Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own creativity, material-mental-magical possessions and my package of half eaten gum. Nintendo's got the rest.
Author's Rambles: Wow, it's been a pathetically long time since I updated this… however… dances I got reviews! is pleased Thank you, Ayhua, Pandorapoet, Webcreator, and NiKaChus! Now that I've thought about this thing more, perhaps I can give more info on the story. More than likely the mood is going to bounce around a lot. I noticed the reviews all said that this was a sad tale, which surprised me until I reread it. ; There will be sorrow and then, there will be humour. Basically – This isn't Mario's story. It's going to be told through the eyes of another. I give you this as warning now, for those that… dislike that kind of fic. But I will try at least to make it entertaining. Always wanted to write something like this. So I am. - When I update. Which will vary, as this is an experiment. Also helps if you are familiar with the game, I believe. It's not an exhaustive walkthrough. O.o;
So yes, that's this edition of Mizu's random thoughts. And no Mr. Computer, I did not spell my name wrong.
Enjoy!
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"Brother…. Brother! Where are you?"
"I'm here."
"What happened? Where are we?"
"I'm not sure. I don't understand."
"What do we do? … What can we do?"
"… I don't know. I really don't know…."
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The old plumbing shop stood before her, every part of it showing the 20 years of abandonment. Through the dust that lined the window frame, and the cobwebs that danced in the glass, the place seemed to cry out in loneliness. Even the bright colours of the awning that hung from over the wide, carved doorway seemed limp and muted from the time that passed. It made her unnerved. The fact that this was going to be her new home, made it even worse.
Unfortunately, while she saw it as a tomb, her brother saw it as a treasure. He had gone on for hours about the history of shop. How the famous brothers had ran it for years, until the youngest brother just seemed to vanish one day with out a trace. And soon after the older brother left, with no known reason or thought until the people of Brooklyn saw the closed sign on the door. Rumours flew and stories were born, but no one found out what happened to brothers.
She had frowned when she listened to her brother animatedly retelling the story. Knowing her lucky, the place was probably haunted. Soon the ghosts of the brothers that used to live here would come for their souls, as they dared to enter the place that should have never been revived. Vengeance would be found in the dust of the pipe works…
Little did she realize how right she was. Sort of.
But she seriously never truly believed anything would come out of dusting the large pipe that was in the middle of the floor of the old abandoned workroom. Admittedly, it was strange having a green pipe, large enough for a full-grown adult to jump in comfortably, embedded in the linoleum floor. It seemed to have no visible purpose other than collecting dust bunnies the size of their living counterparts. Even the bottom of the pipe, sunken a couple of centrimetres below ground level was odd - solid, but glowing slightly as if backlit by blue lights.
As her feet brushes the bottom of the pipe gently and nothing happened, she dropped her full weight onto the faintly shimmering floor and took up her foam sponge and bottle of cleaner, fully intent on making the dusty eye sore a little more visually appealing, or at least clean. Thus, being so absorbed in her work, she obviously failed to notice when the floor of the pipe suddenly dropped out from under her. Mind you, she noticed a brief second after that, as she was now freefalling down a dark abyss, along with her bottle of cleaner, which spun lazily away from her as her arms flailed, desperate to grab something, anything to slow her fall… Her last thought before the overwhelming vertigo claimed her consciousness was absurdly mundane:
"I lost my sponge."
A reflection: Sanity, she decided, was one of those tragically underrated commodities. Take her own, for example. While it had taking a little bit of time to wrap her head around the plummet-through-the-rabbit-hole, and not being injured in any way shape or form, she eventually concluded it was possible enough. (Terribly clique as well, she realized much later on.)The second try to her mentality was a little more challenging; after all, going from a dusty workroom to face faulting on a golden-brick-covered-pathway a short jog from an elaborate castle was at most, a little out of the ordinary. However, this too, was deemed possible, her shaken mind concluded, after all, one had to land somewhere. It was the last test she failed to explain, when she was greeted suddenly by Cumulo-nimbus riding critters.
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Groaning quietly, as sunlight stabbed brutally through my shut eyelids, I gritted my teeth painfully, trying to return to some semblance of alertness. I stretched out one arm, tentatively feeling the hard sun baked stone around me, that was drastically different from the dusty and cold tile floor that should have been there instead. I cautiously opened my left eye, only to be greeted by darkness and some grit.
