Author's Note: Yeah, you might noticed that near the end of the chapter, I went a little off on the history of video games. Back then, computers were only meant to educate people, not save the fate of video games. However, since games can be played on a computer, I figured it was a good enough excuse to slip a little off-topic (Then again, you probably wouldn't care what I did if you read this).
Revisory Note: Aside from the few grammical errors I've fixed in this and the previous chapter, I had also noticed that the current subdevider I had (Which was supposed to be tripple plus signs) had disappeared when I posted this chapter.
2 – Consequences and Sacrifices
Confetti rains the wedding chapel. Mario and Pauline walked down the stone pathway in wedding outfits as cheers and claps filled the air.
"Oh, Mario," Pauline said as they looked at each other, "We're finally getting married. This is so wonderful."
They continued down the pathway to the doors of the chapel. Inside, all game characters from Arcade and Console Island sat on the rows of benches on either side of the red carpet leading the couple to the fiberglass windows behind the giant cross. The best men and brides maids stood on opposite sides of the stairs that lead to the cross while Donkey Kong stood behind the podium in front of the cross, dressed in a priest outfit with a bible in his hand.
Once the two stopped near the podium, Donkey Kong opened the bible. Luigi, invited as one of the best men's of the wedding, walks up to Mario and places a 2ft barrel on the ground, front side up, then helps his older brother onto it. Once situated, Donkey Kong picked up the bible and began reading out of it.
"Dearly beloved," he began, "We are gathered here today to join these two lovely couples in the arms of holy matrimony." Mario looked at Pauline who closes her eyes and puts one hand on her cheek, blushing. Donkey Kong looks at Mario, "Do you, Mario, take this woman to be you lawful wedded wife? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer 'til death do you part?"
"I do," Mario said.
Donkey Kong turns to Pauline, "Do you, Pauline take this man to be your lawful wedded husband? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer 'til death do you part?"
"I do," Pauline said.
Donkey Kong closes the bible, "I now pronounce you, man and wife. You may kiss the bride."
Mario and Pauline looked at each other, laughing with excitement. Mario lifts the wedding veil covering Pauline's face and moves to kiss her on the lips when the ground suddenly shook, knocking him off the barrel. Pauline reacted to the shaking ground as she fell away from him, landing on her rump in total shock. Before either of them could figure out what happened, the chapel suddenly grew dark. All Arcade and Console characters screamed and scrambled for the door. Not soon after a few of the characters had left the chapel, Console characters and certain Arcade characters came to a screeching halt and grabbed their chests. Those who fell to the floor from the mysterious pain were beginning to dissolve into floating pixel dusts, leaving a graph-like interior that faded after a while.
Mario watched as those at the benches disintegrated into featureless masses of fading bodies, his eyes wide with panic, fear and confusion as to what and why this was happening.
"MARIO!" came a scream that turned the chapel into a pitch black, seemingly endless area. Mario whipped around to the sound of the voice and his eyes grew even wider in shock. Pauline seemed to be running towards him, but never left her spot. As she ran, her body began to disintegrate of skin, clothing and hair, exposing a graph-like body deep inside.
"PAULINE!" Mario cried, moving to his hands and knees and trying to grab her, but her fading body was too far for him to reach from where he sat.
"MARIO!" screamed another voice. Mario turned around to see Luigi trying to run for him, but was barely getting close to him as the distance between them was slowly pulling outward instead of inward.
"LUIGI!" Mario cried. He got up and was about to run towards his little brother when a shadow engulfed him. He turns around to see a human-like figure tower over him. His glasses gleamed of a well polished material as he raised his pointing stick and jabbed it towards Mario, stopping at his nose.
"The time has come," he said, pulling back the pointing stick and snapping it towards his shoulders as if he were a soldier given the command to present arms, "You have gained too much freedom from the law and order that you were destined to follow. For that, your sentence shall be extermination." With that, he raised the stick into the air as it turned into a broadsword identical to the Excalibur. Mario was too shaken by fear and shock to move as the blade glistened before it struck down on him.
