Chapter 2: Marioland

The portal formed into a giant tunnel, as the three siblings floated down the tunnel to a bright light at the end.

Angelo opened his eyes. His vision was a little blurry. He looked at the sky, which was clear but a few fluffy white clouds. He tried to focus his vision as he sat up to look at the landscape. He was sitting in a grass field. Around him were trees of oddly-rounded shapes of leaf bunches. He looked around more and saw his two siblings lying on the ground.

"Mikey! Grace!" he shouted as he ran toward them. He reached Mikey and tried to wake him up. "Mikey, wake up! What happened? Are you okay?" He stopped. He looked at Mikey. He looked different. He was more full of color, a little bit animated. His hair was in a bunch, no longer in individual strands. He opened his eyes, and they had a smooth texture. He looked straight at Angelo.

"Mikey?" Angelo looked worried as he spoke.

"Angelo? Your eyes are shinier than usual?" Mikey sat up. Grace also sat up. Her eyes fixated on something in the background. Angelo and Mikey just looked at each other.

"Why do you look so different?" asked Angelo.

"Why do you look so different!?" asked Mikey. He looked at his hands, which prompted Angelo to look at his hands. Angelo was in shock to see that he only had four fingers now!

"What is this?" he asked. "Where are we?"

"I think I know where we are," Grace finally spoke.

The two brothers looked at their sister. She was staring at a very tall building behind them. The three looked up. It was a castle. It had beautiful red roofs and a large moat. The styles of the windows made it seem old-fashioned, but the castle itself looked more modern. On the front was a mural of a princess holding a rose.

"That princess looks a lot like Peach!" Angelo said referring to the classic princess from the Super Mario Bros. series.

"Of course it does!" said Mikey. "It is her! We've landed in the Mushroom Kingdom!"

"How did we get here!?" exclaimed Grace.

Suddenly they heard a buzzing noise. They looked on the grass next to Grace. The strange device was flashing. Grace picked it up. On the screen it said, "Dimension 112 reached."

"Dimension 112 reached?" Grace said in confusion. "What does that mean?"

"Dimensions!?" Mikey's face lit up. "Ha! I told you two the multiverse theory was real!" He looked around again. "Although, I didn't expect this dimension to be like this."

Angelo's face lit up in excitement. "So we're in the Mario dimension!? Cool!" He ran toward the castle, and Grace followed. Mikey's face quickly turned from happy to worried.

"Wait you two! Don't go in there!" Mikey rushed after them.

Angelo and Grace reached the front door. They opened up to find the main hall, where around them were many toads all cheering for the princess, who was standing high on a balcony with Mario, Luigi, and one red toad.

"Thank you all for coming!" Princess Peach announces. "This will surely be the best birthday ever!"

"Birthday?" Grace questions. She whispers to Angelo, "Isn't this where she gets captured in the giant cake?"

Mikey rushes in and grabs his siblings' arms. "Okay, time to go!" he said while pulling them toward the door.

"Already?" said Angelo. "But Mikey, you love Mario! You're the pro in the family."

"That may be so, but we're in unfamiliar territory, and…"

"I would also like to welcome our special guests, Mario and Luigi!" She turns to them. "Thank you for coming heroes."

"You can count on us Princess!" assured Mario.

"Yeah, we wouldn't miss it!" said Luigi.

Suddenly, a toad came bursting through the doors. He pushed through the siblings and ran to the middle of the floor. "Princess, Princess!" he exclaimed. "There's a delivery to the castle! It's for you!"

"For me?" she replied in shock. "Bring it in!"

The toad waves at other toads who were outside with the delivery. They opened the front walls like sliding french doors. Princess Peach looked on in astonishment, as a giant cake was pushed into the castle.

"Uh oh, this doesn't look good," said Angelo.

"Which is why we gotta get outta here," said Mikey, as he started to pull them out again.

"But we gotta warn them before something happens!" said Grace.

"Yeah," agreed Angelo. "We could prevent the kidnapping from happening!"

Mikey looked at the cake, then at the princess. He wanted to protect his siblings from entering a fight they didn't need to battle, but he has always wanted to be in the world of the Mushroom Kingdom, and to meet the plumbers in person. He sighed.

"Excuse me Princess!" Mikey shouted.

The Princess looked at Mikey, as she was now level with him for she came downstairs to get a better look at the enormous cake in her royal hall. "Oh my, we have more guests to the castle!" She rushed over to the siblings. "What are your names?"

Mikey kneeled before Princess Peach. He signaled for Angelo and Grace to do the same, and they did. "My Lady," he spoke softly. "I am Mikey, and these are Angelo and Gracie, my dear siblings."

"Well I am pleased to meet you newcomers. I welcome you to the Mushroom Kingdom! What is your business here?"

"My liege," starts Grace. "We have come to warn you of intruders. They will be arriving in a giant cake as a disguise."

"You have to prepare yourself!" said Angelo.

