AN: First off, I wanna say that I am heartbroken from the tragedies that have occurred in Florida - they were absolutely terrible and I hope y'all are okay :( things like these shouldn't happen, but they do. Anyway, I'm sorry for my terrible updating again, overseas updating is hard because of all the stuff I'm doing :/ However, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, the plot thickens here... (FYI : For ease of story writing, I'm planning to follow the movie a little more, but Maze Runner book elements will definitely be there :)) Please R&R, and I love you all!
Disclaimer: I own nothing lol
Rated T for teen
The biggest object in the solar system would not just disappear, Mario knew that for a fact. That was impossible. Unheard of.
Terrifying.
There was certainly light, however. The Sanctuary hadn't been plunged into complete darkness, or extreme cold. It was just dark and cloudy looking, as if a thunderstorm was on the horizon. The air did feel cooler than it did in the sun, but that was expected in Mario's head.
However, the blazing, bright ball in the sky disappearing was definitely not expected.
More and more Smashers began to filter outside, each one looking more panic-stricken than the last. Sonic was opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water, eyes wide. The runner didn't say anything in his usual snarky outburst to relive the stress of a situation - Sonic seemed lost for words.
"What is this?" Mario asked, not in particular to anyone. In almost a dazed tone, Sonic replied, but didn't take his eyes off the sky.
"I have no idea." he murmured, before he seemed to break out his daze, shaking his head quickly. "This can't stop us from checking out Subspace. The other guys are depending on us to check it out." Mario had never heard the boy sound so serious before this moment.
Suddenly, there was a surge of more voices adding to the panic, as some Leaders exited the sleeping quarters, most with confused expressions on their faces. Bowser was among the group, and his face first flickered from shock to almost anger. Link's face instead morphed into one of concern, even fear.
Bowser abruptly burst forward, nostrils flaring as he stormed through the crowd, fists clenched. He stopped when he reached the front of the group of Smashers, before whirling around and placing his hands on his hips.
"This is a sign, you idiots! Its - its all because of that weird newbie! The girl!" Bowser's voice cracked slightly, and he wildly pointed in the direction of the Med-Tent, where Peach likely was. "She needs to be banished!" the older boy shrieked at the top of his lungs, and the little ways away, Mario saw Peach exiting the Med-Tent with Luigi. The two stopped as they heard Bowser's voice, and Luigi seemed to retreat backwards, trying to pull Peach back.
Without warning, Bowser rushed the Med-Tent, sending the Smashers into a panicked frenzy as boys began to yell and move around. Mario darted forward, but Sonic grabbed his shoulder, roughly pulling him back.
"Let me go! Peach could get hurt!" Mario tried to wrench the Runner's hand away, but Sonic held fast.
"From how she talks and acts, I'm sure she can defend herself, the other boys won't let Bowser get to her - we need to go run! Marth, Meta, you're coming with us!" Sonic abruptly barked, and the two Runners complied, but in an obviously reluctant style. Suddenly, there was a shout and a yelp of pain from the direction of the Med-Tent. The small group of Runners turned in that direction, just in time to see Link being thrown down to the ground from a well-placed punch in the face from a red-faced Bowser. "HEY!" Sonic yelled, running toward the Smashers near the Med-Tent. Mario followed, Subspace running forgotten in the moment. Bowser had now grabbed Peach's arm, to which the girl had begun to shriek and pummel the Builder's arm with a fist. Link was being helped up by a few Smashers, but the second-in-command's eyes were dark with anger, blood running down his face from his nose.
"Bowser, stop it!" Mario yelled, but kept his distance from the boy. From personal experience, he had no intention to go near the Builder.
However, Link seemed to have no problem confronting Bowser again, wiping a hand across his bloody face before snarling at the other boy.
"Lay off, Bowser. Or I'll throw you to the Floows." the second-in-command said in a dangerously low voice. Mario had never seen the usually peaceful boy with so much hostility chiseled into his face. The Smashers grew silent, and Peach paused in her fruitless struggling to stare up at Bowser, whose face somehow became even more red.
Every Smasher seemed to brace themselves for an inevitable fight between Link and Bowser, but the tension immediately disappeared once Bowser roughly let go of Peach's arm, shoving past Link and stalking away, in the direction of the Dark Glade.
