The sky was full of Koopa Cruisers landing onto the ground to drop off Koopa soldiers, but then Mario saw something huge in the sky.

It was a huge, brown, otherwise regular ship you would see in the sea, but it had propellers where there should've been sails, and on the side of it read "THUNDERSTORM" in big capital letters. Mario immediately knew what was going on.

Thunderstorm was one of Bowser's attack ships, and it was the oldest of them. It has been in use since the Great Mushroom War way before Koopas controlled the Mushroom Kingdom. It was built by Morton Koopa, Bowser's father and the previous ruler of Koopa Kingdom. Ever since the Koopas have had the Mushroom Kingdom under their control, it has been used for one specific purpose.

Leaving no survivors behind.

"Run", Mario said.

"What?" Captain Toad asked.

"RUN!" Mario yelled.

watch?v=uMtuiJwQPZM

Captain Toad started retreating, while shooting at the Koopa foot-soldiers chasing him.

Meanwhile Mario was surrounded by Koopas, who told him to drop off all of his weapons. Mario did drop his pistol to the ground, but he grabbed a Fire Flower from his belt, and thew fireballs at them.

Soon more Koopas saw that Mario was escaping, and they started chasing him. Soon Mario jumped trough the soldiers, and then threw more fireballs at them.

Then Mario saw that a cannon was rising from one of the Koopa Cruisers. As soon as the cannon shot one Bullet Bill, Mario dodged it.

Soon more Koopa Cruisers started shooting Mario. Mario dodged all of their bullets, but then Mario saw something weird happen.

The hangar doors of the Thunderstorm opened.

"Not more Koopa Cruisers...", Mario thought while throwing a fireball towards a Koopa soldier that ran towards him.

But no Cruisers came from the hangar. Instead, four liftarms descended from the hangar, holding four Banzai-class B1 XL bombs.

"Mario! Come here!" Captain Toad shouted from behind a rock.

Mario ran there, as the liftarms dropped the bombs to the ground.

BOOM

Even though Mario was too far to be killed by the blast, it slammed him towards the ground, and knocked him unconscious.

STOP MUSIC

"Mario, wake up", a strange voice said.

Mario slowly opened his eyes, when he saw something weird. He was in an endless void, with blue to every direction he saw. He couldn't believe what he saw, but he still saw it.

"Am I dead?" Mario yelled.

"No, you're not", the voice answered.

"Who are you?" Mario asked.

"We're the beginning, the end, light, darkness, life and death", the voice "answered".

"Show yourself!" Mario yelled.

"Everything will be revealed to you, but the time time is not yet ready, so wake up, Mario, wake up..." the voice said.

Mario was about to ask that how did the voice know his name, until his vision was slowly blurring into darkness.

The voice kept repeating 'wake up' over and over again, until Mario realized that it was repeated by a different voice, a familiar voice.

Peach's voice.

Mario slowly opend his eyes, as he saw that he was laying on a bed in the medbay of Grassland Outpost.

"Mario! Thank goodness you're alive!", Peach said while hugging him.

"Wh- What happened to the Power Star Temple?" Mario asked.

"It's destroyed. The Koopas bombed it", Captain Toad said, as he entered the room.

"We also sent Luigi and Commander Toadette on a very important mission", He added.

"What kind of mission?" Mario asked.

"Rumours have been spreading about two skilled bounty hunters who have killed armed Koopa Troopas and some of our men. We want to hire them", Captain Toad answered.

"You're gonna hire two criminals? That's ridiculous! Luigi and Toadette will end up being dead!" Mario ranted.

"Don't worry. I know who they are", Peach said.

"Trust me, they'll do everything to get Koopa killed", she added.

Meanwhile in a small pub in the middle of Toad Town:

"Who do you think those two assasins are?", A purple female Toad asked from Luigi.

The purple female Toad was Liutenant Toadette. She actually was a sergeant in the Royal Military Forces of the Mushroom Kingdom before the Koopa invasion, but was promoted to LT because of it.

"I don't know, Peach didn't exactly tell- wait!" Luigi was about to say, until he was interrupted by something he saw.

"Is that what I think that it is?", Luigi asked, as he approached a green, dinosaur-looking creature.

The creature ran into the back room, and Luigi followed him.

When Luigi entered the room, he looked around the room, even though it was really dark.

As soon as Luigi turned around, the green dinosaur slammed him towards the wall and took a knife out.

"You bastards weren't there to do anything when those other bastards nuked my place!"