Ridley's leg twitched as he stirred awake. He was sprawled out on a bed that was too small for him, meaning that his wings and tail hung down onto the yellow tiled floor below. It occurred to him that he had never actually slept on a bed before. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time that he had fully slept at all. Normally he would just sleep with one brain while the other stayed awake so that he could always be aware of his surroundings at all times. It actually felt pretty good to be fully rested for once. Though it did take him a moment to remember why he was in a bed.
The floor creaked under Ridley's weight as he rose to his feet and walked down the stairs leading to the first floor of the house, where Luigi was preparing breakfast in the kitchen. The aroma of sizzling meat filled Ridley's nostrils and caused the space dragon to begin salivating as he made his way to the table where a plate had already been set for him.
"You're-a just in time." Luigi said, coming over with a frying pan filled with bacon and placed a few strips on Ridley's plate, alongside some sort of mushy yellow substance that Ridley couldn't identify at first. "Breakfast is-a served."
Ridley greedily devoured the food in front of him before Luigi even had a chance to sit down. He scratched the top of his head as waited impatiently at Luigi ate his own breakfast and felt there. It took him a second to remember the hat he had taken from the red-dressed man that he had taken the day before. It was the reason he was even here. Ridley considered taking the hat off and throwing it away but then decided against it. He still wasn't sure why people seemed to think that he was this "Mario" person but he felt that potentially ruining his cover by removing the red hat right now wouldn't be the best thing to do.
"So-a, Mario…" Luigi started to say once he finished eating. "What are your-a plans for the day?"
Ridley thought for a second. "I don't have any plans for today." It wasn't a lie.
"Well-a, I heard that-a Daisy was coming to visit at the-a castle today, so I was-s planning on stopping by the castle this-a morning to say-a hello. You can-a tag along if-a you want."
"Sure." Ridley hissed. "I might as well."
"Alright-y then," Luigi stood up and picked up his plate. "I'll-a go put away the dishes and-a get ready. Why don't-a you go feed Bow Wow?"
"Okay…" Ridley turned around and crawled over to the front door. He examined it for a moment before he figured out that he needed to turn the small metal knob in order to pull the wooden panel open. He felt that it was a highly rudimentary system but they probably hadn't invented automatic sliding door technology on this backwater planet yet.
Around the side of the house, Ridley found Bow Wow fast asleep. The big black orb-like creature looked like it hadn't even moved since he last saw it. Ridley stared at the big beast and smiled as he thought of something. It would be funny to see the green one's reaction if he ate his pet. Ridley opened his mouth wide and took a huge bite into the Chain Chop. He immediately regretted every decision that had led him up to this point.
Ridley backed away from Bow Wow, pain shooting through every inch of his mouth. The beast didn't just look like it was made out of metal, it actually was. In fact, it felt like it might be the hardest metal that Ridley had ever had the misfortune of ever seeing. Ridley didn't have to worry about the pain too long, however, because the bite had woken Bow Wow up. Before he even had time to react, Ridley found himself flying across the forest clearing as the Chain Chomp slammed into him with all of its power. He slammed into a tree, knocking it over before falling into a bush below.
"What was that?" Ridley screeched as he got back up again and slowly walked over to where Bow Wow was now eating from a large pile of dog food that had spilled out from the side of a broken storage shed kept just within the Chain Chomp's reach. "I've never seen anything hit like that before!"
He then heard a creak from the front door and turned to see Luigi stepping outside. "Okay, I-a think I'm-a ready now. Do you=a have anything that you-a need to do before we-a head out?"
Ridley glanced back at Bow Wow for a split second before answering. "No. No, I think I'm good."
"Then let's-a go, Mario!"
Luigi jumped off of the porch, gaining for more height than Ridley would have expected before landing beside him and walking towards the green pipe they had traveled through to get here the day before. Ridley still wasn't sure how the strange pipe actually worked and eyed it curiously as Luigi jumped onto it and was sucked inside. He wasn't sure if he should go in or not but decided that it had worked last time without any problems so he hopped on and found himself being pulled by some intangible force into the darkness inside.
Ridley emerged from the pipe back in the town they had passed through yesterday. Luigi was already heading down the road leading to the castle so Ridley jumped up and unfurled his wings to glide through the air, catching up to Luigi quickly. Some of the mushroom people that seemed to be the primary inhabitants of the town looked over at them, though no one seemed to react to Ridley with the level of horror and awe that he was used to striking upon all those who gazed upon him. It actually made Ridley a bit uncomfortable to have everyone look at him he was their friend or something like that.
It didn't take long for Ridley and Luigi to make their way back to the castle. The doors were opened by a pair of mushroom people as they approached and one of them eyed Ridley warily as they entered the castle. Ridley suspected that it was probably the same one who he had picked up when they had left the castle, though he couldn't be sure as he couldn't tell the mushroom people apart from each other. He smirked at the toad person evilly and reached around with his tail, spinning the helpless guard around.
