Mushroom Kingdom Chronicles: Chapter 1

The Ghostly Island

Our story takes place in a campsite called Mellow-Bone Park. The campsite was in the middle of an eerie forest with a large eerie lake with an eerie sky, the entire place was eerie, even the random man holding a sign saying, 'Eerie isn't it?' looked eerie himself.

All the students from a faraway high school slowly made their way out of the bus, where they saw their teachers, and a very geeky looking scoutmaster with large bottle like glasses, buckteeth and a few blackheads around his face. "Welcome to Mellow-Bone Park! I hope you enjoy yourself for the next week. I'll be your Scoutmaster, Mr Joe Schmitt! Shall we escort you to your cabins?"

Later, we find the kids outside a bunch of broken-in cabins that look close to breaking down, the insides had broken floorboards, flimsy bed legs, cracked windows and one or two cockroaches, each cabin had about ten bunk-beds, meaning twenty kids for each cabin, more than enough room, although the structure of the beds and walls looked like they could collapse at any second.

"I trust you'll find these luxurious rooms and beds to be to your liking. Now allow me to show you around the camp site!"

For the next hour, the kids were shown around a campsite filled with broken tree branches, bugs, trash and broken glass, the logs around the campfire were full of splinters and termites, looking like the logs would break under one child's weight. The lake for swimming in was loaded with leeches and seaweed, the trees had beehives and the grounds had piles of dog leavings. It was possibly the worst campsite ever.

Throughout the remainder of the day, they were stuck doing nothing but tying nearly ripped ropes, so they can actually do a Tug-o-war game without the rope ripping, listening to their scoutmaster playing a guitar terribly while singing camp songs awfully and picking up trash and dog leavings using nearly broken grabbers.

"Well… It could be worse." Said one kid shrugging their shoulders. Just then it started to rain, thus resulting in the others chasing after them to beat them up.

Soon night came and every student went into their cabins for the night. The cabins were big enough to hold twenty kids, but due to a numbering issue, there was one cabin that only held six. And these six kids were quite unique as they were all exchange students of sorts.

The first was a fourteen-year-old boy from Florida named Flynn Gonzales, a super smart kid with a knack for creating amazing machinery in a short amount of time, super smart but quite naïve. He had red hair, a large nose, blue eyes and wore a red and orange striped shirt, blue trousers, white shoes with purple ends to them.

The second was a fourteen-year-old girl from Russia named Vivian Bellrose, a calm and mature girl who loves reading books and is good at fighting, often reserved but can open up when provoked, has a bit of a big sister demeanour at points too. She had pale skin, black hair with a ponytail, long ears with blue earrings, she wore a blue top and skirt combo with black lines on the edges, long black socks and black shoes, and she wore a string necklace with a golden coin attached to it with a sun symbol on it.

The third was a twelve-year-old girl from Europe named Erika Kendell, a very shy and quiet girl with Autism, because of this, not much is known about her, she hasn't spoken since she arrived. She has very short blonde hair, wore a pink shirt with blue lines, green trousers and black shoes, she had a thick purple hoodie tied around her waist, and her most outstanding feature was her heterochromia, her left eye is green and her right eye is blue.

The fourth was a seven-year-old boy from Hawaii named Alex Iona, despite his age, he was quite smart, active and sociable, he loves marine biology, but has a bad habit of wandering off. He has blue hair in the form of two large locks and a pointed ponytail, he always wore a pair of thick silver goggles over his green eyes, he had a yellow shirt, orange shorts and blue boat shoes, next to him was a large brown backpack.

The fifth was a fifteen-year-old boy from Africa named Marco Babangida, hyperactive, sometimes wacky and loves to adventure and have fun. Can come off as annoying but is otherwise very nice. He had short orange hair, brown eyes, a scar across his left eye, wore a green vest with a light green neckerchief, blue shorts and light blue shoes.

The last one was a thirteen-year-old girl from Japan named Izumi Takeshi, a rich upper-class girl with a spoiled brat attitude, often ever works and is quite rude, she's not bad in a fight, however. She had long flowing red hair with a blue hairband, light blue eyes, wore light make-up, had a blue shirt, a dark blue skirt, long white socks and black shoes, she also carried around a small single strap bag and a pink parasol.

We find the six kids hanging around inside the cabin, for some reason, unlike the others that were wrecked, this one wasn't so bad, it was raining heavily tonight, so the fact this one was better built and has no holes for the rain to go in.

We find Vivian on one bed reading a book with Erika reading over her shoulder, they didn't intend to read together, Erika got very curious on what Vivian was reading and she allowed her to join in.

Vivian herself had always enjoyed the world of books, especially books that talk about deep and complex stories in fictional worlds and settings, finding it enjoyable to delve deep into new worlds in the form of writing. She wasn't sure what Erika was thinking, but the teachers made clear of her Autism, she's never met anyone with that condition, and given her big sister demeanour, she subconsciously chose to look after Erika.

