Man. I just dug this thing up. This is, like, a year old now, isn't it? Guess it's time I continued it. Please leave a review if you read it. It's definitely the best way to encourage me to continue. Maybe the next update will only take half a year.
As a legal disclaimer, I would like to note that I own the copyright to Mario, Luigi, Toad, pentagrams (pending lawsuit against Id Software, the B-Horror genre, and all Wicca practitioners everywhere, ever), and fire.
Princess Peach Toadstool stirred slowly from her sleep, her head throbbing. She cracked her eyes open, and saw a few trees illuminated only by the flickering light of a nearby fire. She also felt something heavy clamped around her ankle. A quick, confused glance downwards revealed that her worst fears were confirmed. A chain manacle attached her leg to a nearby tree.
She also saw that she was lying in a camp with six red-shelled Koopa Paratroopas, but this barely registered as her memories of the battle at the castle came flooding back to her, the stone floors slippery with the blood of Koopas and Toads, one of her Toad guards screaming in agony as blood squirted out of the stump where his arm had been, and a moment later she was vomiting up on the ground.
"Hey, she's awake," one of the Koopas said.
Peach looked over in horror at the Koopa who had spoken. Over the past three years, the Koopas had become known as the most hated enemies of the Mushroom Kingdom, foul, ruthless savages who burned all in their path and feasted upon the remains of their enemies. They were the bogeymen her older brother had told her stories about.
For a moment, she felt hopeful. Her brother, the Mushroom King, would surely lead his armies to save her the moment he heard she'd been captured. He was probably on his way now. And after he'd finished saving her, he'd win the war against the Koopa Kingdom once and for all, and have Bowser and all his allies executed in the main square of Toad Town.
One of the Paratroopas got up and started walking towards her. She scrambling backwards on her hands and knees to get away, until the chain was pulled tight and she had nowhere else to go. The Paratroopa stopped a few feet away from her and knelt down, just looking at her.
"Boo," A voice from behind her said. Peach whipped around and saw another Paratroopa grinning at her from behind. She shrieked in fear and tried to back to the side, away from both the Koopas, but the one in front stepped on her chain, so that she couldn't move more than a foot or so away from him. Unarmed and helpless, she couldn't do anything except whisper "Please don't hurt me."
The Paratroopa reached down and grabbed her by the neck, stepping off her chain so he could lift her off her feet until they were at eye level with one another. Peach dangled from his hand, paralyzed with fear and her eyes beginning to tear up from sheer panic and trauma. Wordlessly, the Paratroopa threw her to the ground, then turned around and walked away. The second Paratroopa, the one that had been behind her, just grinned and started sharpening his hunting knife, staring at her. Peach stared back for a few minutes, defiantly, before the Paratroopa made a jabbing motion towards her with the knife. Peach screamed and jumped into the air a bit, and the Paratroopa chuckled before going back to his sharpening.
Several hours later, Peach was drifting into an uneasy sleep. As she slept, voices drifted into her half-conscious mind, mingling with her nightmares. "Don't you think you're laying it on a little thick, Matthew?" one of them said.
"We're supposed to be intimidating her," Matthew responded.
"We could do that just by glaring at her. You're just traumatizing her," the first Koopa said.
"What do I owe her?" Matthew asked, "If it weren't for her, we wouldn't be in this war!"
"She's been the reigning monarch for thirty six hours," the other Koopa said, "It's not like she could've called off the whole war in that amount of time."
"Especially given she likely hasn't even gotten word of her brother's death yet," a third Koopa said.
"She's a Toadstool," Matthew said, "They're all responsible for this war. They all bled our families half to death so they could buy a gold-plated swimming pool for their eleventh magnificent palace."
"If they had eleven palaces, we would've had 1.09 repeating Koopas to storm each one in search of the Princess," the third Koopa responded. "You may notice that we had a bit more than that figure."
"And you may notice that we came out of that Castle with five fewer Koopas than what we went into it with!" Matthew said.
The first Koopa began saying something, but then a fourth Koopa cut him off. "Quiet!" he said, "We all need sleep and one of the three of you isn't even on watch. So keep guard in silence or sleep."
