Disclaimer:I don't own anything that has to do with Super Mario Bros. or any other characters from the Nintendo company. It's Nintendo's copyrights.

The Darkside

Chapter I: 1979-1981: The Beginning

You may think you know Mario as this happy-go-lucky guy, but that's now. He was a whole new story over 24 years ago, just starting out in the world of The Mushroom Kingdom. Back in the day, my brother came across more trouble than any regular tough guy off the streets could ever be in. He wasn't the friendly, goofy and considerate person he is today. He used to be a misunderstood, short-fused, irritable son of a bitch who was a bully to me brother-wise. It took years and years of growing up for him to realize that he was more than a video game icon. It also took a lot of hard-learned lessons he came across with his dealings with people out in the open world. Also, I've had my share of bumps and bruises as well. I've experienced jealousy towards my brother as well as envy from other people around us. I've been often abused in this line of work in Nintendo, and it took a while for me to put my foot down. This is the darkside of the games that may seem "fun" to all of our fans. First, we'll start with Mario's woes as I saw it.

Flashback to September 1978, Miyamoto High School. Mario was a 20 year old senior to my 17 year old sophomore. He took up carpenter training at his career training center and decided that that would be his job for life. He was also stubborn and didn't like the word "no" at all. One day, April 20th of 1979 to be precise, I helped him get his future together in a whole month prior to his graduation. He seemed relaxed most of the time I've helped him plan, until I told him that he couldn't possibly spend his whole life being a carpenter. When I told him that, his laid-back mood got obliterated and in came his tempestuous side. He may have stood at least 4'11" to my 5'9" and mostly talked in falsetto, but I'm telling you, with my brother appearance don't mean shit. He'll show you what you see isn't exactly what you get. He was a very intimidating person, despite his diminutive figure. He flipped over a table in a fit of rage and flipped out on me, saying, "You don't rule me, little brother! I'm a grown-ass man and I can handle any fuckin' situations y'all throw at me!"

When I restrained him from throwing our mother's $1,000 vase, he turned around and threw it at me. Many sharp pieces pierced my flesh, and I was on the floor, gushing with blood in excruciating pain. Before he left the room to cool down, he kicked me hard in my back while talking more stuff about me. I knew he had a temper back then, but the least he would do would scream at you and maybe even smack you around a little. What I didn't know about him that made him go off on me like that was that people started putting pressure on him about what to do when he's suddenly thrusted off into the real world. He was becoming so cocky about his future that he actually thought that he'd be rich in a mansion 5 years later. Big fucking deal, I thought. Afterwards, I tried so hard to keep our mom from finding out about Mario's fiasco with me, because he'd probably come back and kill me literally if he got kicked out of our house with no remorse by our mom. After he left, I called the paramedics and they came to my house. Our mom wasn't in by that time, so I got off lucky at that time, or so I thought I did. I forgot about that big puddle of blood in the living room where Mario and I was at, when we were planning. I thought to myself, "Either way, you're screwed. How can you forget about all that blood in that room and not clean it up if you didn't want your mom to find out?"

She did find out. The minute she stepped into the living room, all she noticed right away was my blood on her rug. Obviously, one train of thought went through her mind over and over again...that one of us was hurt. She checked at my hospital to make sure everything was alright, and I was forced to spill the beans about Mario's latest explosion and the pain he inflicted upon me. On April 23rd, that was that. Mario officially got the boot, and it didn't have anything to do with living out on his own either. The last time she ever saw Mario again was graduation on May 20th. She was still seething mad at him for what he did to me, and it showed. Normally, your parents are supposed to be openly proud of you when you reach that point of your life. But our mom was an exception. While at the ceremony, she displayed a seemily emotionless face and was cold hearted towards Mario to the point that she wouldn't even tell him how proud she is to see him graduate or act like it, even though deep inside she did in fact feel proud. When he rushed to our mom and hugged her, saying, "I did it! I got my diploma! Our family will be set for life!", she pushed him off of her.

She said coldly, "I can clearly see that giant rolled up joint you possess in your hands that you call a diploma. I still want you to finish packing so that you can get the hell out of our place so that you can go off to a shelter. You'll be staying in one until you can find a permanate place to stay!".

Mario was feeling crushed and betrayed. He thought our mom could keep on tolerating his antics, but now, enough was enough. She has put her foot down and did not plan on raising it back up for nothing or no one. Then I saw Mario do something I've never seen him do in any of my life; he teared up.

