If there was anything annoying Mario and his whimsical friends, it was the zealously cutthroat socioeconomic corn maze/minefield that was politics. Bowser, in particular, was in a peculiar political place at the moment. Bowser had to explain to his impoverished Koopa Troop that for the time being, they'd be stationed in the Mushroom Kingdom to protect its citizens after the destruction of Peach's Castle. The entire nation harbored a pretty strong sentiment against the Mushroom Kingdom and all of its fungal topped denizens - a sentiment Bowser was primarily responsible for cultivating. But something as petty as multiple years of armed warfare couldn't possibly outweigh the fate of the universe, could it? Bowser was sure his subjects would be understanding.
"Fuck you, Bowser, you bureaucratic ass kisser!"
The outcry came from an ornery Galoomba as he was restrained by some heavily armored koopatrols. The koopatrols had formed a ring around Bowser out in the courtyard, staving off the once calm and collected mob. Bowser's most loyal advisor, Kamek the older koopa wizard, stood by Bowser's right side. Bowser Jr. sat on the ground squishing bugs on Bowser's left.
Bowser pleaded, "Listen, guys, I know there's some bad blood between us and them, but we all need to work together if we wanna stop the end of the universe."
"Working with the Mushroom Kingdom, I could understand, but working with Mario!?" screamed a Hammer Bros. as he threw his hammer onto the ground and became but a mere Bros, "Mom was right, I should've gone to Business Bros. school."
"Oh c'mon, everyone! What's the worst Mario's ever done to us?"
"With all due respect, your highness," added a skeletal Dry Bones, "Mario straight up killed me. I'm literally a skeleton right now because Mario beat me to death."
The crowd continued to riot and scream. Bowser stamped the ground with his foot as he tried to maintain his composure. But with every scream, every overwhelming stimulus, Bowser felt his lungs fill with smoke. His blood boiled over as he bore the brunt of their anger, until he could no longer restrain his own. Bowser spun around and punched a hole clear through the wall of the castle, bringing every dissenter to silence. He then turned back to his subjects and roared his demands.
"Look, listen! I'm the king around here! What I say goes, and I'm saying we're gonna go to the Mushroom Kingdom, and you're all gonna like it! Any questions!?"
Not a word came from the crowd.
"That's more like it! I've already given you your assignments, so whoever's supposed to be over there, get a move on!" Bowser coughed up some embers as he lumbered back into the castle. "And Bowser Jr's in charge until I get back!"
This prompted a disgruntled groan from the crowd. Bowser Jr. jumped up in joy.
"Woohoo, political power!" Bowser Jr. cried, "I'm gonna eat ice cream for dinner every day!"
Bowser hung around in the doorway, contemplating his decision.
"...Kamek's in charge until I get back," Bowser corrected before completely leaving earshot. It was Bowser Jr's turn to groan, while Kamek jumped up in joy.
"Woohoo, political power!" Kamek cried, "I'm gonna smoke ketamine for dinner every day!"
Bowser stepped back into the castle, with Mario, Peach, and Meta Knight awaiting him.
"So, how did it go?" Peach asked as she cradled the knight.
"Smooth as butter," Bowser answered, fixing his hair, "Not that I expected any less from my ever loyal subjects."
"What did you do that for, then?" Meta Knight asked, gesturing to the hole that had just been punched in the wall.
"Oh, uh, that wasn't me, that was, uh...that was Junior. Junior did that."
"The fist that came through to our side looked a lot bigger than your son's."
"Yeah, poor kid, been retaining a lot of fluid since the last time you saw him."
"We saw him walk outside with you 20 minutes ago."
"It's been 20 minutes already!? Why are we wasting our time talking about this hole then? Let's go!"
The gang hopped on Bowser's Bad Breath Express and chuffed on back to the Mushroom Kingdom, joined by some of Bowser's infantry. As they marched into Toad Town, they attracted the attention of the little parasites known as the Toads.
"WOWEE, PRINCESS," asked a Toad, "WHAT ARE THESE KOOPAS DOING HERE?"
"I'm glad you asked, Toad." Peach held her head up and looked over all of her people as she made her announcement. "As we learned earlier today, a grave danger is lurking over our kingdom. Therefore, King Bowser and the Koopa Kingdom have graciously agreed to spare us some of their infantrymen. They'll watch over us until we manage to regain our bearings from this morning's accident. Any questions?"