On the outskirts of Toad Town, a pile of five Koopa Paratroopa corpses were burning as the dawn rose. Their wings turned to blackened bones and ash, their shells stripped to make armor for the Toadstool Army, and their flesh melted and charred. A putrid stench rose from the pile, the source of no small amount of discomfort for the Toads living just a few hundred feet from the pile, but none dared to raise complaint or protest against it, for though the Toad Chancellor and Toadsworth were technically next in line for the throne in Peach's absence, everyone knew that neither of them had the will to do the job. They were figureheads. Everyone knew where the real power lay, and that was in the hands of Toad.
Toad, meanwhile, was standing at the head of an emergency meeting of the Toad Retainers, in the Mushroom Castle's war room. A map of the country around Toad Town was sprawled out on the table. "As you know," Toad said, "The Princess Peach Toadstool was kidnapped several hours ago by Koopa rebels acting in the name of none other than King Bowser. No doubt, they will attempt to smuggle her out of the country and into the Koopa Kingdom immediately. We must intercept them and retrieve her before this happens, or else she may be lost to us forever. As Toad Retainers, it is our primary duty, oft overlooked, to keep the Princess safe."
All of the gathered Toads knew this wasn't true. In fact, some of them wondered why Toad didn't simply own up to the truth. He could easily dominate Peach into doing whatever he wanted. She wasn't at all like her brother, quiet but strong willed, or her father, stubborn as a bull. Toad wanted the Princess on the throne for two reasons. First, the Toad population would never rebel against a human ruler, even only a figurehead, because of the association between the vanishingly rare human race and Rosalina, the Celestial Mother. Second, Princess Peach would do whatever Toad wanted.
"We will each take a detachment of elite soldiers in the service of Her Majesty Peach Toadstool, and search the areas between Toad Town and the front lines. These will be soldiers trained specifically in the downing of Paratroopas. Are there any questions before I begin handing out assignments?" There was silence around the table. Everyone knew it was an assignment that was almost certain to get at least two or three of them captured or killed.
But one of them knew for certain that all seven of them would be seized, alive, leaving the Mushroom Kingdom in the hands of the weak willed Toad Chancellor and the militaristically inept Toadsworth. Then the Mushroom Kingdom would crumble, and the reward from the Koopa Kingdom would be great.
"Why do you smile?" Toad asked suddenly, "Surely you appreciate the gravity of the situation."
"I'm just glad," the betrayer said, "To be taking orders from you instead of Toadsworth or the Chancellor." Toad smiled and returned to the details of the briefing.
Princess Peach was awakened by the feeling of rough hands shoving a gag around her mouth. Her voice was muffled by the gag as she cried for help, the sound barely reaching twenty feet, and the countryside was deserted for miles. Her hands were forced behind her and tied together, and her feet tied as well. Then, one of the Paratroopas picked her up in his arms and, taking a running start, jumped up into the air, circling around to gain altitude while the other six jumped into the air as well, one by one.
They flew well away from Toad Town, heading deeper into Toadstool territory, before banking left to head back towards the frontlines, giving all settlements a wide berth. One of the Paratroopas carried Peach, with another wielding a bow in front and a third behind. The remaining four Paratroopas split into two teams of two, and scouted the territory around the main group to make sure they weren't surprised by Toadstool forces. The Paratroopas' night raid on Mushroom Castle may have been successful in the face of overwhelming odds, but that was in tight spaces with advantage of surprise. In a fair fight against any significant number of Toads, the Paratroopas would be quickly wiped out, so evasion was vital. Fortunately, the ability fly made evasion much easier.
Of course, the front lines, being lines, couldn't be avoided. Instead, at each line of troops, the Paratroopas would fly above cloud level, darting from one cloud to the next to try and stay out of sight as much as possible. At first, Peach tried to call for help to the Toadstool Army down below, but she quickly realized it was useless. The Paratroopas had gagged her for a reason. Besides, Peach was wearing only the nightdress she was kidnapped in, which meant she was soon shivering from cold when they flew high, and she was forced to concentrate on curling up as much as possible without slipping from the Paratroopas arms, to conserve heat.
Finally, a few hours after sunset, when Peach was drifting in and out of consciousness, waking form her sleep each time terrified that she might fall if she let herself drift off again, they arrived at Koopa lines. The Koopas flew high over the first line of Koopa forces, evidently considering them too close to the Toads on the other end of the battlefield to risk flying lower, but began their descent soon afterwords.
