Originally Posted: October 5, 2015

I promise this story won't be Bowser-centric! I may've given him too much attention in the past three chapters, but my love of him won't make him the center of attention for my entire adaptation, I promise! Now that his character has been set up, we can move on, thank goodness.

Once again, I promise I will get around to cleaning up my grammar and fixing more of Mario's dialogue in previous chapters, but I'm just so busy right now and I'd rather spend my free time working on new chapters than going back and working on previous ones, but I swear and I will get around to it eventually!

Alternate Storyline 3 – As opposed to Eddy, Bowser was originally going to befriend Sarah first over a game of chess on board the ship. They'd bond over discussing what Bowser's life was like back in his kingdom with his children.

This storyline kind of split into two tangents, with Bowser instead bonding first with Eddy (who I thought Bowser had more to relate to) much earlier than I originally intended him to, and the chess game evolved into the poker game that brought forth more of the negative aspects of Bowser's home life as opposed to the positive ones as originally planned.

The aforementioned storyline is the last plot thread up to this point in fanfic's progression that was supposed to be added to my story, but was ultimately dropped. (I'm sure there were a few more, but the three I've discussed are all that come to mind right now.)

Ed, Edd n Eddy's Quest for the Pure Hearts
Thirty-Six: Another Side Story

Eleven Days Prior…

…

Once they had entered the pipe, Lee, Marie, and May found themselves in a strange room lined with red and cream colored bricks, aged with a thick coating of dirt, on the walls, ceiling, and floors. In the center of the room were three old and cracked wooden chests. Each of the room's four walls was connected a passageway that opened up to a long hallway, and each hall appeared to be lined with several other connecting halls. They appeared to be in a giant labyrinth of sorts.

"Gosh, look at the passages guys," May noted, pointing down one such entryway.

"Yeah, we see 'em! What about 'em?" Marie asked with a snort.

"Well where do you think they go?" May asked. "I mean, what's this game about anyways?"

"Who cares where they go, this game's got ammo girls," Lee said, opening one of the aforementioned chests in the center of the room. She fished around through the container, before yanking out a short metal club, connected to a spiked metal ball about the size of an adult's fist by a short line of chain. "Feast your eyes, ladies. I just scored a flail!"

May and Marie had also opened their own respective chests. "I found a cool whip!" Marie said enthusiastically, swinging her arm to test out the weapon. The lengthy weapon coiled up, then shot forwards delivering a sickening crack as it snapped in midair.

"And I got this spear," May noted, pulling the long wooden pole with a saw-toothed metal tip from the box. She took no note of the fact the chest itself was far too small to house such a lengthy weapon and her sisters were too busy sorting through their own chests to notice either.

"Why the heck did we get all this junk?" Marie asked curiously, pulling out boxes of dried food and water from the wooden case. "I know it's supposed to be a realistic game and all, but if I want something to eat I can just go to the fridge."

"Watch your mouth! What would mom say if she heard us turnin' down free grub?" Lee mentioned in a scolding tone.

"But why would need to eat virtual food if we could just eat real food?" May asked, more confused about the aspects of virtual reality and the function of their so-called game.

"How the heck should I know, so stop asking questions!" Lee snapped, pulling a backpack out the chest. She began to shovel her gear she had scavenged from her chest into her backpack. "C'mon! I said we were gonna play this game, and that's what we're gonna do!"

"Well what're we supposed to do?" Marie replied angrily as she finished putting her supplies into her own knapsack. "We weren't given any stin' goal! The game just plopped us in some weird maze and gave us weapons and food."

"Duh! We solve the maze and fight all the enemies we find along the way," Lee explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Sheesh! Try using that brain of yours Marie; otherwise you might just drop dead."

"Yeah, even I knew what we were supposed to be doing," May added.

Marie responded by socking her younger sister in the gut. "Shut up, May! You're the dumb one, remember!"

May growled, rubbing her stomach in agony. "You're one to talk. Just yesterday you got your hand stuck in the drain of our bathtub."

"I was getting my hairclip that fell down there! I need to look pretty, unlike some of us apparently," Marie retorted.

"Oh yah? Well, at least I'm not some dumb fashion hog like-"

"Hey! That's enough from the both of yahs!" Lee declared. "We're wasting our precious playin' time, so follow me ladies." And with that final declaration, Lee stomped down a hallway of no particular significance to her, her sisters following her heed.

…

The hallways weren't well lit, but they had just enough light to see the path ahead and any turns or new entranceways. Every now and again, the girls would impatiently whack their weapons against the walls out of sheer boredom as they wandered through the labyrinth. The Kankers were itching for a fight, especially with their new toys in hand.

"Man, this game sucks," Marie moaned belligerently. "Fifteen minutes in and we ain't found a single door, as single item, or a single enemy to bash."

"Yeah, and talk about cheap virtual reality. Every hallway looks the same!" May added.

"Maybe you two broke the stupid thing before we came in here," Lee said antagonistically. "Cause any game I buy don't suck!"

"You bought…?" Marie snapped. "Mom bought Nexus Q Game System and the stupid game that came with it!"

"Wait guys, did mom buy us a game?" May asked, scratching her head absentmindedly with her spear. "I don't think I remember that."

"Of course she did, you putz! How else can we be playing the game right now?" The eldest sister retorted.

"Oh yah, I guess that makes sense," May agreed. "But what about the-"

"Shuddup!" Lee suddenly shouted, halting both her sisters with a wave of her hand. "I think we got some company girls." May and Marie craned forward, twisting their necks as they yearned to catch a glimpse of what their sister may have seen down the maze.