Bowser shielded himself with one of his koopas, wincing as he prepared for another riot. In response, the Toads simply nodded their heads and murmured amongst themselves as they disbanded. Bowser was almost upset with how easy it had gone.
"Well you guys certainly took that well," Bowser said to some Toads that passed him.
"YOU PLAYED TENNIS WITH US LAST WEEK," one of the Toads replied, "WE'RE ALL COOL."
"Alright, we should be good to take off now." Peach scanned the Toad littered streets for her advisor. "Toadsworth? Toadsworth, where are you?"
"Tally-ho, Princess!" The voice that called out to her belonged to an elderly Toad. He looked up at her lovingly from under his brown cap as he approached the gang, a walking stick close to his side.
"Oh not this fucking guy," Bowser whispered under his breath; not that whispering saved him from an elbow to the gut courtesy of the princess.
"Who is this?" Meta Knight asked.
"This is Toadsworth. He's looked after me for my entire life." Peach kneeled down and held out Meta Knight so that he and Toadsworth could shake their little baby hands. "Toadsworth, this is Meta Knight. He's the alien that was shot out of the sky this morning."
"Ah, a knight! Smashing!" Toadsworth twirled his moustache in delight. "Now come along! The Toad Express is ready to take off!"
Toadsworth led the gang behind the castle to the aforementioned Toad Express, Princess Peach's pink private jet plane. Some Toads were attending to the plane, including a pilot Toad with a pair of aviators.
"How long should we be in the air for, Toadsworth?" Peach asked.
"About 21 hours due east."
"Ah, fuck dude!" Bowser whined, "My feet are gonna get the pins!"
Toadsworth glared at the Koopa King before pulling Peach aside.
"Princess," Toadsworth whispered, "despite all historical evidence to the contrary, I'll trust your judgement that Bowser's sudden change of heart is genuine. Even still, I'm not sure that I can trust his kind to not bring chaos to our kingdom by accident."
"I understand, Toadsworth, and that's why, effective immediately, you're in charge until I get back." Peach booped Toadsworth on his face as the pilot Toad opened the door to the jet.
"Very well, Princess, I won't disappoint you! Good luck on your trip!" Toadsworth gleefully waved goodbye to the princess as she boarded the plane. "Good luck to you too, Master Mario! You as well, Sir Meta Knight!"
As Bowser boarded the plane, Toadsworth stared at him in silence. Bowser stopped and shot the old geezer an awkward smile. After a few seconds, Toadsworth returned it.
"Safe travels, Bowser," Toadsworth said. Bowser nodded as he continued onto the plane.
"Maybe the old curmudgeon isn't that bad," Bowser said to himself. As the Pilot Toad made his way onto the plane, Toadsworth stopped him by the shoulder.
"I'll pay you 10,000,000 gold coins," Toadsworth whispered to the pilot, "if you shove Bowser off the plane while they're all asleep."
The interior of the Toad Express was bright pink, with mushroom patterned seats and lacy window curtains. Not a speck of dust could be found inside, and the whole plane smelled of lavender. Even the bathroom door in the back looked pretty, with lacey pink ribbons around the doorknob. The gang melted into the cloudy cushions of the mushroom seats - except for Bowser, who had to cram himself in his with a crack and a clunk. The jet glid off of the ground like a knife cutting through butter; the gang could only tell they were moving because they saw the world shrink beneath them through the window. A chilly gust of air rolled over the heroes.
"Kinda nippy in here," Bowser commented, wrapping his Corinthian pillar-like arms around his body.
"That's what happens when you go up high enough," Peach said, "You breathe fire, don't you? Just heat up the plane that way." Peach giggled at her joke.
"If you say so." With a big puff of air, Bowser readied his fire breath.
"Bowser I was kidding, Jesus Christ!"
Peach had jumped halfway out of her seat to stop the koopa. It was Bowser's turn to laugh, but the others didn't find his bit very funny. Except Meta Knight; he found it a little funny.
Two Toad flight attendants wheeled in a service trolley carrying honey roasted peanuts, and handed them to the gang.
"HONEY ROASTED NUTS, MR. META KNIGHT?" a Toad asked, waving a sack of nuts.