Around midnight, they touched down in the main army's camp, where units went to regroup and resupply before heading back to the forward attack bases on the front lines. Everyone in the camp began applauding as soon as they saw the Princess, who glared furiously back at them all. Her brother would show them all, soon enough.
In the distance, one of the Mushroom Kingdom's biggest castles loomed, meant to be the first and best line of defense should anything ever threaten Toad Town. Peach had heard that it had fallen just before her brother had left the Castle, telling her he'd take it back, beat the Koopas back to their own kingdom, and be back by the end of the year. He'd keep his promise, Peach was certain, even if he had to rescue her, as well.
The Paratroopa didn't put her down until he'd reached a small tent. It looked like the exact same kind of tent that the Goombas and Koopas slept in, just big enough to hold one of them, with enough space on the sides to stow their equipment. Since Peach was young and still fairly short, there was plenty of room to stretch after she was unceremoniously tossed in, but she curled up into a ball out of fear. No one bothered to untie her or remove her gag, and with her hands bound behind her back, she couldn't manage it herself.
Thinking that perhaps this had been an oversight, she eventually mustered up the courage to move over to the tent door. There, remembering that she must always do her best to act as regally as her station demanded, she stood up, wobbled uncertainly for a few moments as she struggled to keep her balance, and poked her head outside of the tent. One of the two Koopa guards posted outside immediately shoved her back in, without a word.
A while later, she simply started shouting unintelligibly through her gag, but after a few minutes of this, one of the guards stepped inside the tent and, jabbing his spear threateningly in her direction, said "Oi! Cut that out! Bowser said he wanted you alive, he never said he wanted you with all your fingers intact." Peach fell silent immediately.
Toad's scimitar carved effortlessly through a pair of Goombas. A split-second later, he'd already recovered balance and parried the sword aimed at his chest by a hapless Koopa Troopa. An instant later, Toad's scimitar slashed through the Koopa's throat. Another Koopa charged towards Toad and swung his sword, but Toad batted it effortlessly out of the way, jumped towards the Koopa and, planting one foot on the Koopa's chest for support, back flipped away, his sword darting out to split the Koopa's head in two as he landed.
The two remaining Koopas exchanged quick glances, and then began slowly edging away from Toad, who smirked and sprinted towards them, his feet barely touching the ground. The two Koopas raised their swords to defend themselves, but Toad leaped above them and decapitated both of them from behind just before landing. He was still for a moment while the two Koopas bodies went limp and collapsed, and then cleaned the blood from his sword.
Of his party of thirty elite Toads, only four remained, plus Toad himself. By Toad's rough estimate, forty Koopas and close to a hundred Goombas had been a part of the ambush. It was bothersome that Mushroom lines were now so porous that such large contigents could slip through. If every retainer had been ambushed by a force of similar size, then sneaking a force large enough to seize the capital behind the backs of the Mushroom Army wasn't inconceivable. Of course, if Bowser was wise, he'd sent a far greater force after Toad than after the others.
Toad smirked as he looked out at the aftermath. If Bowser hadn't sent a larger force after Toad, he'd probably be wishing he had very soon. And if he had sent a larger force, well, it still wasn't large enough. "Which of you is highest rank?" Toad asked the survivors.
"I am, sir, Sergeant Jason," one of the other Toads said.
"Alright, Sergeant Jason, take the others back to Mushroom Castle and escort the Chancellor to Devils' Hold. I'll meet you there," Toad said.
"We're not going to try and rescue the Princess?" Jason asked.
"No," Toad said, "If they found my location, they'll have found the other six retainers' as well. An ambush half this size could've seized them, particularly since one of them must've sold us out for the ambushes to happen at all. We don't have much chance of catching her by now, anyway. There's been more than enough time for the Koopas to get her back behind their lines."
"So...What now?" Sergeant Jason asked, "Is the war...It's not over, is it? We haven't lost?"
"Of course not!" Toad barked, causing Jason to flinch. "But they don't call it Devil's Hold for nothing. It's time to play my trump card."
"Lord Bowser," a Koopa messenger said, interrupting Bowser's thoughts in the now-empty war room.
"What is it?" Bowser asked.
"We've captured Princess Toadstool!" the messenger said, a wide grin on his face, "She's just outside the castle, they're ready to bring her to you at any time!"
"Good...Bring her immediately," Bowser said. He dared not be too hopeful. He knew almost nothing of this Princess, and if she would not negotiate a surrender, then the Mushroom people could go on fighting until the bitter end.