Flynn was playing Super Metroid on his 3DS with Alex and Marco watching, all three of them sat on the floor with their legs crossed, Marco had never played it due to living in a poor home in Africa, but this never bothered him as he was more of the outdoorsy type, Alex wasn't poor, but he hardly played videogames to begin with, aside from being half the age of everyone else, he just found them not as interesting as Marine Biology. Flynn on the other hand would always play videogames with his big brother Darren, but he's never played Super Metroid before and was easily excited to do so.

Izumi was in the bathroom refreshing her makeup, eyeliner and a bit of powder, not much makeup honestly because she felt like she was already beautiful enough and the makeup would just mask her. While many calls her vain, more people did agree that she was very beautiful for an 8th grader, more so than some of the older students, of course it wasn't an excuse for her rude behaviour and using her beauty and wealth as authority. But she didn't care.

After a quick sigh, feeling satisfied with her work, she walked out of the bathroom elegantly and made her way to the bed where she left her bag and her parasol.

As she sat down on the bed, she along with Erika and Vivian got distracted by the boys sudden cheering. Which was the first real noise in this room apart from the game audio which was somewhat low, and the battering sounds of the rain against their window, which while loud, was relaxing.

"Alright! That plant jerk is down!" exclaimed Flynn.

"Nice one!" said Marco.

"First Boss down!" said Alex.

The three than began to high five each other. Vivian smirked slightly; Erika had a nervous smile while Izumi rolled her eyes, but then she realised something and spoke up.

"Hang on, something's just occurred to me." Everyone looks over to Izumi, no one really knew each other well, they had just met this morning, so seeing her speak up first when she normally never did besides respond rudely. "Isn't this a trip for high school students? Why do we have a seven-year-old with us?"

The others looked over to Alex who just sat there, he simply shrugged. "Well, my School in Hawaii gave me the offer of being here to experience first-hand, the American schools. Don't know why it's a high school though."

"You too?" asked Marco with a big grin. "Man, small world. That's the same thing with my school back in Africa."

"Hm, intriguing." Vivian responded. "I have that story too."

"Same here." Said Flynn. "I'm from Florida, and we're nowhere near it."

"That's… my story too." Said Izumi. "This is really weird now." She turned to Erika. "What about you?"

"Um…?" She just quietly nodded but had a look of uncertainty. She noticed Vivian looking at her with a caring smile.

"It's ok if you don't wanna talk about it."

Izumi stood up looking serious. "Wait, so all six of us are from different parts of the globe, all got transferred to the same school, at the same time, all on a fieldtrip, and now we're all sharing the same empty cabin that's the least broken up?"

There was a bit of an awkward silence, no one really knew how to respond to that. Flynn eventually folded his 3DS, put it in his pocket and stood up. "Well, maybe the school thought since we're all exchange students, of varying ages, maybe they thought it'd be fitting to have us interact. And heck, maybe there's something special about all of us if we were picked."

"Such as?" asked Izumi.

Flynn looked around. "Well… does anyone have any special traits?" everyone was silent, they had a look implying they did but didn't want to reveal it. "Well… I'll go first then, to break the ice. C'mon, let's sit around."

He sat on the floor again, Marco and Alex sat next to him. Vivian, Erika and Izumi all decided to join in on this at least and sat down with them.

"Ok, well, to start off then. I have an above average IQ, And I have a huge knack for building machines." Said Flynn.

Vivian looked suddenly interested. "How high?"

Flynn tapped his head slightly. "Truth is, I don't know, but I was tested, and we discovered that I have four different brainwaves going at the same time, in order for myself to cope, I was born with a Multiple Personality Disorder."

Everyone looked at each other looking surprised. "So… you're more than one guy?" Marco asked.

Flynn closed his eyes, then as he opened them, his eyes looked a bit fiercer, had a much more confident posture and mannerisms. "Exactly." He spoke in a slightly deeper tone taking everyone by surprise. "There are four of us inside this one body. You may call me Finley."

Finley closed his eyes and opened them again, this time he looked more deranged with shrunken eyes, a toothy grin. "Heh! And you can call me Flint!" he spoke in a higher pitched raspy voice, he looked like he was going to attack at any point, this made Erika shuffle back a bit looking very intimidated. Vivian noticed this and shuffled a bit forward to protect her.

Flint closed his eyes and opened them again, now his eyes were quite wide with big pupils, he had a more welcoming smile. "And you can call me Felix." He said with a somewhat flamboyant tone. "Unlike those nasty ones like Flint and Finley, I am very much sweeter than flowers!"

Felix closed his eyes and appeared normal again. Flynn sighed a bit. "I know, that must've been really weird, it's why I don't show them off much."

Everyone looked a bit dumbstruck. "I don't know what I just witnessed." Said Izumi. "If you're just messing with us, you should be in show business."

Flynn shrugged. "I'm not messing, this is real. I'm the head of the personalities so I have the most control. But imagine having three more voices in your head trying to attain dominance."

"Sounds rough." Said Alex.

"So… what about everyone else?" Flynn asked. Everyone looked around silently. "C'mon, don't let me be the only one."

