumably, this woman was the aforementioned Princess Peach the leader of the guards had given instructions on how to find.
"Mario! Luigi!"
Princess Peach cried out to the red and green brothers as soon as she saw them with an odd mixture of fear and relief present in her voice. She sat up inside of the cage, grabbed onto one of the bars with one hand and started reaching out towards the brothers with the other.
"Don't even think about it!" Kamek spoke to the pair just as they started to tense up to break the cage open.
"One wrong move and Princess Peach becomes Princess Porcupine!"
Kamek warned the duo with as strong of a smug look his nonthreatening face could muster as he pointed a golden scepter at her. Mario and Luigi Immediately stood down after he said this.
"Ah, of course- the old hostage situation turn around trick. Nicely done Kamek!" Bowser praised his resident magician for his quick thinking before turning his attention back to the brothers.
"Well, well, well. Looks like the Goomba's shoe is on the other-"
The halo shaped contraption lit up again much like it had twice before, however this time it did, it projected a steady image.
The picture inside of the halo was that of the top of a mountain with water rushing up it at violently high speeds from four different canals. A fifth canal had water that flowed down the mountain at the same speed the other streams came up its face. It must have been a very tall mountain, as the only part of it that was visible from the provided image was surrounded by wispy clouds.
Yet again however, nobody noticed that the center of the halo had properly activated.
Not for lack of paying attention to it but rather this time it was because everyone in the laboratory was too busy focusing on trying to avoid getting pulled into the strong vacuum of air that the halo was now using to suck things inside of itself with.
"WWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
This was the collective sound from everyone inside the laboratory as the portal tried to suck in anyone and anything it could, which it was succeeding in doing with total ease.
"MAAARI-"
Was all Luigi could cry out to his brother before he had the distinct honor of being the first person pulled into the halo's mountain image. Seconds before he'd tried to latch his body onto something so he wouldn't have been subjected to such a fate but had such poor luck that the thing he had reflexively grabbed onto was nothing more than a regular chair that was sitting nearby.
"SIIIIIRR, HEEELLPP UUUSSSSS, SIIII-"
The turtle guards unwilling followed Luigi into the halo almost immediately after he entered it when they both failed to gain enough speed to make it to safety before it pulled them into itself.
"KAAAMEEEEEK! SHUUUT THIS THING DOOOWWNN!"
Bowser attempted to yell over the near hurricane level winds to his minion magician but alas, it was only now that he discovered Kamek had completely vanished shortly after his machine had started to malfunction.
While Bowser thought about how he would beat Kamek to a pulp if he survived this ordeal, the chain that was holding up Princess Peach's cage gave into the power of the winds, causing her to helplessly fly towards the halo.
"Mario! Help me!"
These were the last words from the captured princess before she too was pulled into the unforgiving portal in a similarly unceremonious way comparable to how the others had been before her.
CRASH!
The ceiling of the laboratory had finally given way to the winds as the halo continued to suck things into itself at breakneck speeds with no signs of slowing down or stopping anytime soon. It was because of this large hole above itself and the previously destroyed front door of the castle that the halo was now able to pull things in from outside of the structure's walls.
Yes, using the castle as a funnel to amplify its already impressive sucking powers by a massive magnitude, the halo brought all manner of inanimate objects, living creatures and everything in-between into itself from far and wide over this odd world's whole geography. Even things which were much larger than the halo itself fit inside by literally shrinking down their overall mass until they could squeeze inside of it, once again showcasing this world's extremely inconsistent physics in action.
Despite all of the chaos now going on around him, Mario was miraculously still inside of the room.
As he continued to hold onto the edge of the laboratory's entrance he had just managed to grab onto for his life, which had required him to let go of and lose his mallet to the halo, Mario could barely hear all of the chaos behind himself breaking out. The screaming, the crashing and the struggling from anything unfortunate enough to become caught in the portal's current made Mario wish that he could help out somehow but of course he couldn't do anything right now since he too would be pulled into the portal if he attempted to move from the wall he clung to. At the very least, he could try to see what had caused this to happen.