He started crying softly, and then walked out of the ceremony back home to finish packing. Mom was still emotionless and didn't seem to care about Mario because of his tough guy image. One time, at age 15, he got so mad at our mom for cutting allowances that he blackmailed her with our abusive dad who would regularly beat her and then side with Mario to practically jump me whenever he would visit every other weekend. Mario was our dad's favorite between him and I. In fact, our dad is where Mario got his bad temper from. I saw what was coming next, so I sped right to our house to try to calm him down.

"It's nothing", I told him. "She doesn't mean it. She really loves you."

Mario yet again let his emotions get the best of him.

He took his suitcase and swung it at me, barely hitting me in the face, and then lunged out to attack me, screaming, "It's all your fault! You're always the good one in the family while they look at me like a thug!"

He took a couple swings at me, and then tried to choke me, when out of nowhere, our mom came out! Enraged herself, she immediately lifted my brother off of me, and pushed him out the door, locking it so that he couldn't come in. She took all the other things he didn't pack from his room and threw them out of his window upstairs. She even tried to take a couple shots at Mario's head with some heavy objects.

"Stay the fuck away from this family, Mario Segali Mario!", she bellowed from his upstairs' window.

From that point on, he was never heard from again. In fact, I never heard from him for over 8 months after that incident.

Sometime in March 1980, Mario got his first job as a carpenter, after many months of searching. He still had that hate in himself at me for ratting him out. His $6.25 an hour payment at his 10 hour a day job wasn't even enough to satisfy him. He was always finding new ways to get money on the side, even if it meant resorting to street hustling to fulfill his ever-growing greed for cash. A year later, he got caught not only selling weed on the corner, but also smoking it during break with some of his co-workers. His supervisor fired him, and that was it for his carpenter career. He didn't even bother getting a legit job after that, because all of the people he went to for jobs knew of his reputation for being a hot-headed asshole to customers, not to mention a drug possession charge on his records. He kept his drug selling business and got into another illegal venture; street fighting. He wound up being 1981's streetfighter of the year in his organization, he was so good. He mainly learned all the breakdance moves we learned together from some of his b-boy friends on the streets and turned them into stylistic capoiera moves mixed with his own gritty style of streetfighting. He battled with many people in a pit that they regularly fight in at night, and usually won.

I caught him while walking home from my job beating the shit out of some unfortunate victim over and over and over. I thought to myself, Is this my brother doing that? When he left with a large wad of cash in his hand, I stopped him, and questioned him about his choices he made.

"Why did you decide to take up streetfighting? Why are you using your breakdancing moves we learned together as weapons of mass destruction instead of an artform? Why must you make money off of beating the living daylights out of..."

My last question was interrupted by a sharp smack of the back of his hand. He gave me a little taste of his streetfighting expertise and backhand slapped, or as they now call it "bitch-slapped" me so hard, that I fell to the ground hard. He bellowed in a voice that seemed to make him sound like he was 2 feet taller than his 4'11" frame, "Shut up! Don't you have any idea who I am now? I'm finally making a name for myself with my breakdance skills. I don't care about the artform, so fuck this newfound hip-hop culture, and FUCK YOU!"

Being a fan of the then newly discovered hip-hop scene, the both of us as a matter of fact, I was deeply offended, and thought that he was using a part of hip hop culture as a way of getting money, kind of how today's hip hop culture gets horribly exploited in the world of gangsta-ism all in the name of money. By doing that, he went too far. I decided to fight back, and I punched him dead in his gut. I punched him so hard, that after hunching over for at least 16 seconds, he started to vomit violently. It was such a horrific scene. All of my hidden rage got the best of me.

Before leaving him kneeling over still holding his stomach, I said to him, "You may be the toughest motherfucker on the streets, but no matter what, you ain't shit. You weren't shit back when you graduated, you still ain't shit now, and you'll never be shit for the rest of your life. Remember that, you little punk."

He must've remembered those words that night, because afterwards he tried so hard to get his life in check, but without more drama.

A few months later, May to be exact, he checked into an anger management program so that he could try to get his life together. While attending, he met a girl named Pauline. She was probably no older than 21 and they've had the hots for each other for the longest. Every since Mario built up the nerves to ask Pauline to be his girlfriend and she accepted, he was mellow and a lot more easygoing. He would still get a little irritable here and there, but he was still a lot more calmer. Meanwhile, I was still beefing with my brother for all of the bullshit he put me through in my life. So one day, he came to visit me in my apartment and brought Pauline along.

I immediately tried to throw them both out, screaming out, "SCREW YOU, MARIO! And the hell with your stupid skeezer, too!"

Mario, who would've normally tried to rip my limbs apart for saying something like that, pulled me over to a private corner and calmly said, "Look, little bro'. I understand you're still upset at me for all the things I put you through. But I've finally found my focus. I am trying really hard, and I need your support. Please, Luigi. I'm going to try to patch things up with mom and everything will be fine." He put his hand on my shoulder and then said, "Let's be a family again".