"Fine." Vivian spoke up. "I'll go next then." She flicked her ear slightly. "I'm sure you've noticed these fellas, right?"

"Yeah, are you an Elf?" asked Alex.

"Not quite." Vivian then smiled, showing all her teeth, everyone exclaimed in surprise as they all shuffled back. Her teeth were all razor sharp like a shark's, but the two in front, the fangs, were extra-long, almost reaching he bottom of her lower set of teeth.

"Holy cow! You're a Lizard Girl!" exclaimed Marco.

Vivian stopped her smiling and looked at Marco with confusion and annoyance. "What!? No! I'm a Vampire!"

"A Vampire!? A REAL one?" asked Flynn.

"In the flesh." Vivian responded as she flicked her ponytail slightly with a confident smile. "I'm much stronger, faster and I can tank bullets no problem. And I also drink blood, I can even see blood inside your bodies."

Izumi folded her arms a bit feeling uncomfortable, but then she realised something. "Hang on, you've been outside in the sun all day. Shouldn't you have fried by now?"

"You're basing that on the assumption that we burn in sunlight. We actually sparkle." Vivian sniggered a bit. "Nah, I'm screwing with ya, we do burn up in the sun." She then held up the coin around her neck. "This is a Sun Medallion, it's a magic coin that prevents Vampires from burning up in sunlight."

"Ok, cool." Marco spoke up. "Well then I guess it's my turn then. I may look normal…"

"Although you're an insane idiot." Izumi mumbled.

"But I'm actually a Werewolf." Marco finished.

"Seriously?" Vivian asked looking surprised.

"Wow, so we've got a Vampire, a Werewolf and a Mad Scientist." Said Alex looking amused.

"Yeah, every full moon I turn, so I have to do my special meditation to make sure I stay in control, should I turn."

"Do you turn during a full moon or do you have to look at it directly?" asked Vivian.

"Look at it directly."

"Good, I have a good mental clock on the faces of the moon, I can inform you when the next one will be."

"Sweet. Time zones been making it more difficult lately."

Vivian then turned to Alex. "So, what about you, munchkin? Got anything special about you?"

"Munchkin? … Well… I actually know magic."

Erika perked up slightly as she looked over to Alex, Vivian noticed this, but didn't speak up, in case it made her nervous again.

"Seriously!?" asked Flynn looking amazed. "Are you a wizard?"

"S-Sort of." Alex placed his hands together and to their utter surprise, a white light became to glow from his hands. "I have only one trick however, this magic heals any injuries and illnesses, back in Hawaii, I'm quite famous for being the local healer… although… real doctor's hate me."

"I… can see why…" Vivian responded. "Still, this is amazing, all of us seem to be beyond human."

"Well not quite." Flynn turned to Izumi. "So, what can you do Izumi?"

Izumi let out a huff. "Sorry to say but being extremely beautiful is what makes me special. I don't actually have any powers. It's for the best I just show you…"

Izumi got up and walked up to her bed where she kept her bag and parasol, she picked them up and brought them to the others. She held up her parasol. "This may look like an ordinary Parasol, but its magic too. It has two functions." She tried to bend the Parasol as hard as she could, but it bounced back perfectly fine. "First, it's invincible, so it protects me from rain, harsh sun and even attacks."

Izumi then dug into her bag and took out a deck of sixty cards and placed a few of them on the floor, all of them had pictures of strange looking creatures. "But my parasol also lets me use the power of these Ofuda Cards."

"What's an Ofuda?" asked Alex.

"To put it simply, these are Yokai specifically, Japanese Monsters. With my Parasol, I can use a wide variety of special powers."

"Cool, show us!" said Marco looking excited.

Izumi smirked. "Alright." Izumi shuffled through the cards until she took out two of them and placed the rest in her bag.

She held out the first one while holding her parasol. "Kanashibari!" she exclaimed. In a flash, her Parasol glowed a bright pink and out appeared a transparent ghostly woman. This made everyone shuffle back, especially Erika who shrieked a bit, resulting in Vivian keeping in front of her to protect her.

This ghostly woman glowed a bit alongside Marco, then in an instant, Marco dropped to the ground as the woman disappeared.

"Marco!?" exclaimed Flynn as he got onto his knees and turned him around, he was snoring loudly, fast asleep.

"Kanashibari is a Yokai who has the power to put people to sleep." Izumi then took out the other one. "Makuragaeshi!"

The same thing happened again, only this time a ghostly boy appeared, it let out a shriek and in an instant, Marco woke up in a fright, jumping to his feet. "W-What!? Who!?"

The ghostly boy disappeared as Izumi placed the cards away. "And Makuragaeshi awakens anyone from a deep sleep. I have sixty-one of these Ofuda Cards, all of them with varying abilities. I may be a normal human, but when it comes to variety, I have no equal."

"Intriguing." Said Vivian as she and the rest got back into their little circle.

"Next time, use someone else as your test dummy." Said Marco.