"I'll decline," Meta Knight replied, "I'm trained in discipline. I won't be needing any nourishment for this journey. The exhilaration of battle will be enough sustenance for me."
"Fucking nerd," Bowser said as he inhaled some nuts, sack and all, "Refill, please!"
The Toads wheeled away to collect more nuts. The cart made a loud crunch as it was brought away. Mario looked down to investigate; it was a super mushroom, fallen out of Mario's pocket and stamped with a large tread mark. Quite a few power-ups had fallen out of Mario's overstuffed pockets when he sat down, so he transferred their contents to the overhead bin above him.
"So, this friend of yours," Meta Knight asked Mario, "Who is he, exactly? Falcon, you called him?"
Mario stared out the window, watching the sun set behind them. He popped a peanut into his mouth, letting the savory saltiness of the nut take him back to that fateful day in the Pacific.
"I was out-a boating when I met him," Mario started, "This happened over in-a my world. I was listening to-a some music on my boat, when all of a sudden, this-a strange vehicle flew out of a portal in the sky. It tore by so-a fast, my boat was nearly flipped over. The vehicle shot straight into the water, so I swam over to see if I could-a help the pilot. The pilot I pulled out of the water looked...weird. He had these-a bright glowing eyes, a cherry red helmet, and a skin tight uniform that I couldn't-a recognize. I asked him where he was-a from, assuming he'd say he was from the Mushroom Kingdom. Instead, he said he was-a from the 26th century.
"He introduced himself as Captain Falcon. He said he was a racer and a bounty hunter. But he wasn't here for a race, he was here to save his world from some supervillain - Black Shadow, I think his-a name was. I-a didn't really understand what he was saying, but he seemed like a nice-a guy, so I wished him well when he went on his-a way. When he was done, he even-a raced karts with me and the princess. Eventually, though, he hopped back in his ship and said he-a needed to return to his world. But wherever he ended up, it wasn't his world.
"I-a didn't go with him, so I don't know how he found out. But some way or another, Falcon-a found out the world he returned to wasn't the one he-a left behind. Falcon-a travelled back in time to change his future. Instead, he created a new one. In Falcon's original timeline, he had-a never travelled back in-a time; any future he travelled 'back' to from then on would be one where he had travelled through-a time, therefore a different world from his own. That meant everything he-a did in my time was the past of this new future, not of the original one. And that-a meant he had abandoned his timeline, leaving everyone he knew to die.
"Falcon travelled back and forth between my time and his, doing everything he could think of to get back to his original timeline. But it was-a never any use. And when he finally gave up, when he travelled back for the last time and-a came to me, I could barely recognize him. His-a once glowing eyes were empty, like a star that had burned all of its fuel; in fact, it-a seemed like all light in a room would get sucked away by his presence like a vacuum. I-a tried to help him get back on his feet; we got him an apartment in the Bronx and everything. But it's-a been four years, and he hasn't been the same since. He doesn't even call himself Captain Falcon anymore."
"He still lives in this time?" Meta Knight asked, "Why hasn't he returned to his time?"
"I don't think I could ever understand what it's like to blame yourself for the death of an entire universe, but if I did, I-a can't imagine I'd be able to look anyone from that world in the eye." Mario let out a sigh. Even though Mario didn't know anything about the 26th century, the thought of Jay's world coming to an end still left Mario with a frigid sensation. At the very least, couldn't the man be saved from himself? What was even left of the man? What could a man who placed the deaths of so many on his shoulders even make of-
"Hey, Mario, are you gonna finish those nuts? Those Toads are taking a while." Bowser asked the plumber, the latter lost in thought. "...Hey. Earth to guido. You done with the nuts?"
"Huh?" Mario said, finally pulling his gaze from the window.
"I said are you done with the nuts or not!?"
"Yeah, yeah. They-a taste like packing peanuts, anyway." Mario flung his nuts into Bowser's waiting face. "Relax."
"Don't tell me to relax, I've asked you like three times already! What's so distracting out that window anyway? It's the sky, we see it everyday."
"I-a don't know! Uh, the sunset behind us looked nice."
"Whatever," Bowser grumbled as he tore open his new peanuts, "...Wait. Sunset? The sun is setting behind us?"
"Yeah, look."
Bowser leaned out of his chair and craned his neck to look out of Mario's window. While the sun wasn't exactly setting, it was certainly approaching the horizon.