Right. That was the one pressed to the ground.
Opening my right eye, I immediately regretted as, as light lanced into my iris, sending a wave of pain through my muddled head. Colour appeared first, and then details, and then finally some sense of gravity.
Gold brick was spread around me, in an elaborate pathway. At its edge, vibrant jade coloured grass and small trees began, running gracefully over the sloping hills, ending finally in a small, white, sandy beach. Water as blue as the sky, lapped gently against the shore, its heady scent telling me, it was the sea.
I groaned again, flailing mentally at the impossible when voices started to interrupt my own confused thoughts.
"Lai? Lai…!" It squeaked excitedly. "Look, look who it is! I can't believe it… after all these years!" There was a small waft of air, as some err…thing, zoomed around my head.
"Could it be? It is, Kila! He's back! He's really back!"
He? Okay, now that wasn't fair. Admittedly, I wasn't the most fashion orientated person in the world and the old blue work overalls and dusty red cap I borrowed from my brother left a lot to the imagination, but honestly… he?
"We'll have to do this right then, brother. Care to do the honours?" There was an odd rumble, as the speaker cleared its throat.
"Good Afternoon! The Lakita Brothers here, reporting live from outside the Princess's Castle. Mario – "
"Maria." I muttered, absently.
" – Has just arrived on the scene! We'll be filming the action live as he enters the castle pursuing the missing stars and… Hold it, did you say Maria?" The voice demanded.
"Yes?" I ventured. Clearly the target of their attention, I rolled over to greet my news reporters.
"Ni-AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I screamed in greeting.
Bug-eyed.
Cloud riding.
Turtle shell wearing.
Things.
Not what I was expecting. Hence my reflection on sanity. The fact that both of them had large, outdated video cameras, hanging from fishing rods, somehow attached to the clouds didn't help the situation much. The two …bugs? Hamsters? Things, at any rate, were staring at me with identical expression of confusion.
"You're not Mario. You're not him at all." I shook my head, still wide-eyed and silent. The critter turned to his brother and muttered something under his breath.
"Who?" I finally croaked out, crawling to my feet. "And what…?" I must have looked down right pitiable, because they both glanced over at me, and gave me looks of sympathy.
"Name's Lai." The slightly larger one said, smoothly. "The elder of the Great Lakita Brothers, and this is–"
"Kila, the younger. We're the royal news reporters of the Mushroom Kingdom. Best in the whole land you know. Winner of the Golden Mushroom Broadcasting award, three years running!"
"A very high honour you know."
"Indeed!"
"I'm… Maria." I said weakly, having nothing else to say and I figured it was safe enough.
"So you said before," Kila interjected briefly, "But that doesn't explain who you are. We know you're Maria, which is to say you're not Mario. And that's what we want to know - "
"Where he is, of course."
"It's very important."
"We assume you know. You did get here via Warp Pipe, after all. It's the only way Mario ever traveled."
"Mind you, it was the only way, he could travel…"
"Minor details."
"Very minor!" They both gave me keen looks, hovering a little closer to me, waiting for an answer. Like they were going to get one.
"Look," I said, firmly, trying to keep my voice from shaking. "I don't know who this Mario is. All I know, is that I was in the workroom of our new home, cleaning, and I saw the giant green pipe. I jumped in, nothing happened, and then suddenly I was falling, and then I was here. That's all I know."
"And that's the truth?" Lai asked, gently. "Yes… it would be… So it's true then. Mario did abandon us." There was an air of sorrow underlying the little critters words that unnerved me. Clearly, this Mario fellow was rather important to them, though why, I couldn't tell.
"Kila, you know what that means right?" the older one continued, staring at me.
"I do…" I failed to hear their words, because at that moment I finally turned around to examine my new surroundings.
That's when I saw the palace.
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"So… let me get this straight." I said suddenly, as I made my way through the dusty and abandoned hallways of the enormous castle. "This Bowser guy, is the Mushroom Kingdom's mortal enemy, and up until this point, Mario was your hero?" The larger of the two Lakita brothers nodded, fidgeting with his camera lens as the three of us headed towards our destination.
"Our Hero. The Princess's Champion." Kila added. I nodded.