Mario couldn't help but sigh in relief as Bowser's back retreated from the group of collecting Smashers, and stepped forward towards Peach, who was rubbing her arm with a look of disdain on her face.
"You okay?" Mario asked Peach, and the girl nodded.
"... Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for asking." Peach replied, her voice soft. "That Bowser kid is a jerk, I've come to realize."
"He hates me. He hates everyone probably. Don't worry about it." Mario forced himself to sound as nonchalant as possible, but it was hard - his voice was shaking slightly. Peach smiled in response, her expression much more relaxed than it was before.
"Mario, we need to go." Sonic had walked up to Mario, his face set. "The sooner we check out that dead Floow, the quicker we get back. I have a feeling that being out there longer than we should won't solve anything."
Mario quickly glanced at Peach, whose face was impassive. He then looked back at Sonic, before nodding quickly. "Okay."
Sonic nodded back, before turning and jogging away, in the direction of the Gate.
Mario didn't look back at Peach and the rest of the Smashers as he followed Sonic, who was a ways ahead. What he really needed to focus on was the task ahead - Get into Subspace, check out the dead Floow, and get the hell out of Subspace. It wasn't that hard.
He took a deep breath as he reached the Gate at a sprint, following Sonic, Marth, and Meta in Subspace, under a dead, grey sky.
It took much longer than Mario expected it to. To reach the sector where the dead Floow was, anyway.
On the tense way to the Floow, Mario consistently tried to keep up with Sonic, trying to take the same, long strides, the brisk, grueling pace. Sonic was very, very fast, his feet seeming to simply skim the ground, instead of landing solidly on the concrete ground. The ground was the only thing that stayed consistent in Subspace - the walls would change, vines being replaced with jagged, metallic spikes, thick groves of shrubs and bushes replacing that, and more. Mario remembered what Link had said about different environments - this was definitely that.
Sonic kept muttering under his breath, incoherent, but Mario still tried to hear what he was saying. The runner's face was taut in concentration, brow furrowed. His face stayed that way, all the way to where the dead Floow was.
Mario was surprised that Sonic remembered where the Floow was, but when they reached the mangled corpse of the monster crushed in between the two walls, Sonic took out a knife, angrily throwing it at one of the walls surrounding them. The knife buried itself, hilt deep into a vine, quivering.
"None of the walls moved! None of them! Damn it!" Sonic exclaimed, kicking up dirt in exasperation. Mario looked back at the pink-faced Marth and Meta, both their faces expressions of bewilderment. Sonic turned to face the three, his face tomato red. "The walls move every night. Every. Single. Night. Now they aren't. Something is very wrong. God..." The lead runner began to pace back and forth, which at that point, Meta spoke, his voice quiet.
"Weren't we going to look at that Floow? Maybe it could...tell us something."
"Yeah, that sounds about right...right?" Marth looked at Mario, an eyebrow raised. "That's what we came here to do anyway."
"... Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right." Mario righted himself, walking past the aggravated Sonic, who looked up as Mario reached the gap in between the dead Floow walls. Mario peered into the wide crack, delicately pushing the wicked Floow's hand away from his head. It made a crackling noise as he did.
"D'you see anything?" Meta asked, his voice hushed. Mario craned his head in farther, until he saw a steady, blinking red light from the wreck of the Floow.
"I...there's a light."
"A light?" Sonic repeated. "What's it on?"
"Like..." Mario blindly reached his hand into the gap, groping around the Floow machinery for the red light's source, coming up with what felt like a cold, metal tube. "Some sort of tube." Mario tugged at it lightly, and it gave. "I think I can pull it out."
"Be careful." Marth remarked, and Mario heard a noise of agreement from Sonic.
Taking a deep breath, Mario tugged hard at the tube, and it disconnected from the Floow with a metallic crack.
A terrifying shriek ripped through the air, and the crushed Floow suddenly flailed in what seemed like death throes, its gnarled hard tugging at Mario's shirt as it flailed about. Mario let out a strangled cry and fell backward in a panic, being pulled away from the gap by Sonic. More shrieks from the Floow filled the air, until the walls shuddered, and collapsed completely on the Floow, cutting its cries off abruptly. The hand jutting from the now-closed gap fell limp again.
