The Return of the Purple Penny!

Roo: Write this any faster, TTE, and you'll end up finishing the story before July! What's with you?

I just want to get it out there. You know, so people will vote who they want to go with Sonic, Spyro, and Mario, and so I can get the main story started. Remember, I can't do the story without the knowledge of who you want in the story. And just so you know, this is the sequel to The Train and Mario. It happens after Super Komario too, but that's in the Zelda section.

Ech: And so now comes the time where you realize that it's not yours. Mario, Sonic, and Spyro don't belong to TTE. Obviously we do, so don't ask. Thank you.

Wex: Now let's see what happened to Mario since the first time the Purple Penny crossed his path...

Mario sighed, mostly from exhaustion, after screwing in the last bolt on the toilet he installed in Daisy's castle in Sarasaland. It had been quite a tiring month, every day he had to work, installing another toilet or fixing another sink. He needed a vacation, maybe this time to somewhere that didn't have something Bowser wanted. He'd have to talk to Peach about a vacation to somewhere to the south, like maybe the Hyrule Sea area. They certainly couldn't have a glowing, golden treasure there that could give Bowser ultimate power, could they? That one weird bird kid came from there, and he never mentioned anything higher than the Great Valoo. Mario laughed silently at the weird name he had. "Great Valoo! Mama mia, what crazy names those Hylians have!" Mario picked up his toolbox and flushed the lime green toilet, making sure that it worked, so he could get his pay for this work. When Mario saw that no water was on the ground that could've leaked from the toilet, he left the small bathroom, handing Daisy the bill on his way out of the castle.

"Thank you, Mario!" she called after him.

"All in a day's-a work!" Mario yelled back while he walked back to his car. He tossed the toolbox into the back seat, started the engine, and drove off, bound for the Mushroom Kingdom.

Meanwhile, in another part of the world, in the realms that Bowser controlled, experiments were being done on one of Mario's previously captured items: the purple penny.

"Bwa ha ha!" Bowser laughed as the strange, purple coin was zapped with electricity again. "Now that I have this, the one thing that can beat Mario, not with any brute strength, but with bad luck, I can finally get him out of my hair for good!" The electricity that was shocking the penny stopped and Bowser looked at the results. "Surprisingly good," he said. "The penny allowed more electricity to get through it than any regular penny."

"Sir," a Goomba interrupted, "There is a call waiting for you on line six."

"Don't bother me now, imbecile; there are only a few more experiments I need to take care of."

"But sir, the Boss is calling!"

"I don't care about the– Wait, the Boss?" Bowser asked in fear, "What does he want?"

"Ask him yourself. He wanted you to personally tell him how the penny project is going, and how soon he could expect the heroics of you-know- who."

Bowser walked over to the phone, grumbling about how anyone else could have told him the same thing: that penny was no ordinary penny. "Hello, Boss?"

"Bowser, you moron!" the Boss yelled from the other end. "If I wanted to know how much it would help people get power into their homes, I would've told you to test how much it conducts electricity!"

"Sorry, sir." Bowser replied sheepishly.

"Don't 'Sorry, sir' me, Bowser, you know that I need at least twenty thousand of those pennies as soon as I can get them to get rid of the three enemies of our corporation!" the boss gasped after he said the last words. "Quick, hang up, the line's been tapped!" Bowser tried to get his word in edgewise, but it was too late, all that remained was a dial tone. "Twenty thousand purple pennies!" Bowser yelled. "That's impossible! How am I gonna get that kind of material when I don't even know what it's made of?" Bowser continued yelling about the penny, his boss, and at least a thousand other things before he heard alarms going off and a smaller Goomba ran to him. "Mr. Bowser!" it said, "The Purple Penny has escaped!"

Bowser looked behind him to find one of the strangest sights in the world. The penny was no longer just an inanimate object, it was floating on its own, twisting and turning as it pleased. "Bowser," It finally spoke, "You have experimented on me for the last time. I will report to my master at once, and from there create my own world!"

"Penny, I am your master!" Bowser shouted back. "You report to me!"

"No, brainless Bowser, you are not." The penny continued, "For you now belong to me!" The penny now showed its true power, as it glowed an evil, malicious, dark purple. It came towards Bowser, and before he had any time to react, it disappeared into him, reappearing on his left eye. His right eye glowed the same purple that the penny did moments before, and Bowser's soul, though it was also evil, was almost lost forever. Penny-Bowser turned to look at the Goomba that had warned Bowser of the penny's escape, and commanded it to go and get Mario. This would be just the beginning of the penny's evil.