"Well you're already a dummy so it was fitting."

Flynn then turns to Erika. "So, Erika, you're the last one."

"H-Huh!?" she was taken aback by what Flynn said.

"Do you have any special powers?"

"I…" Erika fell silent again.

"C'mon, we're not gonna judge." Said Alex.

Erika tipped her head down a bit, looking very nervous. But soon she noticed Vivian with a welcoming smile. "It's alright, Erika. We won't force you." Vivian then turned to the others. "I'm sure Erika has social issues; we should let her show her abilities in her own time."

"Sure, but know we're your friends, Erika." Said Flynn.

"Yeah, take your time, we don't mind." Said Alex.

"I bet your powers are pretty crazy, but we'll like you anyway." Said Marco.

"Anti-Climatic." Izumi mumbled. "So, I guess that makes me the winner, I have the best abilities."

Vivian turned to Izumi. "Oh really, your magic cards are interesting, but I can kick your ass without any weapons."

"I can make any machine to fight." Said Flynn. "I bet I could beat you both no problem."

"O-Ok, we're getting off topic." Said Alex looking nervous. "What's important is that we all have a special gift, with that, we should stick together too. It'll probably make this camp trip way more fun."

"Yeah, I agree." Said Flynn.

"Since we're all in the same boat, I have to agree also." Said Vivian.

"Fine, but only because this camping trip has been awful otherwise." Said Izumi.

Marco looks up at the clock hanging on the far end of the room. "It's getting late, we should probably get to bed for tomorrow's activity."

"Yeah, let's get some sleep." Said Izumi.

With that, the six got up and prepared themselves to get to bed. Before Erika could do anything however, Vivian spoke up, getting her attention. "Hey Erika."

"H-Huh? …Y-Yeah…"

"I know socialising isn't easy for you, if you need someone to help you out, I'm here for you."

"Um." Erika just nodded slightly, Vivian gave a warm smile and walked away.

It was the next day, and we find the gang as well as the other students by a large river with a long string of boats.

"Now then class" said the Scoutmaster. "Today we will be taking the boats and travel around the lake for a good few hours."

They simply looked down at the boats they were gonna use, there was enough for all the students, each boat had room for two people to fit in and use an oar each, but they all looked quite old and looked like they could collapse at any moment.

"This looks like fun doesn't it?" asked Marco with a goofy smile.

"I strongly disagree." Said Vivian.

"Oh of course it will!" said the scoutmaster looking excited as he walked up to her "Everyone loves boats!"

"Not me."

"Oh, you little joker" chuckled the scoutmaster as he walked off, not believing what Vivian said, "Right class, let's get you into groups of two for each boat."

The six kids took a boat each in the back row and teamed up as such. Flynn and Izumi, Marco and Alex and Vivian and Erika.

"This is gonna rock!" said Marco shooting her arms into the air causing the boat to rock slightly.

"Woah! Hey! Careful!" Alex panicked slightly feeling the water splash on him slightly.

"This rotting wood and filthy water would do horrible for my beautiful looks." groaned Izumi as she looked at the oar she had to pick up. "Do they seriously expect me to even touch this rotting thing, it's disgusting!"

"I can't do it by myself." Said Flynn.

"Alright students!" said the scoutmaster through a megaphone. "Your task is to simply follow my boat across the river, try to keep up and don't take any other paths… there are several smaller rivers that break up into multiple pathways, only take the one I go through as the rest are dangerous. Alright kids let's begin."

With that, the kids began to row their boats following the scoutmaster who sat on the middle as two other scouts rowed his boat.

Ten minutes had passed and nothing out of the ordinary happened, Marco looked around feeling excited, Vivian just rowed feeling bored. Alex kept staring at the water wondering how much mess could get into it. Izumi kept her legs as clenched together as possible, not wanting to touch any more of the rotting wood than she already has, she also gave off quick shrieks whenever the water splashed upward, Flynn was quietly humming to himself, trying to relieve the boredom and block out Izumi's screeches. Erika kept to herself, very silently while rowing with Vivian.

A few more minutes passed, and they all looked ahead to see a bunch of branching rivers like the scoutmaster mentioned earlier, they saw the one river the scoutmaster and the other students went through, the other rivers were more dangerous according to the scoutmaster, but there was one river with clear blue water, completely clean. Whether or not it was dangerous, it looked to be a path to any form of supernatural, even if it wasn't, it's be more interesting to go down this path instead.

"Let's go down that one." said Izumi as she pointed to the cleaner river on the right.

The others looked towards the cleaner part of the river, but what interested them the most was that the river was indeed attached to the main polluted river, but none of the mess went through that branching part at all. It didn't make sense.

"I'm not so sure." Said Flynn. "The Scoutmaster said-"

Izumi turned back to Flynn. "This camping trip has been hell since we got here! If we go down this path, we'll be away from those idiots!"

"Yeah but-"

"Alright kids!" said the scoutmaster through a megaphone again. "To kill time, I'm gonna be singing some folk songs! Y'all like my singing, right? course you do!"

