Disclaimer: I don't own Bullet Bills, Bombshell Bills, Bill Blasters, koans, hoedowns, gargoyles, Bowser's airship, and definitely not Shigeru Miyamoto. I wish I had good ideas for games like he has, though.

World 5

Mario and Toad soon reached World 1, happy that they had finally managed to get their Music Keys home.

"Yes! We did it!" Toad exclaimed as Mario carted away all four Music Keys and carried them to the Truffle Towers. After Mario shut them away, Toad stayed where he was to keep watch.

"Can I go home now?" Mario wrote.

"Yes, of course," Toad replied as Mario walked back to his now-reconstructed temporary house.

Night soon came, and a menacing shadow came to the twilit World 1. Of course, if a shadow comes and no one sees it, did it make an image? Neither Toad nor Mario would ever figure out this koan, though, as they were asleep when that shadow came and swept all the Music Keys into its guard.

When Toad woke up the next morning, he looked back and saw that the Music Keys were gone…again!

"Oh, no!" Toad screamed as he ran towards Mario's house and banged on the door.

As Mario opened the door, he scribbled, "What's wrong?"

"Someone stole the Music Keys again!" Toad howled.

"Is there anything in the sky?" Mario wrote more sedately.

Toad looked up and saw the S. S. Brass. He also saw what suspiciously looked like one of Bowser's airships.

"Actually, yes," Toad replied. "Can we follow the dark ship up there?"

Mario nodded, and the two of them hopped back into the S. S. Brass and made chase.

The S. S. Brass breezed through Worlds 1 through 4 before heading into World 5. At World 5, Toad noticed that something mysterious was happening.

"The ship jolted!" Toad shouted after he was horribly shaken. He ran down the stairs and found Mario asleep on the navigation panel. His head had just depressed a large button.

"Stop sleeping on that boiler button, Mario!" Toad chastised as he lifted Mario's head off the panel. The jolting stopped…for a while. Soon, another jolt came and rocked the plane-ship. This time, Toad knew the boiler button wasn't to blame. He ran outside and saw a nightmare.

Bullet Bills and Bombshell Bills were flying everywhere, with Bill Blasters as support. A Bullet Bill had just hit the ship, which had caused the most recent jolt.

"Aagh, we'd better dodge them!" Toad screamed as he rushed back and shook Mario violently. "Mario? Mario?"

But Mario was as asleep as a hibernating squirrel, as immovable as a mountain, and as resistant as gold (which is surprisingly resistant to most chemicals). This left poor Toad to dance away the Bullet Bills.

So Toad tried dancing. It was modest at first, as he tried a slow waltz. But soon, he was leaping across the room, jumping into the navigation panel, and even smacking into Mario. Indeed, Toad got so dizzy that he didn't know how many times the S. S. Brass was hit by Bullet or Bombshell Bills. (It was actually none after that initial one.)

The plane-ship soon came to rest after it had chased Bowser's ship into the enemy's temporary castle. Toad dragged a still-asleep Mario out into Bowser's throne room, when the pair found that they were almost too late.

Bowser was attempting to summon the power of the Music Keys right in front of them, and as the Spikoopa began his incantation, Toad decided not to bother waking up Mario, as it would take too much effort. Instead, he snuck into the canopy of the room and tried to take back the Music Keys he saw glinting at the top.

It took an unexpectedly long time to get to the top, but Toad managed to grab all the Music Keys and sneak back to Mario before Bowser finished speaking. The evil Spikoopa had somehow managed to notice, though, as he stood there with a miffed expression.

"What has happened?" Bowser bellowed. "That was supposed to be perfect! Who took my Music Keys?"

"I can't exactly call them 'yours'…" Toad responded to Bowser's far left.

Bowser wheeled around and saw a Music Key poking out of the darkness.

"Why you Key-stealer!" Bowser roared as he marched towards the Music Key, which was where Toad and Mario were.

With every stomp and growl Bowser made, Mario finally awakened. He rubbed his eyes and made slight murmuring sounds.

"You better dance!" Toad cried. "I managed to get the Music Keys back, but you better calm Bowser down! He's angry!"

With one mention of the name "Bowser", Mario sprang into action and started dancing. Bowser also started to dance, and he soon did the samba. Mario copied that. Bowser then switched to a passepied. Mario did that, too. Bowser saw that and changed his dance to a lively jig. Mario changed his dance along with Bowser, and soon skipped onto a switch on the middle of the floor.

A rocket shot out of a secret window in the throne room. It homed in on the dancing twosome, and Toad was worried that it would hit Mario. Instead, it veered to the closer person and hit Bowser in the butt.

Bowser was sent soaring with a rocket up his butt, as he uttered curses that would require severe censorship in any language. Mario stopped dancing, and both Toad and Mario looked up at the hole in the ceiling that the rocket and Bowser had created. They then ran out the door with the Music Keys.

The duo soon found Bowser in an agonized state. The Spikoopa was groaning and moaning, but soon started speaking in a strained voice. Toad then asked Bowser, "So why exactly did you do this?"

Bowser soon moaned back, "I got those Keys…to fix…my tone deafness…I wanted…to finally hear…my stepson Ludwig's pieces…as they should be…"

"Oh," Toad replied. "Quite frankly, I like Felix T.'s pieces better, but I guess Ludwig von Koopa can't be that bad at music."

As Toad finished his sentence, he looked to his right, and he saw Mario throw all four Music Keys into the air. The Keys spun in slow sequence, hovering in the air.

"What are you doing, Mario…?" both Toad and Bowser asked simultaneously when the Music Keys burst into flashes of light.

Instantly, the gloomy atmosphere and Bullet Bills disappeared off the face of World 5, to be replaced with a sunny sky and innocent gargoyles. The remaining Bombshell Bills exploded in huge flares as grass grew, lava turned to water, and trees gave fruit.

As that happened, Toad noticed a certain music in the air. Then Mario heard it, and even Bowser heard it as his tone deafness was somehow cured.

"Hey, this actually cured me," Bowser commented as he got up and the rocket fell off his butt.

"This music's great!" Toad exclaimed as he started dancing to it.

"I feel like dancing, too!" Mario scrawled in rhythm to his dancing.

"I better dance to this!" Bowser remarked as he danced, too.

Soon enough, everyone was dancing, from World 1 to World 5. The Cheep Cheeps swam in loop-de-loops, the Shy Guys stopped their work and did a hoedown, and Toadette danced to her favourite music. Waluigi put on his dancing shoes and tap danced, too. Even the flowers and trees started swaying in harmony and rhythm to the music that now permeated the air.

It was certainly a moment to savour. And one that was worth sacrificing the Music Keys for. Also, now that the Keys were gone, no one could steal them anymore. It was idyllic.

And that was when Bowser got a cell phone call from Shigeru Miyamoto…