"The sun sets in the east. Toadsworth said we were supposed to be headed east. Shouldn't the sun be setting in front of us, not behind?"
No one had an answer for this. The air in the room suddenly felt a lot drier.
"That's a good question, Bowser," Peach said, rising out of her seat, "I'll go ask the pilot myself." Peach gracefully swung herself down the hall of the jet, vanishing behind the door. And so, the gang waited for Peach's return. Ever so patiently, minute by minute they waited. Bowser drummed his fingers against the table. Mario kept looking back at the door. Meta Knight hovered his hand over the hilt of his sword. A click broke through the silence of the jet, and the gang jumped out of their seats for a brawl!
"Blimey!" It was just Toadsworth, displayed on a screen that had popped out from the roof.
"Toads really-a know how to scare a man," Mario said, easing his muscles, "What's up, Toadsworth?"
"Well, Master Mario, I had just arrived at the castle when a panicked whippersnapper told me he saw someone fall from the Toad Express just as it took off! I figured I should call in and see if you're all alright!"
"We're all still here," Meta Knight said, "Even the flight attendants were onboard when we left the ground."
"Right, right, well that's good. I'm at the crash site right now, it certainly looks like something fell out of the plane." Toadsworth was filming himself on a camera; he turned it around to reveal a small garage adjacent to the runway. Its aluminum roof was dented, with a hole torn straight through it. "I think it'll still be worthwhile to check."
Toadsworth stepped into the garage, faced with a mess of plane parts scattered across the floor. The hole in the roof was the only source of light in the garage, forcing Toadsworth to swat around in the darkness with his walking stick. The old shroom stumbled around until he hit something hard, and which rung like a chime when struck. When Toadsworth pulled back his cane to inspect it, he noticed some water on the end of it.
"Peculiar." Toadsworth stroked his moustache as he leaned in to inspect his discovery. It shined like glass. Toadsworth couldn't quite make it out, but something was trapped inside of it. The old shroom pressed his eye right up against this shiny wet thing, even as cold as it had become, until he could decipher what was inside the crashed thing. Just as quickly as he figured it out, he began to wish he hadn't.
"Eaugh! B-by the stars!" Toadsworth nearly dropped the camera as he jumped back from the foreign object.
"What is it, Toadsworth?" Mario asked.
"Someone did fall out of the plane!"
"What!? Who!?"
"The pilot!"
Mario, Bowser, and Meta Knight all broke into a cold sweat as they exchanged looks between each other and Toadsworth.
"The hell are you talking about!?" Bowser exclaimed.
"I mean it! L-look for yourselves!" Toadsworth turned the camera towards the object. Sure enough, it was the Pilot Toad, his face frozen while warped with fear. He was encased in a massive chunk of ice, intact even after bursting through the roof.
"So who's-a flying the plane?" Mario asked.
"No idea," Meta Knight said as he snapped out his sword, "but whoever they are, they're in the cockpit with the Princess."
"Bowser, stay on the line with-a Toadsworth! Meta Knight, let's-a go!"
Mario and Meta Knight dashed for the door and burst through the other side, ready for whoever may have been waiting there. But instead, it was empty. Not only was the room on the other side empty, however, it also was not the cockpit. In fact, it looked identical to the room they were just in, save for the absence of Bowser and Toadsworth.
"Well, that's not what I was expecting," Mario said, "You think Dimentio is-a here?"
"If not, he was certainly involved." Meta Knight leapt up and perched himself on Mario's shoulder, watching Mario's back as the plumber opened the door...again. Yet again, they found themselves in the same room. Mario's breath began to cloud his vision as he ran; it seemed like every room got colder and colder. Mario ran up to open the third door, but this doorknob wouldn't budge.
"Is-a this one locked?"
"No, Mario, look closer!" Meta Knight gestured at the knob with his sword. As they spoke, a layer of ice was growing thicker and thicker on the doorknob. The whole interior, in fact, was rapidly being swallowed whole by the ice. Unphased, Mario picked up his leg and kicked the door clear open. Yet another replica of the same room awaited, but Princess Peach was standing in this one, looking around in the room out of sorts.
"Mario! Meta Knight!" Peach said to her friends, "What's going on with these rooms!? Where is this ice coming from!?"