Ridley held back a chuckle at the disoriented mushroom as he continued to follow Luigi into the castle. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed the simple things in life. Just messing with people. As he was thinking about that he failed to notice one of the doors along the hallway open up until he suddenly found himself being pulled inside by some invisible force. He slammed into the far wall and fell to the floor upside down as the door closed behind him and a tall woman in a light blue dressed walked out in front of him, arm raised.
The woman held some sort of stick with a star emblem on it that she pointed at Ridley as he had to turn himself over and climb back onto his feet. He prepared to fire a blast of plasma breath at his attacker but found that it wouldn't come out. He clawed at his throat as the woman swished the stick she held through the air and he was suddenly pushed back to the wall and held there by some invisible force.
"Who are you and what have you done with Mario?" The woman asked in a whispered shout.
"I'm the Mario, obviously." Ridley tried to play along with his cover.
"Why would you think that anyone would fall for such an obvious lie?" The woman said indignantly. "You don't even look anything like him and I know that you were with the space pirate ship that was in orbit around the planet just yesterday."
Ridley let out a sigh of relief, catching the woman off-guard. "It's about time someone noticed."
"What do you mean?" The woman lowered her pointy stick slightly.
"I mean, I came here wearing this stupid hat because I thought it would be funny and for some reason, everyone now seems to think that I'm this 'Mario' person. I was starting to think that I was the one who had gone crazy."
"What?" The woman narrowed her single visible eye. "But how would that be possible?"
"I know, right?" Ridley tried to shrug in a casual gesture, though it looked rather off. "You would think that the purple skin, wings and tail would give it away at the very least. I wasn't even pretending to be the Mario until everyone started mistaking me for him."
"You still haven't answered my question." The woman suddenly thrust her stick towards Ridley's throat, holding it there as if it were a knife. "Who are you and where is Mario?"
"They call me Ridley." Ridley responded. "My ship was passing through this galaxy on the run from a bounty hunter when we received a transmission from this planet sent by some turtle king, offering a significant reward to help him stop a princess he kidnapped from being rescued. I decided to take the job but while I killed the one you call Mario and claimed the reward, I secretly had my crew rescue the princess and return her here in exchange for even more treasure. As we were leaving I decided to come here with the Mario's hat to taunt the citizens with the death of their hero but when I arrived I had somehow shrunken down to this diminutive size and everyone thought that I was the Mario for some reason."
Ridley could see a look of horror pass through the woman's eye. It was a look that Ridley knew well and under normal circumstances would take pleasure in causing. It was a look of someone who had just lost hope.
"You're saying…" The woman's arm began to shake, causing the star-shaped end of her stick to start jabbing into Ridley's throat. "That Mario is… dead? How?"
"It was simple, really. I simply knocked him into a pool of lava. This hat is the only thing left of him." Ridley explained.
"How could you do that?" The woman asked in a mix of anguish and fury.
Ridley shrugged again. "The pay was good. It's not like I had any personal investment in anything happening on this backwater planet in the middle of nowhere."
"I should kill you right now." The woman gritted her teeth.
"But that wouldn't bring him back, would it?" Ridley smiled slyly. He could smell the woman's fear and knew that he was starting to get the upper hand in this confrontation.
Suddenly, the door opened and Rosalina immediately lowered her arm, releasing Ridley from the force holding him up. Luigi was standing in the doorway with a brown-haired princess in a yellow and orange dress.
"There-a you are, Mario." Luigi said. "I was-a wondering where-a you went. And hi, Rosalina. It thought I-a saw you here yesterday. What-a brings you-a here."
"I just came here to warn Princess Peach that I spotted a space pirate ship in the area," Rosalina said without turning around to face Luigi. "I was worried that they might cause some trouble here, but I guess I was mistaken since they've already left. Mario and I were just catching up. Isn't that right, Mario?"
"Huh?" Ridley was confused by Rosalina's sudden change in attitude but saw that she was glaring at him so he decided to adlib. "Right! Because it's been a while since we've seen each other and we've both had a number of new adventures since last time."
"By the way…" Rosalina added in a vaguely smug tone. "What exactly are you two doing here?"
Luigi and the brown-haired woman turned to each other in embarrassment. Ridley thought he saw their faces turn, which he didn't realize that humans could even do.
"We were, uh, just looking for a private place to chat." The woman said, turning back to Rosalina and Ridley.
"Yeah!" Luigi added a bit too quickly.
Before the conversation could turn any more awkward, the sound of an explosion sounded throughout the castle and the whole building shook for a moment. Luigi and the woman he was with both fell to the ground and Ridley only managed to stay up by steadying himself with his wings and tail. Rosalina didn't seem affected at all, causing Ridley to realize that she was actually hovering just above the ground, her feet just a couple centimeters above the floor.
"What-a was that?" Luigi wondered aloud.
"I don't know." Rosalina said. "But we should hurry to the throne room."