Mario stood stiffly in the courtyard of Peach's castle. For as long as he'd been in the Mushroom Kingdom, he'd never seen Princess Peach in the kind of scenario he saw her in now. She and Bowser sat in two separate chairs behind Roy, who was restrained and flanked by guards. Mario, Luigi, Junior, and a crowd of other guards stood at a distance. Peach hadn't wanted to make this execution public, but her guards, including Mario, had insisted upon being here to ensure Peach's safety. Luigi had come with Mario for the sake of being by Mario's side, but Mario knew Luigi would rather be anywhere than here right now. As for Junior, Mario didn't really know what he was doing here, but he wasn't about to ask. After all, he didn't want to disturb Junior's likely fragile state of mind.
Suddenly, Peach stood, taking a sword from the guard standing between her and Bowser. Mario's eyes widened and his heart practically stopped. He'd assumed that Bowser would be the one doing the deed of executing Roy. He had no idea that Peach was going to do it. He bit his tongue to keep from causing a stir, but he could still only barely keep from blurting out his objections.
"Roy Koopa," Peach began, bringing the sword to Roy's neck. The guards flanking Roy stepped aside. Peach breathed a ragged sigh, obviously unsettled by what she was about to do. Mario noticed Bowser shift uncomfortably in his seat. His blood began to boil. Bowser should be the one doing this, not Peach.
"Roy Koopa," Peach started again, collecting herself, "For the crime of mass homicide against the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom and the mass regicide you committed in your own home, you have been sentenced to death. Do you have any last words?"
Roy clicked his tongue solemnly.
"Everything's going according to plan," Roy said, "They think they've won, but I'm far from finished."
The blade shook in Peach's hand as she breathed heavily.
"I hope you're listening, scumbag."
Peach closed her eyes as she finally swung for the killing blow. Mario shut his eyes tightly, unable to bear the sight before him. He heard Luigi whimper beside him, also likely unable to look. That was the only sound in the otherwise silent crowd, though. Mario could still very much hear the gore of the moment, though. In fact, he could have sworn he also heard a slight gasp from Peach herself. It was entirely likely she'd never had to do anything like this before.
By the time Mario finally opened his eyes again, Roy's body was already being dragged away and the crowd around him was already dissipating. Peach stepped back, very obviously traumatized. Fresh blood stained her dress and gloves and she shook like a leaf. The blood-covered sword had already been dropped to the ground and it remained there until it was retrieved by another guard. Mario was about to go to Peach to try to comfort her when he felt a hand grab his arm. He whirled around to see Junior looking up at him, his expression unreadable.
"You saw her, right?"
Mario froze.
"Wh-what do you mean?" Mario asked, frantically looking around. Thankfully, Luigi had already left, having sneaked away from the scene as soon as it was possibly acceptable for him to do so, so he didn't have to know about what Mario knew Junior was talking about.
"Marie," Junior replied, "She was here during the execution. She was right up there."
Junior pointed up to the top of a nearby tower. Mario felt a chill run down his spine.
"I looked at her and she looked right back at me," Junior continued, "She was here for a reason."
"You heard what Roy said, right?" Mario asked, "What did he mean?"
"Marie knows," Junior said, "She knows this isn't over."
Junior's shift in attitude from the previous night was unnerving. He was much more serious now. Mario had to wonder when exactly this shift had occurred.
"It's a game," Junior explained, "She wants us to find out what's going on."
Mario felt a sudden sense of dread. He had to wonder how he got himself roped into all this.
"Well, where do we even start?" Mario asked, "I don't even know anything that happened."
"I know where to go," Junior said, "but you have to trust me and not ask any questions until we get there."
Mario hesitated, then nodded slowly. He looked back to Peach, who had now found comfort in the arms of her attendant, Toadsworth. As much as Mario felt like he needed to be here for her right now, the threat Marie still posed to the Mushroom Kingdom was enough to convince him to go with Junior. After all, she was definitely behind all this. There was no doubting that now.
Mario followed behind Junior as they walked through the small Mushroom Kingdom village Junior had led them to. Mario had no idea why they were here, but he'd already been told not to ask questions. All he could do was blindly trust Junior.
He couldn't help but worry, though. He hadn't even told Luigi he was leaving. He couldn't help but wonder how things were going back home right now, but he knew thinking about those things was pointless right now. He had a mission to accomplish and worry was only going to hinder him from here on out.
Mario then spotted their obvious destination as they approached the edge of town. It was a small ruined house. One side of the house was completely collapsed and parts of the rubble were scorched black. The entire site was surrounded by a chain-link fence lined with barbed wire. The emblem on the gate, though, was what really piqued Mario's interest, as it bore the unmistakable symbol of King Bowser.
"What's Bowser doing condemning a ruined house in an insignificant Mushroom Kingdom village in the middle of nowhere?" Mario thought. He didn't voice the thought, though, because of Junior's demands.
"Through here," Junior said, opening the gate. Mario followed, still apprehensive. That feeling only grew as they approached the house. As they entered through the collapsed side of the building, he was assaulted by the simultaneous scents of charred wood and rotting flesh. Together, they were so overwhelming that it made Mario sick to his stomach. He could only barely keep from vomiting.