That one line made all of them even more motivated to go down the other river, so they teamed up and turned their boats towards the cleaner river. But once the boat touched the cleaner river, the boat was suddenly moving by itself going through the river without the oars to guide it.

"WOAH! W-We're not doing that." said Marco as he tried to stop the boat by rowing backwards, everyone did the same but there was a sudden shake and the oars were somehow flown out of their hands and went into the river going backwards.

Vivian raised an eyebrow as she looked at the oars slowly going back to the polluted part. Then she simply leaned back again. "Meh, might as well go where the river wants us to go." She looked over to Erika feeling nervous, she then smiled at her again. "Don't worry, we'll be fine. Just take it easy."

Twenty minutes had passed now, and everyone seemed at peace, the breeze was gentle, the sun was warm, everywhere was nice and quiet, the plants looked full of life compared to the ones back at camp, the river was crystal clear, everything was perfect. All everyone did was simply lean back, eyes closed and let the boat do the moving for them. They had all had ropes that tied the three boats together to make sure no one drifts off while they enjoyed the peace and quiet.

But soon the peace and quiet was broken when everyone heard a clicking sound, they all opened their eyes and sat up to see Flynn typing on his laptop.

"Had to ruin it didn't you?" said Izumi as she glared at Flynn.

"Sorry." said Flynn, he soon turned his laptop around to show everyone what was on screen showing a map. "But I've been looking up on the map of the entire bit of land we're in, this river isn't on any of the maps."

"Maybe they made a mistake?" asked Vivian.

"No way." said Flynn. "The maps on this site get scanned and updated every minute, this would've appeared by now."

"Who cares?" asked Izumi.

"Yeah, who cares?" said Marco.

"I kinda do." Said Alex starting to worry. "What if we don't get back to the campsite."

"We'll be alright, Alex, we're not ordinary kids, we can handle anything." Said Vivian.

Flynn looked back at his laptop and then just closed it. "Maybe it is a glitch or something." He then places it back into his backpack.

"Well! I say we should celebrate!" said Marco as he took off his backpack and placed it in between him and Alex, he opened it to reveal several cans of soda.

"Smooth move." said Izumi with a smirk. Marco then handed everyone a can of soda in which they all opened it at the same time. Even Erika looked to be warming up to them.

"I hereby say we should name this river something and claim it for ourselves." said Alex.

"What do you have in mind?" asked Vivian.

"How about Freedom River?" asked Flynn "We were free from the shackles of camp rules in this place."

"Freedom River it is!" said Vivian.

"To Freedom River." said everyone except Erika, but they all tapped their cans with the kid next to them.

Vivian was about to take a sip, but something didn't feel right, she felt something disturbing in the air, so she moved her can away from her and began to look around. "Something's not right." she muttered, the others heard her and looked around.

She was right, everything seems different, the grass around the river was much longer, the trees got larger and thicker and there was an unusual faint fog inside the forests, but what was also strange was that there was no life at all, no little rabbits or insects like earlier, Alex looked down to see the water was still crystal clear, but there were no fishes, nor any form of plant-life underneath. Almost as if all life has either fled or disappeared. "All the fish are gone…"

The fog was starting to get thicker, but the river and forests were still visible.

"W-What do we do?" asked Izumi looking nervous.

"So far nothing" said Vivian. "These boats are moving by itself and we have no oars… might as well just keep calm. If we panic, we'll cause more trouble, just remain calm and focused."

Ten more minutes passed, and everyone felt uneasy, the strong silence and thick fogs surrounded all of them. What made things much more unsettling was that they were no longer on a river, for some odd reason they had arrived in a massive body of water, almost as if they had arrived at the ocean or just an even bigger portion of the lake, they had trouble telling where they were since the fog had become so thick they could not see more than twenty-feet around them. And there was nothing but water around them, no sign of anything else.

Everyone looked around trying to find something worth pointing out, at the same time they felt uneasy.

Vivian seemed the calmest, however she did have chills down her spine and arms. While they all felt uneasy, they all knew this was better than being bored at the stupid camp site with their annoying scoutmaster. Soon Vivian began to feel even more chills, not just down her spine or arms, all over her body. She slowly sat back up and looked around, from the looks of it, everyone else seemed very uneasy. "Is… is anyone else cold?"

"Yeah. Ice cold actually." Said Izumi as she rubbed her arms a bit too.

Everyone else responded as well, they felt the same. Vivian rubbed her right arm slightly. "I never get cold; this can't be normal."

Erika looked forward after peering through the fog, she quickly gasped. "Guys look!" Everyone was shocked to hear Erika speak properly for once, but they realised what she said and turned to see what was in front of them. None of them could believe what they were heading for.

Right in front of them was a massive island surrounded by the fog, all they could see was the silhouette, but it looked as big as a town. Flynn took out his laptop and tried to look at the maps again, but felt worried that there was absolutely no signal, he began to repeatedly press the refresh button. "C'mon! C'mon!"