Toad tested a few of the stones at the end of the corridor deep below Devils' Hold until he found what he was looking for. A loose stone. Removing it caused the wall to slide open, revealing a secret stairway leading still deeper beneath the Earth. "Come," Toad said to the Chancellor, who was illuminated only by torch light, "The war will turn our way down below."
"What news from our man on the inside?" Bowser asked as his Magikoops spymaster entered the chamber. The princess was waiting just outside the war room, but Bowser didn't plan to meet with her until Peter had briefed him fully on her capture.
"Nothing yet," the spymaster said, "It'll likely be several more hours before we'll know if the retainers were captured, or whose side our man is really on." Bowser nodded without saying anything more. Nothing needed to be said. They both knew that the only real question was whether Toad had been captured or, failing that, killed. He was now the key to the entire war.
"Toad, do you really think there exists any weapon that can save us now?" the Chancellor asked as they stepped into a large room that somehow seemed sinister in its emptiness. "The rebels have us outnumbered many times over by now, and the battle for Toad Town will be lost by sunrise. It will be a matter of weeks, possibly days, before our remaining strongholds fall. What could possibly-"
"Silence," Toad said, "You have no idea the capabilities of this weapon. Just one is the match for entire armies."
The Chancellor was silent for a moment. "How...How many are there?" he asked, finally.
"Four," Toad said, "But there's no need to risk using all of them."
"Apologies for my tardiness, Lord Bowser," Peter said as he entered the room, still coated in dust and dirt from the front lines, "And for my appearance. The report to Commander Joseph took longer than expected."
"I understand," Bowser said, "Now before I meet with the Princess Toadstool to discuss our the surrender of the Mushroom Kingdom, I need your report on her treatment en route. Did everything go as planned?"
Peter hesitated a moment. "I believe some of the Koopas involved may have been a bit...Over-eager, Lord Bowser. If the goal was to make her fear an uncomfortable or undignified captivity, then I believe we've failed. Her captivity is already uncomfortable and undignified."
"Unfortunate," Bowser said, "But perhaps we can still end this war."
"If this weapon really can turn the tide," the Chancellor said, "Then why haven't you retrieved it earlier?"
"The weapon can be quite devastating to both sides if used improperly," Toad said, not looking up from the circle he was drawing on the floor. In the dim light, the Chancellor couldn't quite make out what color the circle was being drawn in, but it was dark, and the Chancellor couldn't avoid the unsettling feeling that it might dark red.
"Some kind of...Bomb, then?" Asked the Chancellor, "Or a disease?"
"No. Far more ancient than any weapon forged by Toads. Far more powerful than any disease," Toad said, beginning to draw lines through the circle. The Chancellor was fairly certain he knew what symbol Toad was drawing now.
"Princess Peach Toadstool," Bowser said, "I have summoned you to negotiate the surrender of the Mushroom Kingdom." She was a pitiable sight, and Bowser found himself struggling to maintain an intimidating tone. None of the nations in Bowser's alliance had any clothing for Humans, of course. They all had varying stories of the creation of the universe, the Goombas believed the world had been hatched from an egg from a cosmic Yoshi, the Underwater Kingdom believed the world to have been shaped from clay by a Blooper, and the Koopas believed the world had arisen from molten primordia by the will of the Great Koopa, but none believed in the Celestial Mother and the curious deification of mortal Humans practiced by the Mushroom Kingdom.
The upshot of all this being that none of them had anything to offer to Princess Peach to replace her nightdress, already growing dirty and ragged. Her feet were bandaged, likely as a result from having been forced to march across the plains without any shoes for her oddly shaped feet. The same dust that covered Peter clung to her as well, all but for where the tears had cut through them. When she had first entered, Bowser had whispered to Peter, asking if anything in particular had brought her to tears. Peter had responded by telling Bowser that he'd never seen her crying, so he had no idea.
If she'd been something reptilian, Bowser would probably have been unable to maintain his composure. As it was, he was able to keep his compassion in check. Compassion was only a good quality in peacetime leaders. Perhaps by tonight, the war would be over and he'd have a chance to her on behalf of his army for their mistreatment of her, just before leaving her in the Mushroom Castle and returning home.