Mario's eyes shot open as he gasped and shot up in bed. It wasn't the same nightmare he had been having the past several months, but it was almost identical to it. He looks at his hands clamped around the top of his sheets, wondering why he was having those nightmares all of a sudden and when they were going to stop.
- - -
Pauline sat at the table, drinking a cup of hot coffee. The table had been reconnected with duct tape. It sagged a bit, but it was still sturdy enough to hold up a few pounds without snapping in half.
"Oh...I see..." Mario muttered, sitting on the opposite side of Pauline with a wireless phone on the left side of his ear, "Yeah, things haven't been getting better here either. I'm attempting to re-submit my ad to the Editorials today. Hopefully some of the morons walking around these crowded streets will have enough brains to pick up the newspaper and read it front to back. It's almost getting to the point where cooking decent food is taking chunks out of our account. I don't think we'll have enough money left to even pay our debts in time." Pauline rested the bottom of the cup on the saucer, looking at Mario with a bit of worry in her eyes, "Yeah, it was good talking to you too, bro. Later." Mario pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed the off button, resting it on the table.
"No dice?" Pauline asked.
"Look's like Luigi's having no luck either. The farthest he's gotten was volunteer work at a cooking sale in a Galaga space station. Arcade Island is getting so crowded, he couldn't make enough food for everyone to eat before their next shift into space. He couldn't even meet the demands of several houses and workplaces calling him up for plumbing service. I'm not sure if he can last another second out there."
"Did you ask Luigi if he was planning to move here?"
Mario slowly shook his head, "He's been through enough. I'm afraid that if I invite him here, he'd be an even bigger wreck than when he decided to stay on Arcade Island. I think we should give him some more time to recollect himself before popping the question." He walked to the window and looked outside, seeing a parade of Arcade immigrants marching along the streets carting anti-Atari signs, demands to raise the defenses of the city and rid it of all the bad games trying to steal their jobs. Pauline soon appeared, looking out the same window.
"You're probably right," she said, "Luigi is having a hard time trying to adjust to the overcrowding Island he was supposed to grow to like. Bringing him here with this going on would only make things worse for him. I hope that when he does decide to cross over here, the Island would be under control and less stressful for him to deal with."
- - -
Several miles from the two Islands, an ancient Island, in the form of an Apple II Computer, began to drift towards them. For many years, the Island had existed as a giant, floating piece of rock inhabited by common creatures with more intelligence than those of Console and Arcade Island. Because of their high intelligence, they had never shown themselves to any of the other gaming Islands until this moment.
In the tower of Computer Island, three intellectual pixels, looking like college graduates, studied the conditions of the Islands that were meant to populate the World of Gaming. One was getting too crowded with no chances of expanding their living conditions. The other was being polluted with bad games stealing the jobs of those who knew more than what they were designed to do. On that same Island, a protest of Arcade Immigrants began to march along the streets, demanding that someone get off their lazy duffs to try and raise protection within the city.
"That is just deplorable." One of the pixels said.
"Indeed." Said the second.
"We leave gaming pixels alone for many years and this is what they have been reduced to?" asked the third, then looked at its pixilated colleagues, "We should have stopped the increase of gaming pixels the minute we were separated from the Island. Now I fear that it is too late."
"Indeed," said the second, "the Humans that fuel our existence with their love for technology are slowly starting to turn away from us. If this keeps up, our world will come to an end."
"We cannot let that happen," said the first, "In order to keep the world thriving, we have no choice but to annihilate the inhabitants of both Islands."
"That does not seem logical," said the third, "We do not have enough power to annihilate the inhabitants of Arcade and Console Island. Like them, we, too, are running on low power. It is best that we stay back and see what happens next. Maybe what the Arcade immigrants are doing will clean up the mistakes those of Console Island have failed to fix."