Mario tried to pry his own eyes open so he could get a glimpse of what was going on behind him and from what little he could see through his almost shut eyes, was Bowser. He had retracted his arms, legs and head into his shell at some point and was trying to twirl away from the halo as quickly as he could but even with his best efforts he still wasn't getting very far.
"THIIIS IS AAALL YOUR FAAAAAUULT, MAAARIOOOOO!"
Bowser shouted that out at Mario right before he was hit by something that came in through the gaping hole where the ceiling had once been and was pulled through the portal as so many others had been before him.
Mario still held onto the wall, thinking that if he could just assess the situation maybe he could figure out what his next best course of action would be. Well as fate would have it, Mario's plan seemed to work out.
After another minute or two of their unstoppable onslaught had passed, the winds died down to the point that Mario could let go of the wall and give his now sore hands, arms and body a moment to rest. He was tired from having to overwork all of his muscles like that but he couldn't fully relax yet.
Quickly, Mario turned himself around and focused his gaze back to the laboratory. As soon as he did, he realized several things.
The first realization was that the wall of machines now had many gaps throughout itself, the new hollow spots served only to highlight the lack of mechanisms in their place that were no doubt important to the halo's core functions. Second was that the once pronounced humming sounds that the halo had been emitting before were now little more than ear grating buzzing sounds that stopped and started again at short random time intervals. Thirdly was the halo itself looked like it was just about ready to fall apart now and the image it showed was flickering at a very rapid speed.
That was all the information he needed.
Mario didn't have time to consider what was going on, what had gone wrong or think through what the future repercussions of this would be. All Mario knew was that his Brother and the Princess had been sucked into that portal and that was all he needed to know.
He struck a very unique looking mid-air pose as he jumped straight into the portal, leaving whatever worries he had outside of it.
Just after he vanished from this world into the portal along with all of the others that had been pulled through it before him, the flickering image it hardly kept alive fully disappeared and the halo fell apart into tens of pieces onto the cold stone floor below. What was left of the wall of machines broke away from itself piece by piece, letting the blue liquid that it had once held in place spill out onto the floor. This left the laboratory no more than a completely destroyed mess, as a deafening silence overtook the once formidable fortress.
…
"Thanks to you, my dream of obtaining the Ryuukotsu is gone! But I won't let it end like that! I will at least have the pleasure of taking that 30,000,000 beri head of yours! Surrender now!"
Those words were what a man with a rather odd looking purple hair style and a simple light gray suit had chosen to use as a threat against a group of five people standing on the deck of a ship in front of him. He glared at each of them through his eyes, which were squinted so tightly that they looked to be shut.
He burned with an unmatchable hatred for them all since they stopped him from achieving his goal of acquiring immortality and was now sure as hell he was going to get revenge on them for what they had done.
The people in question were at a stand off with this man and would've started fighting him already but they were in the middle of some of the most ridiculously powerful currents they had ever come across and were in no position to fight anyone right now, as their ship could be easily capsized if things got out of hand.
The group just stared at the man since and had no idea on how to deal with him. If they fought him, they risked losing the ship and drowning. If they didn't fight him, he would surely kill the ship's captain for his bounty.
It looked like he had them all right where he wanted them.
...aaaaaa…
"Huh?" The purple haired man said to no one in particular.
He and the crew of the captured ship could barely make out what sounded like someone yelling over all the noise coming from the harsh waves which roughly splashed against their vessel.
...Aaaaah…
Yup. Someone was definitely yelling from somewhere nearby but nobody could see who it was or pinpoint where exactly the yell was coming from.
"Is this some kind of trick to distract me!? I wont hesitate to sink this whole ship right now if it is!"
Although he worded that sentence like a threat, the purple haired man said it more so to reassure himself that this wasn't some elaborate trap to divert his attention from the task at hand.
One of the ship's crew members, a man with three swords by his side, after a little bit of searching had managed to locate the source of the yell a little too late to do anything about it. He could only let his jaw hang open after he spotted a person in red and blue flying through the air towards their ship at a very high speed.
Particularly, he was heading straight for the ship's stowaway.
"AAAAAHHH-"-SLAM!-CRASH!
Before anyone could so much as blink, a small series of events happened in rapid succession of one another.
