Updated 09-04-2019. A hint of action and the start of the plot in a matter of speaking. I hope you enjoy :) Thanks to Stardown for proofreading.

Note: I'm aware it is called the "Underwhere" and the "Overthere," and it's even been like that before I re-wrote it, but I feel it's too silly/stupid. Underworld is good enough for me.

Chapter 2: One With the Shadows

When Mario awoke, the pain told him that he had been beaten up again. It didn't matter how many adventures would start with him, he almost always lost the opening fight.

But this time was different; his pain seemed too trivial for that. It had been a long time since he got off with such light bruises.

Coughing slightly, he opened his eyes and looked around. He found himself leaning against a creaky wooden wall, yet he only felt mild discomfort. He wasn't sure if it was the numbness he felt that mitigated the feeling, or simply all his years of sleeping in unlikely places that had him accustomed to it.

His vision was blurry, but he could make out the darkness of the night. He shook his head, hoping to clear his vision.

"Anybody got the number of that truck?" Mario moaned. He clutched his head and tried to stand up. It was far easier than he expected it to be. Leaning against the wall, he rubbed his eyes, trying to figure out where he ended up.

"Ugh, is this the Underworld? Can't I even catch a break when I meet one of my friends?" Mario lamented, slipping down against the wall into a sitting position. It seemed that he ended up in some rundown old shack with no door. It looked somewhat familiar with its missing door and hole where the ceiling was supposed to be. Whatever the case, he was sure he wasn't in the Agaricana region anymore.

"Hmm, I guess not quite Underworld…" Mario reasoned. "But where did Luigi and Vivian end up?" He looked around, but there was no sign of either of them being there.

Out of the hole in the ceiling, the dark, depressing, and gloomy purple-magenta sky peered into the lifeless shack. The moon hovered ominously in the center of it. The more he stared at it, the more it felt like it was getting closer. It became apparent to Mario that he had been flung to Twilight Trail. He had no idea whether it was intentional by Fawful or complete coincidence.

"Cavolo! All the way here?" Mario scratched his head. "That annoying green nerd just refuses to give up..." He let out a deep sigh, dusting off his clothes. Maybe she went back home? Mario thought, hoping to just find her at her house in Twilight Town. That was when he heard numerous synchronized footsteps that seemed to draw near. "Looks like he's still as meticulous as ever..."

Mario wanted nothing more than to vent his frustration and confusion through his fists, but he fought his instinct and crept closer to where the door was supposed to be. He silently poked his head out to take a look at what the source of the noise was. Lo and behold, as they slipped into view — an entire squadron of Fawful Guys that must have numbered in the hundreds. Their bright orange robes were as laughable as ever, as were their silly Fawful masks. Mario couldn't ever take them seriously because of such inappropriate caricature. Some of them were carrying umbrellas, whilst the others were wearing a weird-looking wristband with one red button on top. Their imposing numbers scared off the scattered Hyper Goombas and their various variants.

"Why send me here? What is he up to this time?" Mario pondered, rubbing his chin. "Well, if they are here to welcome me, then I might as well greet them with open arms." Mario's face twisted into a smug smile, and he cracked his knuckles. He figured that if he left them be, then the citizens of Twilight Town would surely suffer for it. He might as well clean up while he was present.

The red-clad warrior stood up and stretched his arms before lifting his right one in front of him. He gave it a scrutinizing look and clenched his fist, engulfing it within a brilliant red flame. Still in working order… Good.

Mario leaned against the wall, observing his prey. He waited for them to get closer before he pounced like an angry crow taking flight.

Three, two, one…

Without warning, Mario leaped through the hole in the ceiling, pushing himself in a wide arc. The Fawful Guys looked up, pointing. Mario landed right in between them.

There was a quiet moment as the goons turned in surprise. Mario crouched amongst them, his right arm exploding in a blaze of brillant prominence.

Then he slammed the ground with a yell. A violent inferno erupted as he pushed the flames against the floor. The burst of the Sun God's power hurled them away, tossing dozen of the faceless creeps into the air, sending them crashing into their companions and various rock structures. The impacts whipped up an impregnable cloud of dust that obscured the area even further.

The settling dust left a gaping crater in its wake, with Mario right in the middle, his fist pushing brutally against his enemy's now-leaking stomach. This brand of Shy Guys were sentient no more after being brain-jacked by Fawful, so Mario didn't feel guilty going above and beyond in making sure they stay dead. To him, it was a form of mercy, for he wouldn't know if they still lived past the veil, unable to do anything about their fates.