The rest of them turned to look at the island in both fear and amazement, this was unlike anything they had seen. Soon the boats had moved right up to the edge and on top of the sand, they had all remained where they were, however. Wondering if they really should get off the boat or stay, none of them knew if the island was any safer.

'CRAACK!'

Everyone jumped at the sound and looked to the wood near the surprised Izumi, it had suddenly split for no reason at all. Then another crack occurred right under Marco's feet, and then another one behind Flynn, then water began to fill in through the cracks.

"EVERYONE OUT!" shouted Vivian and all of them immediately ran out of the boats as it continued to crack in several places. Flynn took the longest as he had to put his laptop back into his bag.

The boats slowly slipped back towards the water as it continued to crack and bend as if they were made of paper. They were soon cracked even more and crushed into a singular ball as it slowly sank into the water. With no boat, the kids were now stuck on this mysterious island.

All of them looked in shock and horror, seeing what had happened. "Oh Jeez! Oh Jeez!" said Izumi starting to have a panic attack. "This can't be real; this is all just a dream! S-Someone wake me up!"

Vivian suddenly slapped Izumi to calm her down, but it made her angry instead. "Hey! What gives!?"

"You asked!" said Vivian.

"Oh, did I ask to be slapped!? No! How about I slap you back and see how you like it!?"

"Enough!" Erika shouted surprising everyone. She realised what she said and fell back into looking very shy and quiet.

Vivian sighed a bit. "Sorry, you're right, this isn't the time to be arguing."

"Don't slap me again and I won't argue!"

They turned around to see what awaited them on this island, Vivian had a confused look on her face, but she shook her head a bit. "It's pointless to simply stay still in this location." The others looked towards her.

"Yeah… might as well see if we can find some help or something." Said Flynn trying to keep calm.

Looking ahead, they all saw that there was a village surrounded by this fog, but the village itself was mostly rubble with no trace of life anywhere, not even plant life. Almost as if the village was destroyed centuries ago and there were no survivors, nor has anyone set foot in this area since, everywhere looked dead. It was so quiet you could hear a leaf hit the cold cracked ground, not that the trees had any leaves on them.

"If… there are any."

"Maybe we should prepare for the worst." Said Flynn, he took off his backpack and dug into it, there he took out a metal suitcase. He pressed a button on it and to their surprise, it suddenly turned into a mechanical looking cannon with a singular strap. Flynn placed it on and pressed a button making the cannon whirr into life for a moment before getting quiet.

"What is THAT!?" Asked Izumi looking shocked.

"That's awesome!" Exclaimed Marco.

"It's my Gadgeteer Gun." Said Flynn. "My weapon of choice, I'm not sure why, but I felt like I was gonna need it."

Everyone else looked to each other and eventually took out their weapons, with the exception of Vivian who didn't have one, she just cracked her knuckles.

Marco had a sturdy looking wooden Cricket Bat. Izumi took her parasol out and fitted her bag of cards to her side. Alex took out a wooden shield. Erika had what looked to be a long staff, but was actually a baton, meant for twirling and performing. Vivian raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't speak up.

The kids kept close to one another but not close enough to bump into one another, Vivian and Flynn kept to the front of the group, with Flynn preparing his Gadgeteer Gun in case they run into any threats, the chills had not died down since.

"These chills. Just what are they?" mumbled Alex.

"I don't know." Muttered Vivian, even she looked uncomfortable, this only made Alex more worried, if Vivian was feeling worried, then they had a good reason to be.

Soon enough the kids stopped in an open area to look around. "This must've been the town square." Muttered Flynn. All the kids saw were several destroyed buildings, reduced to rubble but still had some features that shown what they used to be, such as rooftops for houses. Things could've been seen better if this fog had not been in the way.

"I think we can assume that no one has been here for so long." Said Marco rubbing his arm.

"Well… yeah but… why do I get the feeling that we're being watched?" asked Izumi.

Vivian's eyes widened slightly as she heard a distinct noise. "Shush… you hear that?"

Everyone kept quiet and tried their best to listen to whatever Vivian could be hearing. Soon they all began to hear it, it was a slow creaking sound. They all looked to the west where an old clock tower used to stand, now it was just a pile of stone rubble with a giant rusted cracked bell on its side. The kids slowly walked towards the tower where the creaking sound was coming from, slowly getting louder.

Once the kids were right in front of the tower, the creaking got louder. They all looked around and found nothing, Flynn then pointed to behind the tower. "Maybe back here?" he whispered. All of them slowly crept to the back of the tower, Erika however stayed behind, taking notice of the cracked bell on its side.

She gently placed her hand against the bell and slowly moved her hand across it, feeling the rust across her palm. She moved her hand off it and looked at her palm, she then rubbed it with her other hand. "Why is there no dust?" she mumbled.

"Hey Erika!" called Marco, she immediately jumped out of her thoughts and turned to the others. "Check it out."