Felling totally untrustful towards him, I brushed his hand off my shoulder and then shoved him hard into a wall, knocking him down hard.

"Family?", I snapped, "You wanna talk about being a fucking family again! Don't you realize what you've put us through? Now, after all that grief, you wanna talk about being a family again? Get out of my apartment!"

Pauline stepped in and punched me in the face, saying, "How dare you try to harm my boyfriend! You're fucking with a psychopath, you know that!"

Now I'm flaming mad, and so I retort back, "Well, I'm no different from a psychopath, so messing with you must be up my alley! Your 'boy' happens to be my big brother, and I'll mess him up if I want to! It's none of your concern! So back off!"

After my tirade, she did back off, but not without giving me one of those icy-cold "I know where you live" scowls. "It's all right", said Mario calmly to Pauline, as he picked himself off the ground.

"It's clear that my little brother doesn't want to be bothered with right now. I'll try to talk to him later. Let's just leave. I'll see you later, little bro'."

I did'nt even say a word. I flipped him and his girl the bird when he said, "See you later". What I've heard afterwards in the hallways made me sick.

She stopped Mario in the hallways and asked him, "Do you let that big bully push you around like that?"

Mario replied, "He had every right to push me like that. I've hurt him as well as my family too many times. Every since I've found you, it seemed like that was the end of my problems. If I lose you, I don't know what I would do."

"Well I wasn't talking about our love, we're talking about your punk-ass brother that pushed you hard into that wall. I love you too, but if him or anybody else ever comes at you like that again, I'll personally dismember every part of their body, because when they disrespect you, they disrespect me as well, ok?"

"Pauline," Mario sighed. "I'm a grown man. I can handle my own business. Let's go before Luigi comes out and hurt the both of us. He probably heard every word we said now."

It's true that I could've came out and stomped the both of them to the ground, but I chose to take my anger out on the wall instead. I punched a big hole in it, and then left to my room to finish writing lyrics. I had aspirations of being a rapper, in which people doubted my skills because they felt it did'nt fit me well. Instead of rhyming about fun stuff like all of the rappers were doing back in the day, I was writing angry rhymes, and nothing but them. They say Ice T and NWA were the first to break out of the party move to introduce the angrier side of rap music that you hear now, but whoever said that, they were wrong compared to what I had written.

A couple of months passed, and I never saw Mario or Pauline in a while. I had wondered what they were up to. December 16th of 1981 was the most memorable date in my mind, because it was the day that this big-ass gorilla by the name of Donkey Kong broke loose from his zoo and went on a rampage. He was rushing himself inside various houses left and right, and ransacked every last one of them as if he was a one-man SWAT team. After I assumed the coast was clear, and I was suprised he didn't break in my apartment, I took a drive to Mario's shelter to talk things out. By the time I got there, I knew something was wrong right away. My suspicions told me that that big bastard Donkey Kong broke in the shelter! Almost everybody inside of it were either severely injured or dead, and the inside looked like a cyclone hit it. Mario, as well as Pauline, was missing, and so I followed his big footsteps to follow where Donkey Kong could've gone to. 2 hours of searching in my car later, his footsteps finally lead me to a big abandoned construction site.

Donkey Kong had taken Pauline and carried her everywhere he went! There was an unfinished tower about 3 stories up that he climbed up with Pauline, and Mario was trying to climb up there to save her. I wanted to help him, but then I decided to leave him be and let him handle it himself. He had finally made it up there with Donkey Kong, and I thought that overgrown gorilla would give Pauline back. It certainly seemed like it, since he brought Pauline off of his shoulder and into Mario's arms. But then it was obvious that he was playing around. He then turned Pauline away from Mario and threw her off the 3 story high platform! And then, leaped off of it and ran back into town to terrorize some more. Mario rushed over to Pauline, who did not move a muscle after falling from the platform, and held her close to him. Over and over again, Mario kept pleading her to "Hold on. Don't leave me. Don't do this to me. Please..." He even tried to shake her hard, but the worst had happened. Pauline was dead. Witnessing this, I felt a sickness in my stomach, and I went to Mario to try to comfort him.

"She's dead...", cried Mario with his voice breaking. "She's gone!"

I touched his shoulder as he wept, and then he turned around and hugged me.

"I'm so sorry", he sobbed loudly, "I'm so sorry! I'll change! I swear I will!"

I said, "Save it. Don't do all of that. You've been through enough. We're family. Do you hear me? We're flesh and blood, and we stick together, even if we're bitter towards each other."

Coming next: Chapter II: Late 1981-1983: The New Deal