From the shadows of the long hallway, several disembodies shadows suddenly began to leach from the bricks, painting the walls and floors with long black smears. The black puddles began to seep together, forming clusters of shadows. These black clusters suddenly began to take shape, the inky forms massing together taking strange menacing forms. The newly formed beasts were like three-dimensional silhouettes, taking the form of strange turtle monsters and mushroom men short feet and fangs.

"Here's where the fun begins, ladies," Lee said, readying her flail. Marie and May each readied their weapons in turn.

The first shadows launched their assaults at the sisters. Two of turtle monsters leapt into their shells and began rocketing across the floor and walls of the narrow passage. Lee was quick to react, giving her flail a quick swing, whacking the incoming shells. The enemies that had been hit shattered like glass and faded away into a dense, black smoke.

"That the best you can do?!" the red head shouted triumphantly.

Suddenly, a faint squelching noise began to emit from behind the sisters. More shadow monsters had begun to emerge from behind the Kankers as well. "You two handle those punks," Lee said, pointing behind her. "These clods here," she said, turning back to the first platoon of ink black foes. "They're mine."

"Glory hound," Marie groaned, as she and her younger sister turned to face the newly formed army of shadow creatures.

Three mushroom foes charged at Marie and May, baring their fangs and stomping their feet and stomping their feet as they ran. May returned their charge, pointing her spear at the oncoming foes. The nearest enemy hopped into the air, perhaps hoping to knock itself into the blonde haired girl. Its attempt was thwarted as the youngest sister jammed her spear forward, right into the head of the shadow mushroom, which shattered immediately following the violent stabbing.

The second mushroom foe was knocked into the wall, hit by the staff of May's spear who wielded her weapon as though it were a baseball bat. While it was dazed, the girl impaled the tip of her weapon into the body of the shadowy foe, which exploded into thick smoke. "Hey, I'm pretty good at this," May stated proudly, only to be unexpectedly tackled by the third charging monster.

The shadow monster hissed unnaturally at the blonde sister whom it pinned to the floor. "Eek! Get it off, guys!" May shrieked, as the creature snapped it maw like an animal. Suddenly, the woven cord a whip encircled the beast and in an instant, the creature was yanked off the youngest sister and flung against a wall where it too was poofed into nothing by the forceful impact.

"Yeah, you're not that good," Marie said to her little sister as she coiled her whip back up.

"Heads up, ladies!" Lee shouted as hopped over two speeding shells that she failed to stop with her flail. "They're on your tail!" The eldest added as she shattered a mushroom foe that approached her with a quick swing of her flail. The two shells were now homing in on Marie and May. May readied her spear like a golf club while Marie held her whip back tentatively.

The middle sister acted first, swinging her whip forward and coiling the oncoming projectile. Dropping to her knees and lowering her body to the ground. Using the momentum of the shell, she catapulted the shell over her body and down the hallway where it smashed into another group of foes further down the passageway, smashing them all into a cloud of nothing.

The younger sister acted next, instinctively swinging her spear downward. The serrated blade of her spear drove deep into the shell of the attacker, slicing it in two. The halves disintegrated into separate black mists as they rocketed past her.

"Bring it on!" May shouted as more shadows began to leech from the walls.

"Yeah, we can take you guys on!" Marie added, pushing a clump of her hair out of her face.

"You worthless game cronies ain't seen nothing yet," Lee taunted, twirling the metal ball of her flail around.

And for an hour they continued to come, wave after wave of shadow enemies barreling at them down the narrow passageway. The Kankers were given no time to flee down a different passage of the maze or push their attackers back into a different passage, but the trio wouldn't have had it any other way. They liked standing their ground and relished the chance to hold their own against an endless hoard of semi-sentient enemies.

But sure enough, the number of enemies began to thin out. Less of the inky substance oozed from the walls and overtime, their numbers began to fall. At the end of the hour, the last remaining shadow mushroom made a pitiful charge at the eldest Kanker. "Don't flatter yourself sweet-cheeks," Lee said as she drove the ball of her flail into the oncoming assailant. "The last one standing is the one who falls the hardest," she added as the monster burst.

However, unlike the monsters before it, this shadow figure left something behind as it exploded. A lone gold key dropped from the puff of smoke formed by the black creature. It had an antique look about it, appearing oversized and old with gilded handle and a fancily carved pin-tip.

"It's a key!" May shrieked.

"Well, duh! We all see it," Marie barked in response.

"Wonder what it's doing here," Lee said curiously as she picked it up. The key suddenly vanished in a flash of gold light as it touched the eldest sister's skin. The whole maze suddenly began to illuminate, and at the end of the hallway, where what had looked to have been a dead end before, a fancy blue door had suddenly seemed to fashion itself out of nothing amongst the bricks. The door appeared wooden, etched with strange symbols which seemed to flow eloquently around a large heart shaped symbol.

"Cool art direction," May said.

"I think we just found level two. Whaddaya say we check it out?" Lee suggested.

"Sounds like a plan," Marie agreed.

But May wasn't so sure. "But guys, we've been in here for over an hour. I mean, this is cool and all, but didn't the game box recommend no more than an hour of play time per day. Besides, mom's gonna be home soon and-"

"Quit your yapping," Lee shouted, hushing her little sister. "You ain't got nothin' else to do for dah next hour, so pipe down. We're just gonna play one more level, then we can call it a day. Besides, you know mom doesn't get home 'till ten on Tuesdays." Having made the decision for the group, Lee stomped off down the corridor, towards the newly formed door towards the supposed second level of the game.

Marie followed without question, eager to bash some more virtual enemies with her newfound whip. May gave one last hesitant groan, before taking off after her sisters. Something about this videogame just didn't sit right.