"We're here," Junior said.
"What is this place?" Mario asked, taking the first opportunity he could to start asking questions. Junior sighed.
"This is where Lemmy died," Junior said, "Roy didn't kill him. He died trying to find a way to resurrect the others. A lightning bolt blew out some kind of machine and Lemmy got caught up in the explosion."
"You know all this?"
"I learned some of it later," Junior said, "I was the first one to find him, though. I saw the lightning bolt that ended up killing him. I came out here looking for him after he ran away and his letter said he was going to bring the others back. I looked for him for four months and I found him just a few minutes too late."
Mario grit his teeth. Junior's words really hit home how traumatized he'd been by this whole series of events and it made Mario think even more about what might have happened. Even so, there was something wrong about the cadence of the statement that made Mario a bit uneasy.
"So," Mario said after a moment, trying to move the conversation along, "You really think we'll find something here?"
"I do," Junior said, "You see, there's still something that was never really clear during everything that happened. We all knew that Roy killed Ludwig, Iggy, Morton, and Wendy, but, for some reason, Lemmy never mentioned Larry. Larry just kind of went missing and Lemmy would never answer any questions about what happened to him. Heck, we don't even know if Larry's dead. For all we know, he might even still be alive."
Mario's eyes widened.
"S-so what's that got to do with this place?" Mario asked.
"Lemmy had to have made notes during his research," Junior explained, "It's possible he said something about Larry in his notes. If he did..."
Mario nodded, turning toward the bookcase on the side of the room that was still intact. In it were several binders stuffed full of papers. Junior stepped forward and grabbed one of these, throwing another back to Mario. Mario caught it and walked over to a nearby table, setting the binder down on top. He leaned against the table as he flipped through the pages, trying to decipher what was on each one. Most all of it was of scientific jargon and complicated calculations that Mario couldn't hope to understand. It was incredible to him that this was all written by the Lemmy Koopa he once knew.
"You know there was a corpse on that table once, right?"
Mario gasped, quickly pulling the binder away from the table and reeling back. He stared at the table for a moment, his face growing red with embarrassment over his hasty stupidity. He knew there wasn't a corpse there anymore, but his reaction was practically reflexive. He could hear Junior laughing at him for this but, when he looked to Junior-
"Hold on! I found something!"
Mario perked back up, making his way over to where Junior was and sitting on the floor beside where Junior was seated. The page Junior was referring to was a blueprint of a strange-looking machine. It looked like something out of a science-fiction movie.
"What is that?" Mario asked.
"Look on the back."
Junior flipped the page. On the back of the blueprint were various letters and numbers all jumbled together. The point of interest, though, was what was written at the bottom of the page:
"TRUST HER. LARRY'S THERE."
"We've got our lead," Junior said, "Now we just have to find somebody that can decipher all this stuff."
Mario looked to Junior, who also looked to him.
"Gadd."
"Interesting..."
Mario watched as Professor Gadd fixed his gaze on the paper Junior had just given him. It hadn't taken long for them to get to the Professor's lab from where they were, which was a huge relief to Mario. He didn't think he could stand the suspense much longer. He had to know what this paper was.
"You're saying Lemmy Koopa wrote this?" Gadd asked, pushing his large glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"What do you think it is, Professor?" Mario asked, unintentionally ignoring the Professor's question. In fact, he only realized Gadd had said anything after the fact.
"Simply put," Gadd started, "I've been doing a lot of interesting research as of late. In fact, I woke up in a cold sweat one night with a raging curiosity and a dilemma I just had to get to the bottom of. You see, a ghost can teleport from place to place, correct? When they do so, they momentarily disappear from this world before reappearing in this next location. I wanted to know where they go when they disappear, so I began crunching numbers."
"Your research is really interesting, Professor," Mario interrupted, "but what about the paper?"
"Eventually," Gadd continued, undeterred, "I was finally able to figure out the exact location of the place the ghosts were going between disappearing and reappearing. That location was known as six, four, four, seven, six, eight, six, eight, six, four, four..."
The professor just kept going. Mario barely listened as the sequence went on and on.
"You actually memorized all that?" Junior deadpanned.
Mario's eyes suddenly widened in realization.
"That sounds like what's on the paper!" Mario exclaimed.
"Exactly!" Gadd responded cheerfully, "What you have on this paper is directions to a location. Now all you need is something to take you there."
"Something to take us there?" Mario repeated, "Like what?"
"Like this," Gadd declared, flipping the blueprint right-side up to display the schematics on the front, "This machine was most certainly meant to take the user to wherever that particular location is."
Mario took the blueprints back from Gadd, flipping them back over. The words he could read at the bottom jumped out at him once again.
"Trust her..."
Mario's thoughts jumped back to Marie. Could she be the "her" Lemmy was talking about? Whatever the case, it was clear Marie's stake in all this extended far beyond just working alongside Roy.
A/N: Sorry for missing a week. Life's been a bit crazy but I'm trying to pick myself back up here, haha. Thanks for putting up with me!