Chapter 2: The Red Suspenders

Chapter 2: The Red Suspenders

Princess Peach was sitting in her room in the palace of the Mushroom Kingdom.

"Whom will you invite as your date to your birthday ball, Princess?" her grandmother asked sitting on her bed.

"Well Mario, of course," Princess said smiling to herself as she thought about dancing with Mario all day and into the night.

"Princess, don't you think you should expand your horizons, you ask him to every ball, and he's an underemployed plumber…" said a small green mushroom figure from the door.

Peach squealed and grabbed a frying pain off her dresser, "You take that back right now." She said. "Mario has saved our kingdom more times than you can count, Minister. And with all due respect…GET OUT OF MY DRESSING ROOM." She lobbed the metal kitchen utensil at her uninvited guest. He was the foreign minister from the Koopahari Desert. No one liked him around there so they sent him away to annoy the people of the mushroom kingdom.

"Pay no attention to him," the Princess's grandmother said to her calmly. "You know why he's here."

"Yes," she thought. Even if he was annoying, his work here was important in organizing for the international summit that had been scheduled to take place at the end of the year. It would be the first meeting to include monarch and officials of every country in the known world.

Peach's thoughts turned back to the ball. She gazed out the window thinking of her love, and she was startled by what she saw. Two flying Goombas were pestering an old grey mushroom lady. The Princess was distressed, but her fears were quickly calmed by a welcome sight.

She saw a flash of red, a raised white fist, a black Italian mustache.

The Jump Man quickly beat down his opponents with a fireball flying in the face of one and the other with a stomp from his boot. The agile fighter flashed a peace sign before returning to the ground and helping the old lady to her feat.

"Mario!" Peach exclaimed. Her day had just gotten better…