10. The Whims of the Few

There were so many quiet little hamlets in the world, Samus thought as she approached the house overlooking the hill. So many places seemingly untouched by murder or death, so many places with the potential to be corrupted. For as evil and cruel a place as the world was, it was strange to think that there could still be innocent realms, nice places to raise children.

And of course it was here that her next target had taken refuge. If there was one member of the Nine she had never understood, it was Mario. Perhaps in killing him she could glean an ounce of knowledge about his life.

The house was nondescript, a bit ramshackle, just as the directions had implied. There were no neighbors around for what appeared to be miles – just trees, hills, and the wind. It was as if the fat man had picked such a place solely for this confrontation.

Samus approached the door and turned on her infrared visor. There he was, sitting in the far corner, his rotund shape pronounced. She kicked down the door.

Immediately her legs gave out as something flew into them, sending her sprawling to the floor. She recovered quickly and rolled to the side, but was met with a burst of flame to the face. The power suit absorbed the damage, but her vision was still obscured and she was unprepared for the next blow, which came from above, landing squarely on her back. Again the suit took the brunt of the attack, but the flames still persisted; she reached out to bat them away but then came what she feared would happen – her suit's functions seized up as an electric shock coursed through her body, and a simultaneous blow to the back and the head resulted in darkness.

"Hello!"

I opened my eyes, and standing beside me was the round face of the fat man.

Now, I knew everything Toadsworth told me, but the thing is... he distorted the facts a little bit. Just a tad.

For one, the mushroom man downplayed his own, very personal relationship to the Mario brothers. Snake theorized that the Kingdom had always wanted a protector from outside threats, and Toadsworth was a bit more... permissive with them than he would have been with others, overlooking some of their minor transgressions with a fondness almost bordering on the parental. He held no love for Luigi, always favoring Mario, as did so many of the other mushroom denizens. I think that when the princess was kidnapped, he secretly hoped that Mario would take the plunge and kill the monster... and that certainly backfired in his face.

"...the hell are you doing in here?" I gasped, running a hand through my disheveled morning hair.

"I-a want to ask you a question."

When Mario left the Mushroom Kingdom after slaughtering all the retainers, Snake found him first. He was the only one who could ever control Mario, the only one who garnered any sense of respect from the fat man. Snake was tight-lipped about Mario, even to me, perhaps because he too was mystified by him.

The other members of the Nine were never sure of how to take Mario. Some, like Link, simply stayed away from him. Sonic, for his part, took up arms against him from day one, and it was known to everyone that the feeling was assuredly mutual.

"...can't this wait until -" I checked the clock. "- after five o'clock in the morning?"

Mario shrugged. "I couldn't-a sleep. I wanted to ask-a you about your last-a mission... the one to Angel Island."

I arched an eyebrow. "What about it?"

The deadliest things are usually the most unexpected. Who would have thought a portly plumber would be one of the world's deadliest assassins? Mario, like it or not, taught me to never judge by appearances. Death could come from anywhere, by anyone, at any moment, be they child, beast, or fat man.

Of course, some people never heeded that lesson.

"I wanted to know... why did you-a kill all those dingoes? They-a were innocent to the mission."

"They were in the way," I said. "They were an obstacle to be eliminated."

"But you had already completed the mission. So... why more-a killing?"

Now I was getting angry. I stared hard at Mario, who simply looked back, that damnable false sense of kindness sprinkled in his eyes.

"What does it matter? I did what had to be done, and I don't regret it."

There is an old Chozo saying about war, that it is often waged by the many on the whim of a few. I used to wonder... each of us was waging a kind of war in our own way, a personal battle that spilled into the world like a car crash. The many had to suffer for our own shortcomings, fears, and failures. Who got to decide the hierarchy?

Mario nodded. "Samus... when the time-a comes for you to retire... which 'R' you gonna be filled with?"

"R?"

"Every-a warrior, when it's-a their time to go down, is filled with an R... Relief or Regret. So which-a one fits you?"

But personal war is different. Where large-scale war is fought across battlefields with weapons and armies, personal war is fought inside the heart. The most common victim of personal war is the soul of the one who wages it.

"...I don't know. Let me go back to sleep and I'll get back to you on it."

Mario chuckled. "Okey-dokey. Just-a remember... when the time-a comes... choose, and act."

He stood up and left my room, shutting off the light on his way out.

My crusade for revenge is a personal war. The question is... what will still be alive at the end of it?

"Hello!"

Samus opened her eyes, and standing beside her was the round face of the fat man.

The alarms began to ring as she stared into Mario's eyes. Four years later and the plumber hadn't changed a bit: his bulbous nose still protruded from his middle-aged face, and his eyes still twinkled with a mischievous and false innocence. She struggled and immediately realized she was bound; she then realized that she was not wearing the power suit.

"It's-a funny," Mario said, "what a good electric shock can-a do. Once you were out, the suit-a came right off. The helmet tried to-a burn me, but the rest was a piece of pizza."

Samus scowled. She was completely defenseless, and she had left the Master Sword behind when she donned her suit.

"So, Samus... let's-a talk. I have so, so many questions for-a you."

She spat in his face. The fat man made no effort to wipe it off, simply smiling as it trickled down his cheeks.

"I don't-a care how you survived. I don't-a care how you found-a the others. But what I really want to know, Samus... is about pain."

Mario twiddled his thumbs together; he spoke patiently, as if he had all the time in the world.

"My-a momma told me there are two things I should-a always remember about pain. It's a response your body has when you've-a gone too far... and it's a response your-a soul has when you're about to. Does-a that make sense? Do you understand?"

Samus said nothing.

"On-a that day, four years ago... you were filled with a lot of-a pain. What I want-a you to think about now is which-a kind of pain you're gonna be filled with when it's all-a over: the physical kind, or-a the spiritual kind?"

She made to spit again but her face was whipped backwards by what felt like a train; her body flew backwards and she could feel several of her teeth loosened by the blow.

"That's-a not very nice," Mario said, rubbing his hand. "Now... I want-a you to get ready. I'm-a gonna make-a you hurt... but think about which pain it is, okay? Which-a pain you feel... that's-a everything."

"I have a question for you," Samus said, sitting upright and staring into the fat man's eyes with fierce, unending hatred. "Why did you cripple Sonic?"

Mario stopped his movement and looked at Samus curiously.

"Somebody had to," he said. "Now, hold-a still... this is gonna hurt -"

A loud splintering noise resonated from the other side of the room. In seconds Mario had leaped to his feet, soaring across the room with a flying kick. Samus tried to turn around to see, but the bonds were too tight for her to maneuver. A familiar electric shocking noise sent a plummeting, ice-cold feeling into Samus's chest.

"She's-a mine!" she could hear Mario yell; there were more loud thuds, several sizzles, and a disturbing noise that sounded like bone on wood. A few moments later Mario limped back over to Samus, clutching a bloody leg.

The fat man hummed as he moved, disappearing into the kitchen and grabbing what Samus assumed was a Tonic of some sort; her suspicions were confirmed as he returned, leg seemingly repaired. "Time-a to move then," he muttered to himself; with one scoop he grabbed Samus, bonds and all, and lifted her off the ground, sprinting past Crono's downed body and taking them into the valley below.