Peach was apparently not planning on breaking the silence. "In return for your surrender," Bowser said, "We will return to you much of your original territory and release all prisoners of war. In exchange, your nation will demilitarize under the direction of representatives of the Goomba Senate, the Underwater King, and myself. This is to ensure you do not resume aggression against your seceded vassals." There was another minute of silence. "Well?" Bowser asked finally.
"I refuse, of course," Peach said.
The symbol was complete. A pentagram lay on the floor, writ in blood. At each point, there lay a symbol, but the Chancellor could recognize only the one at the top, the symbol of Rosaline. "Toad, why would you profane the symbol of the Celestial Mother by attaching it to a pentagram?" the Chancellor demanded.
"You know nothing of the Mother," Toad said, "She is both divine and profane, both celestial and infernal, a coin with two sides and more, a paradox beyond your comprehension."
"What? Toad, what are you talking about? What is this...This perversion of Rosaline you've created?"
"Created?" Toad asked, and laughed. "You think I created all of this? This is the true nature of Rosaline. It was weak-hearted fools like you who created the modern image of Rosaline, that flat, one-dimensional disgrace to her unfathomable nature!"
"Is that what this is all about, Toad?" the Chancellor asked, "Has all of your scheming these years past been building up to a ressurection of this...This cult ?"
"Chancellor," Toad said, his tone somehow mocking and humble at the same time, "I have only ever been a servant of the descendants of the Paradoxical Mother and their great Mushroom Kingdom. Far be it from me to dictate to the great Toadstool monarchs what religion they shall dictate to their followers. If the Toadstool line wishes to propagate the myth of the Celestial Mother, I shall not stop them."
"Your armies are broken, princess," Bowser said, "My forces have already defeated yours outside Toad Town and are occupying the Mushroom Castle as we speak. If you continue this war, you will only see the destruction of your remnant forces, and your kingdom put to the torch!"
"You're lying!" Peach said, "My brother will have you beaten by winter, and if you're wise you'll surrender to him. Maybe if you return me to the castle right now, he won't have you executed for treason."
Bowser sighed. "Your brother is dead," he said, "He was a worthy adversary, but he is not the ruling monarch of the Mushroom Kingdom any longer. You are."
"That isn't true! You're lying!" Peach said again.
"Do I have to bring you his corpse?" Bowser asked, "I assure you it is not a pleasant sight. War wounds rarely are." Peach was silent. "Your brother is not coming for you," Bowser said.
"Toad will come," Peach said, her voice cracking, "And he'll be even worse. For you."
"Not even you believe he is coming for you," Bowser said. "Not without the backing of an army, and the Mushroom Kingdom no longer has an army."
"This is all your fault!" Peach said, "This is why descendants of the Celestial Mother are supposed to be on the throne instead of reptiles like you! I'll never surrender the Mushroom Kingdom to you!"
"Toad...What is the purpose of all this?" the Chancellor pleaded. "What are you doing, really? What do you want?"
"Oh, that's simple," Toad said, stepping onto one of the symbols written at the end of the pentagram's points. "You and Toadsworth always chase after divine mandates and ancient prophecies." Toad pulled out a ritual dagger and cut his wrist, letting the blood slide down his fingers and drip onto the symbol below him.
"If you do not surrender your kingdom, it will be burned to the ground by the fires of war!" Bowser roared. His sympathy for the princess was beginning to slip as he thought of his own burned kingdom. How the great fires of his homeland had raged out of control for the first time in over a century.
"If I do surrender my kingdom, you will burn it anyway!" Peach shouted back, "At least this way we can take a few more of you down with us! At least this way, the honor of the Toadstool line won't die with me!" Her voice cracked again on the last word. She was choking back tears, doing her best to look defiant, but all three of the Koopas watching could see the terror hiding just below.
"The past two kings have gone on about stability and prosperity and unrest in the vassal states." Somehow, the blood dripping from Toad's fingers fell perfectly within the blood already written on the ground, the symbol preserved, perfect, precise.
"Princess, do you want a warm bed to sleep in tonight? And some good food to eat?" Bowser asked. If she was going to act as a child, and an indoctrinated child at that, he could work with that. "If you do not surrender your kingdom, you will live out the rest of your short life in a cell, eating gruel and drinking water, until the day the last remnant of your kingdom falls, and then you will be executed for the unforgivable crime of prolonging this war, to the cost of thousands of lives! On both sides!"
