One day there was a sword and the sword said "Hey Mario you have to go on an adventure" but Mario was stuck in a paiting behind another painting that another Mario that was Mario from the past so future Mario gave past Mario third degree burns so he would know it was past Mario but future Mario had a third degree black belt and so he couldn't have two third degree things so he instead got 4th degree burns to save his third degree spot. Unfortunately 4th degree burns caused Mario to turn into lava and, as all lava does, use his LAVA COMMUNION ability to commune with the painting and melt it, escaping it. Past Mario had escaped the painting, where the sword tried to dump a bunch of exposition on him but was immediately melted due to Mario being actual lava.
Past Mario (PM) had now escaped the painting but he knew that he would be in the other painting because he saw himself in the other painting with the Mustache demon that eventually infects all Marios. He had to get himself out of the painting but he could no longer be lava because plot reasons and besides the painting was made out of Science and Outer Space so he couldn't melt it anyway. His only source of exposition gone, Mario decided to try to bake a cake in hopes that it would give him answers.
The cake revealed that he was Mario from far in the future where he was a bee and then was eaten by a real gamer which ate the cake then the gamer died and his organic material decomposed and became the cake that Mario was eating. Mario explained that hidden in the castle was a time traveling device. Rather, he would have explained all of this if he was not, in fact, a cake, and was therefore incapable of speech.
Mario inherited this information by eating the cake but was suddenly accosted by Toad. Toad, as mario was aware, had been lost to the endless VR Zone months ago and had likely become scavenger food. However, Toad exposited that he had been visited by the Dark Orb, which had given him the offer of assimilation into the VR Zone or death by scavengers, creatures who seek out and consume matter originating from the Flesh world. However, the Dark Orb required sacrifice, and Mario's recently well cooked flesh was the perfect offering to appease the genocidal rage of the Dark Orb.
Toad, having given up his own flesh body in exchange for life in the VR Zone, caNNOT DIRECTLY INTERACT WITH the Flesh world without a host. So he possesses a painting which traps Mario, which Toad then uses the CLOWN BOX to time travel into the past with it, explaining how Future Mario got the to the painting in the first place. Too bad PM was worthless. Or was heeeeee...
Yeah he was.
Then Past Mario escapes to do all the stuff you just read about, leaving Future Mario to escape the Science and outer Space painting. Luckily, being touch ed by the VR Zone so recently allows Mario to use the pause button to exit the painting, making the escape a non-issue now that he's awake. Suddenly, Past Past Mario (the Mario before the Past Mario we saw) appears out of the CLOWN BOX, a mysterious time travel device adorned with the image of The Clown. It has no visible entrance or exit, only a hole out of which emerges a hand that you must shake to time travel. Some part of you leaves upon completing the transaction. PPM gives you a key, then travels back in time to become Past Mario.
On the Clown Box is this poem:
In the middle of the forest sits The Clown Box
Adorned with the image of a clown
With a wide lipped grin and a bright red nose
And eyes that seem to follow you around (Changed from: stare a thousand yards down)
There's a hole in The Clown Box where it's stomach should be
Teens dare people to stick their hands in
Despite the warning written in red on the ground
Silently screaming DON'T LET IT TOUCH YOUR SKIN!" (Added 'silently')
A teen stands in front of The Clown Box
His hands are shaking quite a bit
His friends dared him but he doesn't see them
They must all have run off again
A hand comes out of The Clown Box
Jeweled glove and saggy yellow, polka-dotted skin
It's holding something with its outstretched hand
And with a single finger beckons him
As he walks slowly towards The Clown Box
The thing the hand is holding falls down,
Too late, as he bends down, he sees the warning,
"Don't bend down; It's a trick!"
He's seized by the hand from The Clown Box
The clown juice covers his skin
He tries to scream, but the juice enters his mouth
Hardening, and encasing him both outside and in.
There's something new in The Clown Box today.
That's irrelevant to the current plot, whatever that is.