Looking through the remains of the escalator he'd blown up, Waluigi noticed that the shiny thing he'd seen was no longer floating up high, but was now laying on the ground. It must've been knocked off in the explosion! Hehe, the master plan worked!

Racing to the shiny thing, Waluigi saw that it wasn't a coin after all.

It was a mushroom. With a FACE.

It must've been protected in a glass case, because there were shards of glass EVERYWHERE. Come to think of it, there was even one poking through Waluigi's shoe – poking through his shoe? He was stepping on a shard of glass!

"Wah!" Waluigi shouted, having just realized he'd cut his foot.

He tried to grab his foot to take the shard out, only to lose his balance and fall over. Thankfully, he didn't land on any more glass shards.

He was lucky enough to land on the mushroom, though. That thing may have been weird, but at least it cushioned Waluigi's head from the fall.

"Congratulations."

Waluigi sprung up, unsure of who had just spoken. There was no one else in the hall, was there? He looked around to check. Nope. No one.

"I see you've figured out how to reach the mushroom. Good. That means you're clever. Clever enough to be the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom. I hope."

More talking. Who was saying that? There was NOBODY. IN. THE. HALL!

This was driving Waluigi crazy. Who was saying this stuff?

"I can't divulge my identity here, due to circumstances I'm about to explain. I'd be in big trouble if I did. You can just call me … 'Toad'."

Like a frog? Whatever, it didn't matter. This "Toad" guy, though … WHERE WAS HE?

"Now, what I'm about to tell you is very important, so you need to listen up. I'll only tell it to you once. After that, this transmission will erase itself."

This trans-trans-trans … oh. That explained … ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, because where was this transmissy thingy COMING FROM? Waluigi still had no … clue …

Wait, no, never mind! Looking up, with the smoke from the escalator explosion finally starting to clear, Waluigi saw a TV screen on the wall, above where the escalator used to be. Somehow, it had remained intact.

Good enough of an explanation for Waluigi — wait, the talking was still going!

"…shroom Kingdom's still at war with the Koopa Kingdom, even after King Koopa's death in a Clown Car accident. His son, Bowser, has only taken up the slack, and invented a weapon that turned all the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom into blocks and coins and stuff.

"You've been chosen to help us save the day. Being fully human (probably), you should be able to use the Power-Ups without encountering the problems Toads or Koopas have with them. Your mission is to capture Bowser and get him to reverse the effects of his Toad-transforming weapon.

"Also, don't get kidnapped. Bowser already kidnapped one of the Mushroom Kingdom's last fully human citizens, Princess Peach. You should probably try to save her, too."

Now that he knew what that Toad guy was saying, Waluigi was starting to lose interest in it. Yeah yeah, some war, Power-somethings, some kidnapped dude. Waluigi didn't care. He was about to go when –

"Oh, and since you're basically taking the place of the entire Mushroom military, you'll be paid its soldiers' combined salary, which amounts to about 750 million coins a month. Okay now, good luck!"

750 MILLION COINS FOR WALUIGI? That … that was a lot of money! If he brought some of that back to Wario (not all of it, because Wario was totally greedy), he'd be so happy, and they'd be rich, and that strain on their friendship Waluigi had been detecting would vanish and Waluigi would never have to be alone again!

This was good news. Waluigi was going to start his adventure right away so he could earn all that MONEY! He had one small matter to attend to first, though.

He threw that glass shard as far away from him as possible. Stupid thing!