Mario stood up and flicked his hand, scattering the pungent orange blood off of it. He then proceeded to crack his knuckles, followed by his neck.

"Bring it on, sfigati!" Mario taunted, moving his index and middle fingers towards himself before assuming his fighting stance.

The orange soldiers converged on him immediately. Mario kicked the body at his feet onto the incoming crowd before flipping backwards, pushing violently on the head of another one that charged him from behind. The impact of Mario's weight caused him to dig down up to his neck.

The crowd kept coming despite what Mario was throwing their way. It seemed like they didn't care for what was happening to the lot of them, nor did they display any fear of Mario. They thrust their parasols at him, causing him to drop to a crouch, sweeping his right leg around and knocking them off balance. Mario then continued into a handspring and kicked one of the parasols of a Fawful Guy's hands.

With the parasol flying about, Mario leaped up high after it and grabbed it. Such a magnificent display of acrobatics was definitely worthy of the title 'Jumpman', even though Luigi could achieve more spectacular results. The parasol allowed him to slowly float down, giving him a perfect position to start raining a torrent of fireballs.

No wonder Peach loves doing this. Mario's face beamed with a satisfied smile. It was as fun as ever, kicking the living lights out of things and protecting those who could not protect themselves.

Seeing how they couldn't reach him from that high, many of the Fawful guys pressed the button on their wristbands. Several Yoob-like tongues ripped through the scene from what resembled purple-black holes. They started swallowing a great number of the orange-robed minions, mostly the corpses that were already dead, but even those that still scattered around.

Their numbers wavered at an alarming rate. Only a scant few were left to take the brunt of Mario's fiery rain of destruction.

The black holes reopened once more, and a barrage of eggs was launched at Mario. The first one hit him square in the face.

Mannaggia! I forgot about those things. Mario wiped the remains of the eggshell from his face and closed down his parasol to drop down, dodging the other incoming projectiles. Fist first, he lit on fire and smashed into two soldiers directly beneath him, violently severing their charred up bodies.

The eggs continued to fire at him at a rapid-fire pace, giving him an ample opportunity to display his acrobatics, as well as his other sports skills. He batted the eggs with the parasol, halted some of them with his knee before promptly kicking it back or simply avoided it by gracefully sidestepping at the last second. The rush of adrenaline only made the experience more enjoyable to him. This wasn't dangerous at all. He had a right to enjoy himself a bit after having his reunion ruined.

Mario made sure to lob the eggs and whatever Fawful Guys that bumped into him back into the holes, hoping to clog them up. It did seem to do work as the number of the minions left was all but dwindling. The shattered remains of their bodies made sure they weren't being able to reuse them as bullets.

The scattered remains of the squadron assembled as the rest of them were spat out of the portals. They all stood in front of Mario, motionless. Curiously, Mario noticed a few small particles of sorts that were converging around him.

"What? Is that all?" Mario shook his head in disappointment and shrugged. "I don't know what I was expecting from guys in pajamas with parasols. Fine then! Let's finish this!"

Inhaling deeply, Mario stretched his fingers, pulling his arms to the right, and to the left. A brilliant blaze started to form around the entirety of them. The flames twisted and coiled around each appendage, taking the vague shape of a serpentine dragon that howled menacingly.

The Fawful Guys stood still, the smile imprinted on their faces betraying the situation they were in. If one didn't know any better, they'd think that they were reveling in the fireworks. Either that or it was exactly what they were expected to do. Perhaps they had served whatever purpose they hoped to achieve

Mario charged forward, veering to the right to quickly kick a stray Guy back with the group. As he approached their position, Mario gripped his right arm tightly by the wrist and the fire serpents joined together.

His right arm was no longer visible due to the scorch that engulfed it. Mario was prepared to unleash one of his stronger attacks. He drew his arm further back and shot it forward, unleashing the beast.

"Fuoco Arden—!" Mario? As he announced his attack, Mario suddenly heard the voice of Vivian. At that moment, shadow blades jutted from his femur and cleaved downwards, all the way to his feet, revealing his bones. A jet of viscous black blood burst from his body, coiling around the revealed bones and coiling around them. It twisted and turned as a grim melody of snapping bones and tearing flesh sung to it. The molten bones joined together into a single shadow tendril, replacing his legs. It was mostly painless. Mario wasn't sure if it was his adrenaline, or that it really didn't hurt. Unfamiliar with his new and sudden appendage, Mario lost his balance and fell forward towards his own attack.