Erika quickly walked to the others behind the tower and they discovered what the creaking noise was, it came from a rocking chair. But what amazed and confused them more was that there was an individual sitting on this chair making it rock, the person's back was turned to the kids, so they couldn't see their face, they also wore a rotten thick coat with a hood on.

"Excuse me?" asked Flynn, there was no response. "Sir? … Ma'am?"

The person still didn't respond to what they were saying. "Hey! We're talking to you!" exclaimed Marco.

There was still no response. So, Izumi walked up to the person and smacked the rocking chair resulting in the person falling down as it unintentionally turned around.

"AAAAGH!"

All of them screamed to have discovered that the person was actually a decaying skeleton, as it hit the ground making it crack in several places. All of them stepped back in fear.

"Dead…" Vivian muttered.

"Just what happened here?" asked the scared Flynn, he tried to keep calm, but it was obvious he was panicking. He then held his head in pain as he stumbled back a bit. "N-No! Not now!"

"What's wrong?" asked Vivian looking surprised.

"It's…" Flynn eventually got his composure. "It's… my Multiple Personality Disorder, when I stress out, it makes it easier for my other personalities to take over. They could cause problems if I don't keep them in-line."

"In that case, take deep breaths and try to calm down, we'll try to help you too." Vivian then looked around. "I don't know when that man died but it must've been long ago. I doubt there are any more survivors, let's just see if we can find something to make a boat out of."

With that the kids walked back to the town square and walked down the same path they took to get here, hoping to get back to the shoreline to make a boat there.

An hour had passed and there was still no shoreline in sight. Soon all of the kids stopped to look around. "Ok, we've been walking in a straight line for an hour now, surely we should be getting close to the shore." Said Vivian looking both confused and annoyed.

"Did we take the wrong path?" asked Flynn.

"With how thick this fog is, anywhere could be right or wrong." Said Izumi as he looked around more.

Alex dug into his bag and took out a flashlight and lit it in front of him, unfortunately the light didn't do a thing. "Hm, worth a try." He said as he put the flashlight away.

"That does give me an idea." Said Izumi as she walked in front of the others and took out one of her Ofuda Cards.

"Tengu!" Izumi's card and Parasol glowed once again, there appeared a human-shaped bird with wings and two large fans, it unleashed two large gusts of wind from it's fans and flew into the fog, but it didn't even budge, the Tengu then disappeared as Izumi placed the card away.

"Crap. This has to be some kind of supernatural fog!" said Izumi looking worried.

As the gang looked around some more, Marco took notice of one of the large buildings, looked to be a barn of sorts. He raised an eyebrow and took notice of the roof, despite being made of straw, it looked sturdy enough.

"I got an idea, wait here." Marco walked up to the barn confusing the others, until they noticed him start running, jumped onto a few barrels, leapt off them to grab a wooden pole, he spun around it and used the momentum to launch himself up onto the roof where he landed with style.

"I didn't know you do gymnastics." Said Alex as she and the others walked up to the barn.

"Africa's a rough place and I do a lot of on foot deliveries. It helps to be good with your footwork." Marco then began to look around, using the higher ground to find anything useful. Unfortunately, due to the fog, it was just silhouettes, and nothing outstanding.

But suddenly Marco took notice of something, it was some kind of light shimmering in the distance, on the tallest building-like structure. "Hey, I see a light!" he called pointing to where he saw it.

"What? What is it?" asked Flynn.

"How should I know. But if there's a light…"

"Then someone might be there!" said Alex, he looked to where Marco was pointing, then back to him as he jumped from the building and landed by rolling to reduce pain on impact.

"C'mon, let's find this light." Said Vivian, with that everyone walked to where they saw Marco point to.

Twenty minutes passed, and they could see this light shimmering from the tallest building, whether it was a beacon of hope or a trap, they decided to set for it anyway, in hopes of finding either a way out, or figuring out what happened to this village. As they got closer, they found out what the building was, it was a large stone lighthouse.

"A lighthouse?" Flynn looked around. "It's nowhere near the shore."

"Never mind that, why is the light on?" asked Vivian.

"One way to find out, come on." Flynn walked in front of the crew, Izumi second, Erika third, Alex fourth, Vivian fifth and Marco last.

All of them walked slowly through the building walls and eventually travelled up the stairs, a strange icy mist filled the air, it wasn't fog, but it was less inviting, every floor had a small room with a couple beds, a kitchen and a strange worn out painting of some scenery. However, the further they went up, the colder it got, the thicker the mist got, deep down, they wanted to stop and go back down, but for some reason, their legs insisted on going further. After what felt like hours, even though it was just a few minutes, everyone made it to the top, where they got a chilling welcome to the room where the light source is from.

The top room was very spacious and had glass walls everywhere to let the light shine through, but with the intense fog, barely any of the village could be seen, there was the light which shined in one direction, the rotation system for it appears to be damaged, but what got their attention the most was a skeleton in old fisherman's clothing sitting motionless on a rotting wooden chair. Thankfully, because of their last encounter with a skeleton, this second encounter felt easier to process, but what surprised them the most was its position.