"Right, the Princess… who right now is trapped within the walls of the palace along with the entire royal court, because of Bowser's evil spell of über doom?"
"Err… I suppose you could put it that way."
"Odd way to put it." Lai piped up.
"Very."
"Then the Stars were taken, yes?" I continued, thoughtfully.
"Yes…It's the magic that controls everything here. From the lighting of the lamps, to sealing the palace from intruders… its very important."
"Hum. Odd way to do things… I really prefer electricity myself." I mused dryly, earning a pair of befuddle looks from my personal camera men, who apparently decided without my permission, to film my entire escapade I got suckered into.
Turns out the whole castle has been cursed for over two decades, when Mario decided not to show up and save them when Bowser took over. Stole the Star Power, sealing groups of them within various areas of the castle preventing anyone from using their power to free themselves…Bowser turned the power against them, and effectively screwed them over, until I showed up.
It was my destiny, I had to save them all, and release the power of the stars back into the hands of the rightful users…. As I was told by a small child that looked like he started to mutate into a mushroom and got stuck halfway. Toad, I think his name was. Which was why I was now traipsing through the palace, searching for one of the only rooms not sealed by the Stars, so I could find them, and then get out of this place. I felt like I just plunged into some sort of badly written fairy tale, with the naïve-young-maiden-thrown-into-misadventure syndrome. I always wondered what that was like. Oh, the irony.
I know I could have just as easily tried to leave and not help them… but that just wasn't right. Especially since I knew how long these people were waiting for someone, almost anyone to help them.
Besides, how many of these Star things could there be?
"Maria, look!" Lai squeaked excitedly, zooming up ahead of me, and up a tiny flight of stairs that lead to a wooden door with a large golden star freshly painted on the front. I knew for sure this was the place, because if the star hadn't tipped me off, the fact that the door was slightly ajar sure confirmed it.
"Finally," I muttered, climbing the stairs with determination. "Let's get this show on the road." The two Lakita brothers let out an excited chirp, and turned on, focused and prepped their cameras before I could mount the last step.
"I agree! Finally! We have precious footage to capture!"
"Very precious!" I groaned in irritation as they zoomed back over to me, already filming and chattering in narration.
"I didn't mean that literally…." I said, and was ignored completely. Sighing, I pushed open the door and stepped into the room, only to be startled by its contents… or almost lack thereof.
The floor was carpeted with a rich wine rug, and walls were white flecked with cream and looked suspiciously like marble. The ceiling, I noted with some amusement, resembled a checkerboard, and aside from a giant painting on the far wall, the room was complete empty. I felt somehow disappointed. I was expecting something a little more elaborate for a place that supposedly was the seal for some of the Stars. In fact… where on earth were they sealed?
"Lai, Kila. Tell me something… what am I suppose to do?" I asked bewildered, stepping cautiously into the room, and on nothing happening, relaxed immediately. The smaller Lakita pulled his attention away from his camera for a brief enough moment to gesture at the giant painting with a toss of his head, before going back to filming a puzzled me. "Right. Of course. Completely obvious." I replied wryly, approaching the painting with a critical eye.
It was…. Rather ugly. Taking up most of the wall, the picture was of nothing more than three bombs, that had faces and legs, on a grassy lawn. Admittedly, the frame was rather nice, but that was pretty much its only redeeming feature.
"Our elegant young heroine has now entered the only room left in the palace unsealed by Bowser's evil spell. Before her, is the famous painting of the Bob-omb Trio, circa 1700, created by Sir Spore of Fungiville, considered to be one of his most famous and beloved pictures." I smothered a snort of amusement, and reached out my hand intending to see if I could shift it at all, since I thought that maybe the seal would be located behind the eyesore.
Much to my surprise, however, my hand didn't stop at the surface of the painting, but instead drifted deep within it. I let out a startled sound and drew my hand back quickly, staring at the pigment that was now covering my hand. I whirled around to stare at Lai, who was hovering over my left shoulder, watching me intensely and then turned back to my hand, still covered in bright paint.
Figuring I had found the way to the seal, I plunged both hands into the painting, recklessly. I gasped in pain as my whole body convulsed, and the world around me began to blur, warp, and seemed to puddle before me.
I shut my eyes, and drifted into nothingness…