The purple hair man received a direct hit to the side of his torso from the red and blue person that the man with three swords had seen flying towards the ship. This sent the purple haired man and the red and blue person barreling all the way to the back handrail of the ship, where the purple haired man loudly yelped in pain after having something slam into his side very quickly and from out of nowhere.
Through his still squinted eyes, he looked down and recognized the thing that had just hit him was a small man. He was going to kill him he decided but first, he allowed himself to faint after he realized that whoever this was might have fractured a rib or two of his when he hit him.
Shortly after that, the person in red and blue stood up and looked quite dizzy after landing head first on the ship's resident hostage taker.
"Oh, mama mia." Were the first words that the second surprise guest the ship's crew had today said as he tried to steady himself against a handrail.
Once he succeeded in doing so, he blinked multiple times as he looked over the five people he noticed were standing before him.
The first person he saw was a man with some sort of smoking stick protruding out from his frowning mouth. He wore an all black suit with a matching tie and pair of dress shoes along with a blue and black stripped, button up, classic collar shirt underneath his suit's top. He had nose length, well kept blonde hair which covered up one of his eyes while his other eye made him look like he was startled and slightly angered by something. He also had an oddly curly eyebrow above his visible eye that was twitching slightly.
Next he saw a tanned man with puffy lips and a long nose sticking out from his face. He was wearing a simple pair of brown overalls with no shirt on underneath and a pair of green work boots. He had a large piece of white cloth tied around his waist and a purse of sorts hanging down from his right shoulder. On his right forearm he wore a long blue and white stripped wrist band. He had big, curly, black hair that was sticking out from underneath a green and black stripped bandana on his head, on which sat a set of odd looking goggles. This man was totally blown away by something, as could be figured out by the way he stood perfectly still with his mouth hanging limply open while a glass like glaze took over his eyes and sweat formed on his forehead.
The next person was the only woman present from who he could currently see. She wore a short, dull orange skirt with two dark orange circles stacked on top of each other on either side of the garment in a pattern. She had some very comfortable looking brown, fuzzy, ankle high boots on and a simple white t-shirt with blue hem and thick blue stripes placed in spots around its chest and upper arms. She had chin length bright orange hair and brown, large, cat-like eyes. Her face carried an expression pretty similar to the guy with the long noses.
Now he was looking at the most angry person here by far. He was wearing a pair of very dark, slightly baggy green pants and a matching color pair of boots. He had a black and lighter shade of green stripped waist band on as well. He wore an unbuttoned white polo shirt and had a piece of the same color cloth as his pants tied around his upper left arm. His hair was lime green and very short. His left ear had three, long, thin golden earrings hanging down from it by about an inch and a half. He also had three sheathed katana hanging from his waist. His face carried a little bit of surprised look to it like most of the other people present but he hid it well behind a wall of anger as he eyed this new intruder up and down. It almost looked like he was sizing the man up so he would be able to tear him apart at a moments notice.
Finally, the new man on board looked at the last member of the ship's crew. He was wearing a red sleeveless button up vest and a pair of blue jean shorts which he had wrapped upwards at the ends of both of the garment's legs. He wore a pair of wooden light brown sandals and he had a stitched scar under his left eye. He had spiky, unkempt, jet black hair sticking out from underneath a straw hat with a red band going around its base. This man was the only person present who wasn't surprised by the red and blue man who came from the sky. In fact, his expression was virtually impossible to read as he stood still with a masterful poker face covering up whatever he was thinking about.
Everyone on the ship just stared at the man and their now knocked out assailant behind him in silence as they waited for him to do something.
Most people on board twitched a little bit when the man looked to the left of himself, then back at all of them. He then looked to the right of himself and back at the crew once more. He blinked a couple of times and remained quite for a few more seconds before he waved, flashed a big grin and blurted out a greeting in a very carefree and cheerful voice.
"Hello!"
The man in the straw hat responded almost immediately by waving back with a large smile of his own.
"Hi there, I'm Luffy!"
"Don't just go around telling people who fell out of the sky who you are!"