Silence enveloped the runners and Mario, until Mario looked down at the tube in his hand.
It was cold, metallic, and perfectly cylindrical. The tube was rather heavy, with thick, broken cords jutting out at one end. The red light in the middle of the tube continued to blink steadily, not wavering once.
Mario turned the tube over, and branded on the side was the name T.A.B.U.U, and the number 7. Underneath that was a long string of small numbers and letters with a barcode, something that Mario didn't bother reading into.
Sonic peered over his shoulder, and placed a finger on the T.A.B.U.U engraving. "That's the name that's on all the supplies that comes...came up from the Box."
"...You're saying..." Mario started, looking at Sonic, whose face was drawn.
"I'll bet you a thousand bucks that the Floows were made by the people who put us here."
The run back to the Sanctuary was tense, and the small group didn't stop once in their journey through Subspace. There were no Floows to be seen.
As the small group returned to the Sanctuary, Mario guessed that it was now around mid-morning, but it was hard to tell from the dull, grey sky. All of the Smashers were rushing around the Sanctuary in what looked like almost panic, everyone's face serious.
Mario saw Kirby, running around as fast as he could, lugging sticks and other materials around this way and that. He saw Ganondorf, rounding up all of the animals in one pen, dumping a massive amount of grain into a trough, and hurriedly leaving the animals to likely help around the Sanctuary some more. Mario noticed that Bowser was nowhere to be seen.
"It looks like everyone is preparing for the worst right now." Marth said, looking around.
"You're right. Should we be doing something?" Meta asked, and Sonic looked at him, brow raised.
"Honestly, I have no idea Meta. What are they doing anyway?"
"Getting ready for anything that comes at us." The four boys turned in the direction of the voice, which belonged to Link, who was standing a ways away with his hands on his hips. Mario noticed that his bloody face was now cleaned up, but there was a fresh bruise on his left cheek. "Now that the sun is basically dead, we can't expect our food supply to stay. I'm making inventory of everything, packing everything up. We won't starve to death." he finished, looking down at the ground. Link looked up abruptly, brow furrowed. "Did you find anything? Anything that could... help us get out? Somehow?"
Sonic crossed his arms, leaning heavily on one leg. "The walls have stopped moving. Mapping for a cut-and-dry exit isn't going to work anymore. However -" the runner grabbed the cylinder from Mario's hand, handing it to Link. "We found this. In a Floow. I was thinking about it, on our way back - it's probably the smartest thing I've ever come up with -" Sonic stepped forward, placing a finger on the tube, "-but the number 7, that could be a Sector number, right? Numbers 1 through 8? And - Sector 7 is one of those Sectors that you can only go so far in, you get cut off..."
"You're saying this Floow, came from Sector 7?"
"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Maybe if we went back in, checked it out with this thing -"
Link raised a hand, shaking his head. "Sonic, it's a brilliant idea, but...not now. Besides, Mario has a punishment to serve."
"Wait, what?" Mario looked at Link, who continued to look down at the Floow tube. "Since when?"
"Since yesterday. The Gathering. Just a day, you get food and water. No problem, you just spend the day in a little room." Link looked up at Mario, before turning away. "Sonic, just pop him in and report back to me. We have a lot to get done. Marth, Meta, go help out in any way you can."
The second-in-command waved slightly, before limping away rapidly, already shouting orders at other Smashers. Sonic heavily sighed, and waved off Marth and Meta. "You two can go. Help out in any way you can."
Both runners complied, and Sonic turned to Mario, clapping a hand down on Mario's shoulder. "I'll take you to the Pit, then."
"That sounds pretty threatening." Mario remarked as the two began to walk, in the direction of the Dark Glade. "Is it in the Glade?"
"No, kinda by it though. Just a pit with wood bars and stuff on top. You get a chair, so that's cool. It won't be that bad - you'll only be in there for a day and night, less because you ran this morning. You get food too."
The day before, the idea of being imprisoned was not ideal Mario, but it seemed much better, now that he got food and the time spent wouldn't be too long. It sounded like Smashers could get a punishment much longer than just a day and a night.