"I do believe we have little choice but to agree and monitor the process. Perhaps we can avoid casualties if we see how this protest will change those responsible for monitoring this Island."
- - -
The immigrants of Arcade Island flooded around the building that controlled the city of Atari2600. Screams, shouting, ranting and arms flying up and down were heard from inside, but the pixilated people working within the building paid no heed to their demands.
A podium appeared in the front of the crowd and Pac-Man soon appeared behind it, adjusting the microphone until it was level with his mouth.
"Come on out, you retarded, one-bit hacks!" Pac-Man yelled, "We weren't invited to this Island to be killed by your poorly developed asteroids! If you plan on keeping us here, you had better cough up the money to buy enough materials to build a force field to protect us from whatever comes out of the sky!"
Back in Mario's house, he and Pauline sat on the couch in front of the TV in the middle of the living room. On their screen was a poorly drawn sprite form of the flood of Arcade immigrants standing in front of the control building with arms and signs flying up and down in the air. DK Jr. did a balancing act on a small, DK labeled barrel behind the arm chair next to the couch, unaware of what was happening around him.
"Yes, you heard it here, folks!" said the monotone voice of a 2-bit, male reporter almost plastered to the screen of the TV, "The Arcade Immigrants are protesting in front of the building that is monitoring the welfare of our city. We of Atari2600 have been waiting for years to finally have protection, but even our demands are not reaching the mayors of this city. Can the Arcade immigrants change their minds before we run out of government money to repair the damage caused by falling asteroids and flying missiles."
"I'm worried, Mario," Pauline said, "Donkey Kong is out in that crowd somewhere. Do you think he'll do something that will cause more problems for us than what we have already?"
"I hope not..." Mario muttered. He then blinks before leaning forward, pointing to the TV, "Look! There he is!" Pauline looks in the direction of his finger and gasps when she sees what looked like Donkey Kong's one-bit, brown and badly drawn sprite appear on one of the 2-bit palm trees surrounding the Atari2600 building with a basket of rotten eggs in his giant hand. He began roaring, grabbing a hand full of eggs and throwing them at the windows of the building.
"One of Arcade Island's biggest inspiration, Donkey Kong is throwing rotten eggs at the Atari2600 building," the reporter said, "I don't think intimidating them is going to help make this Island any safer than we were hoping for."
"I hope Donkey Kong knows what he's doing," Pauline muttered.
The background suddenly turned black as a yellow, rotating saucer appeared from the sky. The Arcade immigrants stopped protesting and turn their heads upward. A cannon formed at the bottom of the pixel and began shooting everywhere. The immigrants screamed and scattered, avoiding the blasts while some that were hit flashed and faded.
Pauline threw her hands over her mouth at the sight that was going on through Mario's TV. Mario frowns slightly and grits his teeth as the pixilated carnage continued to increase.
"That's...that's just horrible!" Pauline cried.
"The mayors of Atari2600 either don't care what happens to his people," Mario said, "Or doesn't realize why they've formed a protest. It was any wonder why no one in this city wanted to do something about this problem."
One of the beams coming out of the saucer hit Donkey Kong and the 2-bit palm tree he clung to. Mario and Pauline's eyes widened as they watch their friendly rival drop from the tree and fall towards the scattering crowd, his brown, blocky appearance flashing slowly, then fast until he vanished.
"NO!" Pauline screamed, then looked at Mario, "Mario! We've gotta do something!"
"I know," Mario said, "But what? We try to protest with them and we'll be shot full of depixelating holes." He tightened his frown and looked at DK Jr., obviously still unaware of what was going on.
Pauline saw Mario leap off the couch, run up to DK Jr. and yank him off his plastic barrel, "What're you doing?"
"Sending him back to Arcade Island," Mario said, "Hopefully Luigi isn't too busy with his jobs to keep an eye on him until everything is under control." Before Pauline could stop him, he ran for the door.