It leaned back with an old bottle of ale in one hand, both feet planted firmly on the ground, but its right arm was pointing forward with its hand in a pointing gesture, it pointed in the opposite direction of the light.

"Was this… the owner of the lighthouse?" Alex asked feeling anxious.

"Looked like he died like this, but how?" Said Marco.

"With how strange this place is to begin with. At this point I'm not surprised." Said Vivian.

"Yeah, let's have a look around, see if we can find anything of use." Said Flynn.

Soon all of them began to search the room, thankfully with how spacious it was, there was plenty of room to not bump into anyone, there were all sorts of items in here, cupboards, drawers, a small cooker with a sink and a kettle, an old-fashioned telephone.

As the gang searched everything, Erika took notice of the skeleton again, she felt disturbed to see is just point like this, but then something clicked in her head. 'Is it… pointing at something?' she thought to herself. Hesitantly, she slowly turned her head to where the skeleton was pointing. It was to one of the windows, she looked back to the skeleton, then walked towards the window.

Erika let out a faint grunt of pain as she accidentally stubbed her foot against something wooden, she looked down to see it was a small treasure chest, she looked around to see no one noticed her, but then she looked over to the window, but to her shock, she began to witness something through the window as the fog began to part ways slightly.

Erika let out a loud shriek scaring everyone.

"What!? What is it!?" Izumi shouted in a panic.

"LOOK!" Erika pointed to what she was looking at. Everyone ran to where she was to look.

The fog began to part somewhat giving a clearer look, from the distance was a meteorite falling from the sky at an alarming rate, but what made it strange was the strange golden glow it had as it was falling, and it looked to be aiming towards a the island itself.

As it crashed into the ground, it caused a massive shockwave which shook the ground and even the lighthouse got shook from it. Everyone stumbled around from the magnitude, the skeleton fell to pieces on the ground and the door slammed shut with a large anchor above it fell in front of it.

As everyone got their composure, Izumi noticed the anchor blocking the door. "Crap! The door!" She and Flynn ran to it and tried to move the anchor, but it was far too heavy. "C'mon! Help us out here!"

Marco and Alex ran to the anchor and tried to help. Vivian was about to until she noticed something shining on the ground, just peeking out of the skeleton's pocket. She walked up to it and gently picked it up, upon looking at it, she noticed it was a small golden key. "A key?" she mumbled.

Erika noticed Vivian holding the key, then looked back at the small treasure chest she kicked. She walked up to the treasure chest and picked it up, Vivian noticed the box Erika was holding, so she gently took it and sat on a small stone block and placed it on her lap.

Izumi, Flynn, Marco and Alex couldn't move the anchor, but they noticed Vivian with the treasure chest as Erika next to her watching. So, they stopped and stood next to the others as Vivian used the key to open the chest.

She opened it making a huge cloud of dust, Vivian coughed a bit before opening it all the way, and inside it was a book with a pure white cover. She gently took the book out, placed the treasure chest on the floor and placed the book on her lap.

Everyone was confused by this book, it was well polished, not a trace of dust, the material looked brand new, it had a golden strap to keep the book closed, but what was stranger was what was on the front cover.

There was no text or anything, just a strange golden star shaped symbol with two black dots on the front looking like eyes. It looked to have been made from a different material from the book's cover as it felt different to the touch.

Vivian gently placed her index finger, middle finger and thumb on the golden strap to pull it off. She stopped herself and looked to her left to see Erika and Marco looking, then to her right to see Flynn, Izumi and Alex looking as well. All of them appeared to be silent, but curious enough to see the pages inside, but there was that feel of hesitance in the air, like they wanted to see, but didn't at the same time. Vivian took a deep breath, and slowly pulled the strap off and let it dangle, then she gently lifted the cover and opened the book to its first page.

To their surprise however, the book was blank, Vivian turned to the next page, that was also blank, so she kept turning the pages to find something.

Suddenly there was a flash making everyone jump, the pages started to turn by themselves, everyone took a step back, Vivian tried to drop the book but her hands were stuck for what appears to be no reason, then suddenly the pages stopped in the middle, there they weren't blank, but both pages shown a black and white image of what appears to be a green field with tall hills. Then there was another flash of light surprising everyone again, then the book began to glow a radiant white light that engulfed everything.

Then the light died down, and everyone was gone, leaving the open book on the floor, before closing by itself.

Audience, this is where you get to come in. Unlike Grim Adventures TTYD which follows the story of the game it's based on, this one follows loose guidelines I have planned for the series, but YOU, get to fill in the blanks.

In the comments below, you can make a suggestion on what you would like to see in this story. Unsurprisingly, this takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom, so you can even suggest your favourite things from various Mario or Mario-related games.

I can't guarantee I can use everything you suggest, but I'll do my best. You will also be credited for the idea in the last part of each chapter.

Now unlike Grim Adventures TTYD, there's no weekly update, this will be done at my own pace and leisure, so I'm not sure when I can get the next chapter of this story out.

Either way, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy this.