Princess Peach looked at the cake in shock. "You mean this cake? But how could a cake this beautiful be bad?" She was about to continue on, but all of a sudden the cake started to shake. Everyone watched and stood back. The decorations on the cake started to move.

"Princess, you might wanna get down," warned Mikey.

At the top of the cake, a character jumped out of the decoration, only the decoration was his hair. It was Bowser Jr.! Everyone gasped in horror. "Haha!" he shouted. "Come out my brothers!"

All the other decorations turned into Koopalings as they jumped out of the cake. Everyone gasped again as they witnessed the faces of King Koopa's children.

"And sister!" Wendy added.

"Yeah whatever," said Bowser Jr. "It's time for the kidnapping! Capture Peach!"

Together, the Koopalings pick up the enormous cake and throw it on top of Princess Peach! It landed on her with a ground pound that pushed the crowd of toads and the siblings backward on their rears.

"Princess!" shouted Mario and Luigi.

The Koopalings gathered around the cake and picked it up with Peach inside. "Let's get outta here!" shouted Lemmy Koopa. The Koopalings ran off with the cake, and the Princess. The toads began to run around frantically. Mario and Luigi jumped over the banister, preparing to chase down the culprits. They ran to the toad that brought in the cake.

"Eddie!" Mario called him by his name. "Try to calm down the toadstools. We'll go retrieve the Princess!"

Eddie looked around. "Tony!" he called for another toad.

Another red toad came up behind him. "I'm right here!" he said.

"Tony, I need your help to help these guys!" He turned to Mario and Luigi. "We have a new lineup of power-ups that you guys might enjoy!"

"Oh yeah!" said Luigi. "Thank you so nice!"

A yellow toad named Jimmy and a blue toad named Jack ran up to the plumbers. Jimmy spoke Mario. "We'll help you on your adventure Mario! You'll need some extra help to figure out how the power-ups work!"

"Listen Jimmy," said Mario. "You and Jack need to stay here until you can calm the castle down. Then you can catch up with us." Mario and Luigi ran out the door after the airship. "Stop!" shouted Mario.

Eddie ran upstairs to the balcony with Tony. The toads were still panicking all over the place. Eddie grabbed a microphone and shouted to the toads. "Attention toadstools of the Mushroom Kingdom, there is no need to be alarmed. Our heroes, the Mario Brothers, are chasing down the Koopalings right now as we speak!"

As Eddie said this, the toads turned from panicking to cheering. They knew that Mario and Luigi would save the day. The three siblings stood outside watching this. Mikey turned to Angelo and Grace. "So is Eddie the head toad or something?"

"This is so cool! We get to save Princess Peach from Bowser!" said Grace.

"Oh no we don't!" said Mikey. "These are affairs we do not need to mess with! We need to leave now!"

"But Mikey," said Angelo. "It's always been your dream to enter the Mario video game and play it for reals."

"But I'm terrible at Mario though," said Grace.

"And dimension-traveling is different," added Mikey. " not like we just teleport into the game and Mario and Luigi won't remember anything when we leave. The multiverse is a real deal. We can have real life effects on this universe. It's best if we just leave it alone." He pulled out the device with the M.T.D. initials on it.

Grace looked at the device and thought. "Well, we did get that thing that took us here. Maybe we got it for a reason. Maybe we're supposed to be here."

"Yrah, maybe there's a specific purpose we have in this dimension," said Angelo.

Mikey looked at his two siblings with large eyes. He thought for a moment. "You two are as paranoid as I am… and I like it! But if we do this, you two need to be on your toes. It may seem like fun and games, but it's not. I don't want you two getting hurt, ya hear?"

Angelo and Grace nodded.

Meanwhile, Eddie and Tony were getting a cannon. They set it on the balcony. Tony brought up two presents. One had a picture of a propeller mushroom on it. The other had a picture of a penguin suit on it. Tony put the boxes into the cannon.

"These power-ups should help out the bros!" he said.

"Yep," said Eddie as he fired the cannon.

The three siblings heard the blast, and watched the boxes fly into the air and explode, sending the power-ups throughout the land.

"Okay, they blasted the propeller and penguin boxes," said Mikey.

"So what now?" asked Grace.

Just then, Jimmy and Jack bursted out the doors. They stopped when they saw the three siblings.

"Oh, hello there newcomers," said Jack. "Sorry to meet you on such odd circumstances. What are your names again?"

"Mikey," said Mikey. "And these are Angelo and Grace."

"Jimmy," said Yellow Toad.

"Jack," said Blue Toad. "Nice to meet you. Now we must get going if we want to catch up with the Mario Brothers!"

"We can come along with you and help!" said Angelo.

"Hmm, I don't know," said Jimmy. "Are you sure you three can handle the adventure? King Koopa is no joke. He's a pretty tough guy to beat!"

"I'm sure we can handle him," said Mikey.

"Alright, let's go!"

Mikey narrates, "So the three of us started our adventure to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser! It was definitely tougher than we thought it was gonna be, but it was about to be fun!"