"Peach?" Mario called out as he entered the castle in Mushroom Kingdom. "Peach? Where are you-a?"

"Up here, Mario!" Peach said with a wink. She ran down the stairs, her pink dress trailing behind her, to greet Mario after his day at work. "So, Mario, how has it been?"

"It hasn't been-a good." Mario told the story of the day, how he had to first remove Daisy's dirty, white and yellow–or at least that's what color he thought it was–toilet. Then he had to get a whole new wax ring after the first one he used started to melt and leak. [Seriously, this happened in my own bathroom. It really stinks.] Mario went on about his day, while Peach got some tea, drank half the pot, and went to the bathroom herself. When she returned, Mario was looking at her as if she had just heard the entire story and was looking for input. Peach's face wasn't the type you'd ask that question, Mario found, and he asked her what was wrong. She immediately replied with "The toilet's leaking again."

"Mama mia!" Mario cried again, taking his wrench out of his pocket. He'd only fix this toilet because he knew his vacation plan would work. It had worked before, when they went to Isle Delfino, and he was sure it would work again, seeing that Peach was really busy now as well. He walked towards the bathroom and saw nothing but total destruction. The toilet was nearly filled up with water now, and some was all over the floor. Mario reached into his pocket to get a nut to hopefully stop the leak temporarily while he got a new wax ring, when all of a sudden, he pulled IT out. He looked at his fingers and saw IT, not believing his eyes. After the flying train accident, he had thrown the penny to the depths of the lake of lava outside of Bowser's castle, but here it was, purple as before, completely whole and unchanged by the incident. "Mario? What's wrong?" Peach's voice came from the castle's main room. "It's–it's back..."

"What's back, Mario?" Peach ran back to where Mario was in the bathroom, and she saw the Purple Penny. "What... What is that?"

"I am the Purple Penny!" It yelled as it floated out of Mario's glove, "And now, Mario, you will pay for what you have done to me!"

The Goomba that the penny had sent to Mario earlier ran into the room. "Mario, you've been summoned by Bowser for a challen– Oh." The Goomba watched the Purple Penny float into the air and transform into Bowser, with the Purple Penny in his eye.

"Bowser, you were-a behind this-a the whole time?!" Mario yelled, "How could you have-a gotten into my pocket?"

"He didn't," the Goomba said, "That's the evil Purple Penny, the same one you destroyed, but it came back!"

"I am not Bowser!" the penny yelled. "And you, Mario, are going to be the first one to die."

"Not if I can-a help it!"

"Luigi!" Peach yelled, "Get Bowser out of my bathroom!" Mario jumped over the toilet and threw out a fireball from his hand. "No! Not the–" Penny-Bowser smashed Peach's brand new red toilet to pieces. "–toilet." "Here we go!" Luigi shot his own green fire towards Bowser to distract him from Peach's sink. "Mario, look out!"

"Mama mia!" Mario yelled as Bowser swung his tail at the red plumber. "No! Not my–" CRASH! "–sink." Mario was in the corner now, his head throbbing from Penny-Bowser's powerful blow. He tried to get up to help his brother, but his head started to spin. Before he knew it, he was on the ground again, and everything went black...

"Mario!" Peach yelled in terror when she saw Mario's hat fall off of his head. "Bowser, you'll pay for that!" The princess jumped into the air and began to smack the living daylights out of Bowser, knocking the penny out in the process. Its purple metal clinked on the tile floor, which was now irreparable, and Bowser returned to his same self. "Where... Where am I?" He said while looking around to see Peach, Luigi, Mario, and then... IT. "Penny, you have disobeyed me for the last time! Take this!" Bowser let out his flame breath, but when he stopped, it was still there. "You still do not realize my true power, Bowser." The penny said. "You may have stopped me from possessing the entire Mushroom Kingdom for the moment, but I will return– next time for your lives. Farewell!"

After the penny disappeared into one of the small toadstools that decorated Peach's bathroom, or what was left of it, Peach, Luigi, and Bowser ran over to Mario's seemingly lifeless body in the corner. "Mario, wake-a up!" Luigi picked up his brother's red hat to inspect it for any signs of darker red. "Mario, I know you can pull through." Peach said with tears in her eyes. "Please, Mario."