Peach opened her mouth to speak, and hesitated. She moved her mouth wordlessly, searching for the words, and then gave up. Sighing, Bowser slid the surrender terms towards her, along with the royal seal of the Toadstool line, recovered from the corpse of her brother. A small pot of melted wax above a candle had been fitted to the seal by the Koopas. "Mark this with your seal, Princess, and you can go home to your palace and your kingdom."
Numbly, Peach poured a bit of the melted wax onto the document, then reached for the seal and picked it up. The seal was made of white jade, which had been chipped in three places some time ago when one of the Mushroom Queens of centuries past had used it to ward off a traitorous retainer's thugs. Where it had been chipped, it had been repaired with gold. Peach ran her fingers across the seal, feeling the subtle change in temperature and texture as her fingers brushed past jade, then gold, and then jade again.
"But me? I don't have any duty delivered to me from ten thousand years past, or ambitions of prosperity that will continue ten thousand years hence." The symbold wasn't glowing, as the Chancellor had expected it to be. But he could feel the power building up in the symbol, spreading through the whole of the pentagram. Slowly inching towards Rosaline's symbol. The thought of what would happen once it arrived filled him with dread.
Only the reigning monarch of the Mushroom Kingdom was supposed to touch this, but after their father's death, her brother had let her hold it. It had always struck her as being very beautiful, and she'd asked her father if she could have one like it made for her. He'd given her an angry look and told her never to ask again. When her brother had let her hold it, the day of their father's funeral, he'd told her why it was so important that there be only one seal. It was a symbol of Rosaline's divine mandate, he'd said. Hanging around the monarchs neck as a constant reminder of his duty to the Celestial Mother. A duty that their father had died for. A duty her brother had died for.
"No," Peach said, setting the seal down and blinking back tears. She refused to cry in front of her enemies. "No, I won't betray my family's honor, and I won't betray the mandate of the Celestial Mother! I was born a Toadstool, and I will die a Toadstool!"
"All I want is absolute control over the entire world until the day I die. Not so much to ask compared to your millenial dreams, is it, Chancellor?" Toad smiled wide, the twisted power having nearly reached Rosaline's symbol. The Chancellor searched desperately for something to say, some way to convince Toad of his own madness and to turn him back, but there were no words for it. There were never words to argue with Toad.
"Fine, then! After your kingdom has burned, you can take your bigotry with you to your grave!" Bowser shouted before ordering his guards to take her away to the fortress' dungeons.
"Don't touch me!" Peach shouted as one of the guards grabbed her arm, trying unsuccessfully to pull away. The other arm grabbed her by the opposite arm and the two of them began to drag her away. She struggled against them as they dragged her out of the war room, ignoring her protests. "Rosaline," she shouted desperately to the heavens, "If there was ever a time we needed you, it is now! Please, send me a savior!"
Fire shot up from the pentagram, a huge pillar that stretched to the ceiling. It was a deep, unnatural shade of red, and yet also too bright to look at. Toad leaped back, his skin red and blistered from the intense heat. The Chancellor backed away as well, his own skin slowly reddening from the heat even from this great distance. Somehow, he knew, knew that from some dark corner of the universe, a demon was coming, the lord of fire and blood.
Suddenly, the fire ceased, leaving only flaming trails along the lines of the pentagram and the symbols that surrounded it. Kneeling in the center was a Human man dressed in red armor of an otherworldly glint. It was almost like the armor of rigid metal plates worn by Human warriors of the Toadstool and Sarasa bloodlines, except for the strange material it was forged from, and the joints. The armor the Chancellor was familiar with used a mesh of metal links beneath the rigid plates, in order to protect the joints the plates could not cover. If there was chainmail beneath the plates on this demon's armor, the Chancellor couldn't see it. The joints were covered by an intricate series of thin, inter-locking plates, like the coils of a snake.
"What...What in the name of the Celestial Mother is that?" the Chancellor stammered.
The demon raised its head, his features obscured by the lowered visor of the helm he wore, a narrow gap between the plate covering his face and the helm covering the rest of his head served as the only way to look out...Or in. In the darkness of the underground chamber, the Chancellor could only make out a pair of fiery, smoldering eyes. He wasn't sure what was under that armor, but though it walked like a Human, he was certain it must be more horrible than the Great Koopa itself.
The demon spoke, his voice low and savage. "It's-a me. Mario."