The Pit was basically a glorified hole with a messy crosshatch of wooden bars over the top, allowing sunlight to filter into the hole. If there was a sun, anyway.
"Hole sweet hole." Sonic said as he untied a thick rope on a makeshift door and yanking the door open, beckoning to Mario. "Hop on in, you piece of dirt."
Mario only grinned at the runner, before stepping down the rickety steps into the Pit, as Sonic closed the door behind him. "Behave now, or no lunch for you."
"Yes ma'am." Mario saluted to Sonic, who rolled his eyes and walked away, disappearing from Mario's line of vision.
The first hour or so wasn't too bad. Mario sat down in the rickety chair in the middle of the Pit, rocking back and forth, then began to pace the small hole. Kirby came once to deliver a small lunch and chat with him, until the younger boy had to go do his own chores. Mario had enjoyed the small talk; it had fended on increasing boredom, but now, in the late afternoon it felt like, Mario was very bored.
Mario had fallen asleep once for a quick nap, but now, he felt lethargic and tired. There was nothing to do in this dull prison, except sleep...
"They've told me not to see you. But I didn't listen."
Mario was jerked out of his stupor, nearing toppling out of his chair as he looked upward. Peach was there, staring down at him.
"Are you okay?" she asked him, eyes narrowed.
"Uh, yeah. I'm fine. You?"
"I've been stuck with Luigi the whole day, in case that brute comes back to help out, and instead lashes out at me. I can't do much, and I'm sure no one trusts me still. Actually, I haven't seen Bowser all day..."
Mario felt slightly concerned that Bowser was basically missing in the Sanctuary, but shoved the thought aside."Then just keep an eye out. Bowser is pretty crazy." Peach cocked her head slightly, before looking at Mario again.
"You're the only one I trust in this whole place. I don't know, I...knew you. I'm trying to remember, but I can't."
"Don't push yourself. Think about it later maybe." Mario suggested, but Peach only shrugged.
"Mario, I -" Peach cut herself off, as in the distance, a yell sounded out over the Sanctuary. "Crap, that's Luigi. I have to go. Bye." Peach stood up, waving slightly as she disappeared from Mario's sight. Mario waved back, but sighed, and slumped in the chair again. He couldn't wait until the next morning, when he could get out.
Mario fell back into a full stupor, hoping that it was dinner-time soon. He felt like sleeping again, until Link's sudden appearance above him, all the while yelling at the top of his lungs, made Mario forget sleep completely.
"Mario! You're getting out right now! C'mon!" Mario frantically stood up as Link yanked open the Pit door, briskly helping him out of the Pit before speed-walking in the direction of the sleeping quarters.
"Link! Wha-"
"Do you realize what time of day it is, Mario?" Link spun around to face Mario, grabbing him by the shoulders. The second-in-command looked skittish, nervous. Mario quickly sifted through his brain for any problems. Snake was missing from the Med-Tent? Someone went into Subspace? Someone set something on fire? But those almost had nothing to do with the time of day...
"I..." Mario started, but Link cut him off, his eyes dark.
"The Gate hasn't closed yet. We're trapped. And -"
Suddenly, a massive tremor ripped through the ground, nearly making Mario and Link topple to the dirt. Mario heard loud groans and crashes of stone, and with horror, he realized that there was no Gate closing.
In the three other walls that enclosed Subspace, what had looked like solid concrete walls were splitting apart, creating, in the end, three more Gates. Three more entrances.
The Floows would have an easy way into the Sanctuary.
Mario frantically looked at Link, who had turned deathly pale. Link had to know something. Maybe it wasn't that bad. The Smashers would fight.
Link took a deep, shaky breath before speaking.
"We'll all be dead by morning."
Well, there you all have it! Another cliffhanger, lol. I liked writing this chapter, Mario and friends are actually starting to figure stuff out and it's high stress. Y'all will see soon where Bowser is (if you read the book, you'll know). To answer CrazyMarthFan (I'm sorry if it's not exactly your username): I actually never thought about how I put those two together all the time! I guess it just happened naturally, but ship them however you want!
So, please be patient for another chapter ( it'll be a while), and thanks to everyone who is reading this fanfic! R&R! ~ALBS