Here we come with another of my chapters! This one was fun. c: ~ Matt1251

Chapter 14: Memories and Revelations

Meanwhile, back in the coliseum, Matt's suit flickered. After a while, he slowly got up.

"Urrgh..." He sat up.

"Armor integrity at two percent." His armor's voice echoed.

"I don't need you to tell me I almost died, Jarvis." Matt shot back, imitating Tony Stark. He reached in his pocket and felt something.

"What the-" He pulled out a crumpled up letter, obviously very old. He slowly opened the paper and gasped.

"This is from..." He read the date on the paper: October 23, 2011. "This is the day after I got crushed." he reminded himself as he read. "Dear Matt..." That was all he said aloud as he read the letter silently.

"How do I remember this so well?" he asked himself. His fingers reached for the pocket again, as if he knew there was something else inside. He pulled out a coin.

"I remember this too..." he said, as he studied the coin. It had Bowser's emblem emblazoned on the back.

"This was the coin that was used to hypnotize me..." Matt thought out loud. He turned the coin over. He spied a little silver slit on the back.

"What is that?" he asked himself, as he slipped his fingers through the slit and pried it out. Inside was a flash drive. "What could be on here...?" he wondered as he plugged the flash drive into his robot suit. It pulled up a document. There were no words, just numbers. It read:

20 8 5

1 16 15 3 1 12 25 16 19 5

9 19

14 5 1 18.

25 15 21 18

16 1 15 21 19

20 15 1 4 19

23 9 12 12

4 9 5.

"It's a code." he stated. "What code, though...?" He tried to figure out the code for a couple minutes. Sand flew in his face, which he kept wiping away with his other hand. Eventually, he stood up.

"Wait a minute... Oh, no duh!" He facepalmed himself. "Why didn't I notice this? It's the code from before. The alpha code!" He set to work cracking it. "So 20 is T, 8 is H, 5 is E..." he reminded himself as he replaced the numbers with the corresponding letters. "1 is A, 16 is P..."

Meanwhile, Quint, the Toads, and BJ were still in the castle.

"So what can you do?" Toadette asked to BJ.

"I don't know." BJ answered, hanging his head. "He never listens to me."

"Well, the least we can do is figure out what he's up to." Quint offered. "The question is how..." he mused.

"Wait." Toad noticed a puddle of purple liquid around the door of the room they were in. "What is that?"

"I can tell you." Quint said, and scanned it with a laser scanner. "That's TNX serum all right. But why is it on the floor...?" Suddenly, they heard glass shatter violently, and a distant cry of anguish.

"That can't be good." BJ stated. He ran to the door, but Toadette stopped him.

"Leave him. Bowser will be even madder if he finds out we're here. We have to plan a sneak attack."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." BJ admitted, and the four set to work planning.

Back in the coliseum, Matt finished the code.

"...9 is I, and 5 is E. So we have..." Matt read the document silently. Then he gasped, stepping back in sudden shock.

"Oh, my God..." He ran, out of the coliseum and across the desert, towards the castle. The decoded document printed and fell to the floor.

THE

APOCALYPSE

IS

NEAR.

YOUR

PRECIOUS

TOADS

WILL

DIE.

To be continued...