- - -
The firing ceased. Pac-Man sat up from his position behind the podium as he looked at the gaps of depixelated craters caused by the saucers destruction. He growls with anger and turns back to the building.
"Alright, that does it!" he yelled, "Whoever's in charge of that building obviously doesn't care what happens to those who make a living on this Island! If you don't stop acting like we're inanimate objects with infinite lives, we're going to break into that fortress and tear it apart until you change your attitude and learn to respect us!" he turned to the other Arcade immigrants, "Let's go people. Take no prisoners!" everyone let out a battlecry as they charged for the Atari2600 building.
Block-like, faceless humans of different colors working within the building saw the doors and walls bust open as a flood of Arcade immigrants charged for them with weapons and objects in each hand. Two of the humans ran for the doors with "Kaboom" and "Crackpot" written above it. A crook sprite and a blocky human wearing a black shirt appeared on the ten foot gap over the doors and began throwing bomb and flowerpot sprites onto the flooding immigrants. Some were hit with bombs and disintegrated into graph-like bodies before they faded away. Others were hit by crackpots and fell to the floor, dazed before they were either trampled by others or destroyed by bombs.
From outside the building, every sidewalk of every city on Console Island opened up as blocky termites came out of them and began crawling up the walls and into windows and doors. People inside the buildings screamed as their furniture and appliances were devoured before the frames the termites chewed on gave way and brought the buildings down.
- - -
"Out of service?" Mario yelled, "You weren't 'out of service' when I came through the door!" he slapped the counter, "Listen, buster. This Island has gone completely loco! If I can't get off this volcano waiting to erupt, at least get him outta here!" he adds by plopping DK Jr. on the counter in front of the yellow, block-like, human pixel.
"Out of service," the pixel said in a monotone voice, "If the conveyor belt does not move at 180mph, the luggage will not fly and passengers will not be able to catch them. Therefore, this airline is out of service until the problem will be fixed."
"Move at...?" Mario just about leapt onto the counter and grabbed the pixel by its throat, "I don't have time to play 'Lost Luggage'! This is an emergency! Can't you, for once, do what I ask instead of following the instructions you were born with?"
"Error. Player has not picked difficulty level and pressed reset button. Unable to comply."
"I'm not asking you to set me up with a game! I'm asking you to open an airline and get one of us out of..."
"Error. Player has not picked difficulty level and pressed reset button. Unable to comply."
"Oh, for the love of...!" Mario pulled DK Jr. off the counter and stormed out of the station.
- - -
Pauline sat in the kitchen, resting her folded hands on the duct taped table, looking at the thumbs twiddling around as if they were playing leapfrog on a treadmill. Mario had been gone for over an hour and watching the continuing carnage on the news didn't help ease her worry. Why would the mayors of Atari2600 try to commute with Arcade Island if they knew something like this was going to happen? Were they even thinking that some video game characters had a mind of their own when they came up with the idea? Her thoughts were cut off when she felt slight tremors in the floor that increased with each passing minute.
She gets up and looks around, seeing some of the unbolted materials move around from the minor earthquake. Some lost their foothold, fell to the floor and shattered into millions of pixilated shards. The wood planks holding the floor together slowly began to bulge and crack as blocky, bug-like legs began wiggling through them. Pauline screamed when the bulges turned into holes, allowing the termites to crawl out of them as they scurried around the house, eating anything they could get their fangs on.
- - -
Mario stormed out of the station with DK Jr. hanging off his back. After walking a couple of feet, he stopped in front of a green, blocky pillar that stood a foot taller than him. He growled and kicked it, creating a hollow banging sound. He blinks as the sound echoed slightly before he climbs onto the pillar to see a black circle in the center.
"I thought that pillar looked familiar," he mumbled, "Maybe this badly made pipe is some kind of path back to Arcade Island."
Mario jumps into the pipe and lands on a sewer walkway separating the wall from the deep, weak flowing river moving throughout the underground, dingy tunnel. There was a sign that pointed in two directions. The left lead deeper into Console Island, the right seemed to be leading to an underground passageway back to Arcade Island. Mario looks at DK Jr. and lowers him off his back.