Mario slowly opened his eyes and looked around to his brother and girlfriend. "Mama mia, I feel like a train hit me." Mario took his cap back from his green brother and stood up, only to see Bowser standing behind Peach and Luigi with a guilty look on his face. "Uh, Peachie," Mario said while he pulled Peach to the side, right by where the toilet used to be, "What is-a Bowser doing in your-a bathroom?"

"Mario, I came here by accident, I never meant for that penny to get so out of control." Bowser stated just as guiltily as he looked. "That thing must be stopped before it gets even more out of hand."

"How can I-a stop it, Bowser?" Mario asked him. "You-a saw it just-a disappear into that-a mushroom! It just vanished!"

"I have a plan just for this kind of situation. It's heading for the world of Microsoft. I don't know what it plans to do there, more than likely it'll destroy them like it destroyed your bathroom, Princess Toadstool."

"Well, if it's-a on its way to-a Microsoft, how can we stop it?"

"Yes, Bowser, their empire is more than half of this planet, there could be no way that even if we combined our forces that we could even try to stop its brainwashing tactics on their heroes."

All three stopped at Peach's statement and thought of how doomed the entire world would be because of the penny. Nobody said a word until finally, Luigi shouted out the answer: "We could-a warn them before it gets there!"

"It wouldn't work, Luigi." Bowser stated with a sigh. "They're preparing for their new games and system. But if we could somehow get others besides us to stop that penny, it just might be able to be defeated!"

"Well, call up Microsoft right-a now, and let's-a go!"

Bowser ran over to Peach's small pink phone and dialed the number for Bill Gates, the only one who could orchestrate this kind of cooperative action between the heroes that were stars of many games for each of the companies. He would ask him just what to do, and what to tell them all. Bowser was anxious as he dialed all of the numbers, when the line went busy. "Noooo!" he yelled, "Now none of us will be safe from that–" RIIIING! RIIIING! Mario ran over to the phone and picked it up as it rang for the third time, answering to a gruff voice. "Hello? Is this the Mushroom Kingdom?"

"Yes-a. I'm-a Mario. Can-a I-a help you?"

"Mario, there is a problem here at Microsoft. An evil purple penny is taking over our Microsoft Word programs and making them viruses that could destroy the entire world if left alone."

"What a coincidencie. We were-a just about to call your-a boss."

"Listen, I need you to come to the land under Microsoft Jurisdiction and help us get rid of this penny."

"I'm-a on it!" Mario yelled into the telephone.

"Listen," the gruff voice said, "You may bring one more person with you. No more. You leave in twenty-four hours. Thank you, Mario." The voice on the other end hung up the phone, leaving Mario with a dial tone, just like the other two. Mario hung up the phone and turned to face Bowser, Luigi, and Peach. "Who was that?" "What did they say?" Luigi and Peach asked.

"It was-a someone from Microsoft. They-a said that they're already having problems with-a that penny. I'm-a going to their land to help them-a out."

"Well, Mario, it-a should be easy if we all-a go together to stop it!" Luigi yelled enthusiastically.

"Only one-a problem, Luigi," Mario stated sadly, "I-a can only bring-a one of you."

Antiroo: Hey, everyone! Vote the one who goes with Mario to Microsoft to stop the evil Purple Penny! It could be Luigi, Peach, or Bowser, so choose wisely for the fate of the story!

Princess Aquaech: And voting will still be open for Sonic's partner, Shadow, Tails, or Knuckles, and Spyro's partner, Sparx, Elora, or Hunter. Vote now so TTE can keep his schedule of making the next chapter, the one where they all meet, by July.

Antiech: As of now, the votes stand at this:

Spyro's partner: Hunter: 2, Elora: 0, Sparx: 0

Sonic's partner: Knuckles: 1, Shadow: 2, Tails: 1

Mario's Partner: Luigi: 0, Peach: 0, Bowser: 0

Platypous: TTE will be updating this list every time he gets a review until July 1st, so hurry up and review! He really wants to know everyone you picked, so tell him each partner in your review. Or even in an e-mail. Just put the subject as "Purple Penny Partners," and he'll check it out. Well, until July, review and look out for falling Spyrocitor updates.