Fortunately for Mario, the beam of disintegration still hit its mark and his own flames didn't cause any real harm to him. The impact of the blast did send him flying thirty feet into the air, plummeting headlong into the abandoned shack, finally turning it into a pile of wooden debris.

The dust settled a few second later. The floor was scattered with corpses, their twisted limbs bathing in the moonlight. There were only a few patches of floor that weren't covered in sticky orange blood. The scent of fresh blood and charred remains, the scent of death.

"I guess I got a little too carried away," Mario muttered to himself, crawling close to the shattered remains of the wall to sit against. "What the hell what that, though?" He paused, examining and getting a feel for his legs which apparently had reverted to normal.

"I could have sworn that they joined together…" Mario grabbed his legs. He poked them at various points, trying to get some sort of reaction. Despite his prodding, they were as normal as they ever were.

Mario stood up, starting to wonder if he imagined what happened. He soon took note of the scattered pieces of the rotted wood from the shack. "I hope the owner of this shack won't hold it against me…"

"It is abandoned, Mario! Nobody owns it." Mario heard Vivian's voice through his head. His legs immediately joined together. The sudden nature of it caused him to face plant with a thud.

"Mario! Are you alright?" Vivian asked, mortified at the sound of the impact. It seemed that she couldn't tell what was going on from Mario's side.

"I've had better days…" Mario said through his teeth, his face still on the floor. "I'm having technical difficulties with my legs."

"Your legs?" Vivian sounded confused. She wasn't sure what to expect. "What's wrong with them?"

Mario lifted himself up with his hands and brought himself into a sitting position, giving him a better view of his malfunctioning appendages, or at least what was left of them. They had turned into a shadowy spiral tail that was a reddish shade of purple in color. It connected to the ground, similar to how it was with Vivian.

"Well, for starters, it's only one now so I think I can hazard a guess as to what happened," Mario said almost nonchalantly, further confusing Vivian. "More importantly, where are you, Vivian?" Mario looked around, trying to discern where the voice was coming from. "Are you hiding in the shadows?"

"I-I'm not sure… This doesn't look like anything I ever saw before," Vivian trailed off. "It feels serene and inviting somehow."

"Any signs of Luigi wherev—" "Eeep!" Mario stopped as Vivian suddenly screamed. Mario immediately jumped on his feet, or rather, his shadow tail. He struggled to keep himself balanced as if he was walking on a tightrope. The irony wasn't lost to him since he was very good at it. He then settled for just leaning against the crumbling wooden wall instead of further struggling with it.

"What's going on?" he asked, somewhat confused.

"I, um," Vivian stammered; Mario imagined she would be tugging on her lower lip like she always did when nervous. "When you mentioned Luigi, an image of him popped out of nowhere. That's what startled me."

"An image?" Mario's face contorted slightly in concentration. "Sounds like the time I was in the Dream World." Mario's thoughts shifted to Luigi's Dream World version.

"Eeep! It happened again!" Vivian screamed again.

"Well, I think that explains it…" Mario let out a faint sigh, having figured out what happened. It certainly was different than usual, if nothing else. After all, Vivian had been covering him when the beam hit them. Not to mention that it still wasn't any stranger than any of Mario's other adventures.

"Explains what exactly?"

"Explains the weird particles that swarmed around me as I beat the Fawful Guys, and explains why my legs turned into something similar to your tail," Mario replied, taking another look at the ever swirly shadowy appendage. "That in turn means that we must have been joined together when that beam hit us."

"I think you're right… I'm seeing a bunch of other people…" Vivian whispered, slightly intimidated by the number of people that were popping through Mario's head. "What about Luigi, though?" Vivian voiced her concern. She knew how capable Luigi was from the stories of his brother, but something similar could have happened to him after getting flung across the kingdom.

"We'll have to find him eventually. For now, we need to figure out what to do. A pipe home isn't far away from our current position. Maybe we should go back and check for clues."

"I was thinking that maybe we should go and see Beldam, if that's not much trouble. She might know something about this," Vivian suggested. If anyone were to know anything about the shadows, Beldam would be their best bet. The unpleasant old hag promised to be helpful, if not a complete pain to deal with.

"That's a fine idea; I don't see why not. I just hope she will be cooperative and not bitter about last time…" Mario trailed off. "By the way, how do you walk with this thing?"

"That's … gonna be a little hard to explain…" Vivian whispered, slightly disappointed.

"I really have had better days…"

NormanWhitesmith: I'm glad you liked it and thank you for the compliment. I'll keep doing my best.

I hope you enjoyed it. See you next time and thanks for reading : D