"Okay, DK, listen to me," he said, "This Island is getting out of control. I don't want you getting caught in the crossfire, so I want you to go that way," he adds by pointing behind DK Jr., "I'll head back to the city and find Pauline. If I don't make it back in time, make sure you don't give Luigi too much trouble." DK Jr. cocks his head to the side as if he didn't understand, but turns around and runs off down the sewer pathway. Mario watched him until he was gone, then runs the opposite direction.
- - -
The lid in the center of the sidewalk flipped open as Mario emerged from the sewer hole to a ruined city.
"What...what the...?" he muttered. He saw a flood of termites emerge from the crumbled buildings and return to the holes that let them out. He then saw what was left of his and Pauline's house reduced to a pile of concrete and wood, "Oh...oh no...!" he leapt out of the sewer hole and bolted towards the house, digging through the rubble until he saw small, multi-colored blocks floating up from the spaces between the planks. His heart racing, Mario threw more planks off, reached in and pulled Pauline out. What little feature was left in her graph-like body began to fade as each pixel broke off and floated into the sky until it disappeared.
Pauline's eyelids fluttered and slowly opened, revealing her glazed, blue eyes focusing on Mario's shocked and terrified appearance.
"M...Mario..." she muttered, reaching out and resting her depixelating hand on his cheek.
"Pauline..." Mario nearly choked, "I'm sorry. I didn't expect this to happen. I should've brought you with me!"
"Don't...don't worry...Mario. No one...expects stuff to happen... At least...at least I was able to see you...one last time..."
"No...Pauline! Don't say stuff like that! I'll get you back to Arcade Island and we'll find some help! Just hang on!" Pauline smiled as the rest of her features vanished from her body, causing it to slowly fade. Mario's eyes widened as he felt the weight lifting off his arms. His hands trembled and clenched, "No...this wasn't supposed to end like this!" he reached into his overalls and pulled out his black box, opening it up to reveal the proposal ring inside, "We...we were supposed to get married!" he began to trail off as the lump in his throat increased, "And...and live a happy life in a land without controversy...just you, me, Luigi and the Kongs..." Mario lowered his head as he increases his grip on the black box, tears streaming down his face. He soon lifts his head, rage burning in his eyes as he walks away from the destruction.
- - -
The hallways of the Atari2600 building became filled with battered, wounded, and slowly dying Arcade Immigrants. The human pixels looked down at their accomplished work, about to pick one of the characters up when the glass door shattered. The sprites looked up to see Mario walk through the busted glass, blinded by rage. Because of their lack of personalities, none of the sprites paid any heed to the angry plumber and proceeded to walk towards him.
Mario didn't seem fazed by the sudden oncoming of the pixilated humans. Without realizing it (or paying any attention to his actions), the red plumber conjured up a ball of fire and hurled it at the pixels. They stopped, a bit surprised by this sudden ability, but didn't have time to react when the ball smashed into the ceiling and brought a chunk of it crashing onto their heads. Mario walked past the pile and continued through the building's maze until he reached the top of the tower.
There was a sign on the double doors that read "Office of Mayors: Program Pixels Only". But Mario was too raged and upset to read the sign and kicks the doors open. Upon entry, he saw a blocky, green creature sitting in the center of a capsule with screens floating around it, showing picture after picture of the destruction going on outside. When the creature heard the door fly open, it turns around to a point where Mario could see the creature completely.
It was revealed as a green, E.T. like sprite with stumpy arms and a transparent eyehole. When it saw Mario, it extended its neck and screamed in a mixture of long beeps and noises. Almost immediately, pixel bombs began to rain in the room, exploding with each drop and creating a pixel-like dust cloud that covered the entire room. Once the dust cleared, Mario was found flat on his stomach with bits of pixels leaving his body. The E.T. look-a-like lowered its neck and was about to turn around when it saw him twitch.