The long nosed guy butted in with quite a bit of concern in his voice. The look on his face as he said that was very reminiscent of someone the new person kn-
"Luigi! Peach!"
With those words being said in a high pitched voice, the man became a flash of motion as he started to run around the deck, while looking off in all directions as if trying to find something. As this event played out, most of the previous tension started to disappear as the crew now looked at the man with varying levels of confusion.
Save for the man wearing the Straw Hat who suddenly made a dash for the front of the ship.
"Oi, were about to break through the clouds!"
Everyone had forgotten about what was happening right now thanks to all the ruckus that had just unfolded before them but they all remembered what was going on when Luffy called out, which everyone reacted to by joining Luffy at the front of the deck.
Everyone save for the man with three swords.
His eyes were still firmly locked on the man who only stood slightly above his own waist, he was not willing to let him out of his sight until he knew exactly what this guy was up to. Fortunately for him, the new guy ran to the front deck as well to see what everyone else was looking at. He followed a small distance behind the short man with a hand sitting on the topmost of his three swords hilts, prepared for anything that could happen.
"AWESOME! We're above the clouds!"
Indeed, Luffy wasn't lying with this statement.
The ship was in the process of going up a canal situated on a massive mountain's face at an impossibly steep angle. The water that surrounded the ship refused to listen to gravity and continuously flowed upwards towards the sky, which had an unanticipated yet enjoyable side-effect for all present.
To say the sight just ahead of them was breathtaking would be an understatement.
Thanks to the altitude the ship was at most of the stray water droplets that flew away from the summit of the mountain, after the stream they were sailing on collided with three other streams of water which also came up the Mountain's face, instantly froze in the sky above. This gave off the illusion that the air itself sparkled at the summit as the many small chunks of freshly frozen ice flew through the air with ease, while the sun gleamed down from above acting as a natural spotlight to the beauty below.
The crew were all amazed by this sight when an unfamiliar voice shouted from behind and tore them all back to reality.
"Whoa!"
It was a shame that they had to look away from the miracle of nature happening before them but all eyes were quickly back on the short man who fell from the sky not even five minutes ago.
"Hey, Mustache man!"
The short man looked up towards Luffy, who was currently sitting on the top of the figurehead which jutted out from the front of the ship. From his perspective, it looked like some sort of characterized ram.
"Who are you?"
The man flashed another big smile before twirling around in place, taking his red hat off his short brown hair and holding it in his right hand out from his side as he proudly declared loudly enough to be heard over the rapids-.
"It's-a-me, Mario!"
Before another word could be said, the ship had reached the summit of the mountain and because of the waves which all crashed into each other at its peak, the ship was thrown quite high into the air. Luffy still managed to yell out what he wanted to at Mario though, through a massive smile to boot.
"Yosh! Welcome on board Mario!"
Luffy broke into laughter as the ship continued to fly upwards into the sky.
It was here, high above the mountain of unbelievable waterways that for a small fraction of time, all of the crew's worries and fears were briefly forgotten as it felt like they were sailing out into the bright blue open sky which had always been just above, just slightly out of reach for their whole lives.
Regardless of how each person may have wished this small magical moment would never end, as the saying goes, "what goes up, must come down". Everyone started free falling through the sky for a moment before they all latched onto the nearest part of the ship they could reach and held onto it for their lives.
While everyone shared a scream together, the ship crashed back down onto the only stream of water that flowed down the mountain.
After the ship began its steep descent at the same speed it had climbed up to the sky, the crew all took a moment to reflect on their own personal goals they set for themselves in silent thought, forgetting about everything else that had happened today for the time being.
Everyone but Luffy that is, who shouted what was on his mind.
"This is it, the greatest ocean in the world, the Grand Line!"
He smiled from ear-to-ear as he looked over the vast body of water at the base of the mountain.
"And down there somewhere, down there is the legendary treasure- One Piece!"
Luffy threw his fists in the air and shouted two final words at the top of his lungs.
"WE'RE OFF!"
Mario had no idea where he was, where his friends were or who these people really were but somewhere deep inside of himself, he knew things would work out just fine by the time this was all over. For now though, he decided he just wanted to shout alongside Luffy.
"LET'S-A-GO!"