Mario groaned as he tried to push himself back onto his feet. E.T. extended its neck again and screamed, summoning a hoard of flying demon sprites that circled around him while shooting beams in scattered lines on the ground. Once the dust cleared, Mario was back on his stomach with even more pixels leaving his badly damaged body.
"N...No..." Mario growled as he tried to get up again, "I...I won't let you do this... You...you've already caused enough trouble to...to everyone who trusted you... I...I gotta put a stop to this..." E.T. lowered its neck, looking at him like it didn't have the facial expressions to show whether it was frustrated or uncaring about its actions. The red plumber raised his slowly disintegrating arm as a fireball formed on the palm of his hand and lobbed it at the capsule. The badly drawn extra-terrestrial extended its neck again and screamed just before the ball smashed through the holographic capsule and blew it to millions of disintegrating blocks.
The whole building began to shake as random explosions rained on the ceiling and walls. Mario watched as balls of fire popped out of each wall, bring a chunk of concrete and bricks to the ground. He focused on the capsule as it began to fill with blue sparks, slowly backing away from it, his eyes turning from mourning rage to fear and worry. Suddenly, the sparks jumped out of the capsule and surrounded him, causing him to scream in pain as the surges increased.
The blue sparks crawled out of the building, causing it to slowly crumble. The sparks then began spreading throughout the Island, destroying everything in sight. Console inhabitants that were caught by the sparks flashed in a variety of blue and white before they faded away. As more of the Island became infected with the blue sparks, the landscape slowly began to turn chard black as its overhead structure of the Atari joystick slowly began to crumple into a black, humungous, floating pile of rocks.
- - -
Dawn rose to an Island of crumbled and deserted cities. Three shadows floated towards the ruins of the Atari2600 building where destruction took its first group of victims. As they passed through the destruction, many of the Arcade Immigrants who survived the explosion of Console Island lay scattered beneath them, slowly losing bits of their features as a graph-like body appeared beneath it. They soon stopped and circled their last survivor, then turned into humanoid shadows.
"It is sad," said the first shadow, "The former mayors of Console Island wanted to merge their Islands with Arcade Island. When the new mayors took over, everything turned into a disaster."
"Indeed," said the second, "If we had been there sooner, none of this would have happened. However, with our help, we can recreate this Island back to the way it was before all this happened."
"I do not see the point," said the third, "the inhabitants of earth have already lost interest in video games. There would be no point in wasting Computer Island's powers on those who have no chance of surviving."
"Perhaps if we tried to preserve them and revert this Island to that of pre-historic earth," said the first, "it will take less power and, when the humans start to show interest in video games, those destined to lead Console Island would be easy to release."
"Yes, I do believe you are right," said the second, "Our Island may be outliving this Island, but even though video games are slowly dying in this world, there might still be some people who wish them to still thrive."
The three joined hands as they turned from humanoid shadows into a small, black dome that grew in size and consumed the entire Island. The once blue sky soon turned pitch black. Those of Arcade Island didn't know what was going on. Some had noticed the black dome that was giving off the mysterious clouds and wondered what could have happened over there that stripped the world of its sunlight.
OOC: The E.T. game was actually the one responsible for turning many gamers away, which brought about the crash of '83. I had a bit of a problem trying to end Console Island's life at the hands of this deplorable and confusing game (If I had a better idea, I'd probably come back and edit this chapter anyway).
Next Chapter: A year goes by and the situation involving the dark clouds is getting worse. Two sprites from an Ice Climber game accidentally releases what some would call "a great evil". Now banished from their clan, the two had to rely on a perverted Topi and his one-track minded partner as they try to help a lost sprite find her role in life. The adventure is cut short when the true evil presents itself and attempts to wipe out the slowly dying Island. With no one strong enough to handle this devastating monster, how will anyone expect to save Arcade Island from extinction?