"We-a don't know," Mario said as he ran up to the Princess, "but we're in-a danger! Toadsworth found the pilot frozen by the runway, and we don't know who's in the cockpit!"
"The ice is our bigger problem. Let's get Bowser to melt it!"
The three dashed back through the door, nearly slipping on the frozen floor as they ran. The doors behind them were coated with so much ice now that Meta Knight had to cut them down with his blade.
"Bowser!" Mario called as they all stepped back into the backmost room, "You need to-a thaw this plane!"
And yet, on the other side, there was no answer. In fact, Bowser himself had vanished. It was getting hard to see the plane underneath the ice by this point; the back half of the room, in particular, was cut off by a massive block of ice. Toadsworth's screen had succumbed to the cold, its display now pure black.
"Where's Bowser?" Peach thought aloud.
"Unless he jumped out, he has to be in this room." Meta Knight looked around the room, trying to confirm his judgement call. "The only way out is through the rooms we already passed through."
"There's the bathroom, too," Mario said as he walked up to the wall of ice, "but it looks like it's-a been frozen shut."
Mario leaned into the ice, trying to get a good look at the bathroom door. His view was obscured, but, as he soon realized, not just by the clouding ice. Something big was fixed in the ice. Something living. Something trying to blink.
"Mama Mia…" Mario whispered to himself, feeling his bones curl as he realized what he was looking at.
"Mario?" Peach said, "What's the matter-huh!?"
The gang stared in horror at the creature in the ice; Bowser, pinned in the air as he reached out to the ice wall. He was putting up an ugly scowl, but his eyes were shot with panic.
Meta Knight unfurled his wings and leapt into the air.
"Mario! Princess!" Meta Knight warned, "Keep your feet off the ground!"
Mario tore his eyes from the frozen turtle to the ground beneath him. His own boots were being consumed by the glossy monster on the floor. With a shriek, he jumped and broke his feet free. It only staved off the ice for a second, though; Mario had to jump on the ice like a child playing hopscotch. Peach, however, wasn't moving.
"Princess! Why aren't you moving!?" Meta Knight asked.
"I'm trying to!" Peach pulled up her dress, ripping it at the bottom where it had frozen to the floor. Sure enough, ice had already crawled up to Peach's knees, and showed no intent to slow down. Peach and Mario turned nearly as white as the ice itself.
"Hold on, Peach! I'll-a free you with a fire flower!" Mario reached up for the overhead bin. As he ran his fingers over it, though, there was only more ice. Meta Knight watched as Mario pawed at the frozen door.
"Mario, was that bin full when you put your luggage in?" Meta Knight asked, "Or was there empty space leftover?"
"Huh? I think there-a was, I'm not-a sure. Why do you need to-a know?"
"I'm trying to visualize the inside of the bin. I need to understand the area."
"How does that-a help!? It's-a frozen! We need to do something productive!"
"Meta Knight," Peach requested, "cut off my legs!"
"Yeah, you-a heard her, cut off her-cut off your what!?" Mario looked over at the Princess in confusion. The ice had creeped halfway up her body, moving faster by the second.
"The ice is almost at my hips now, Mario. If it gets to my brain, I'm done for."
"You're-a done for if you bleed out, too! We're-a not cutting off your legs!" Mario jerked his head back at the knight. "You're-a not cutting off her legs!"
Meta Knight's gaze hadn't left the overhead bin. He grabbed the edge of his silky cape and wrapped it around his little body.
"Are you even paying attention!?" Mario reached down to shove Meta Knight, but with a puff of wind, Meta Knight vanished into thin air. Mario couldn't even catch his breath to process what he saw before Meta Knight reappeared, now with a fire flower in his hand.
"Here." Meta Knight nonchalantly handed the flower to Mario, as if this wasn't the first time he ghosted out of our plane of existence in front of the plumber. Mario swallowed every question he had and took the flower. He crushed the round, orange flower in his hand, releasing a surge of warmth that flowed into his being. With a flick of his wrist, a sphere of fire shot out of his hand. He caught it in the other, bouncing the flames between his hands in a volley.
"We have to-a melt you, Princess, but I don't want to burn you, either."
Mario brought his fire volley as close as he could to the princess's skin, but the ice didn't relent. It had most of Peach's chest in its grip now.
"What if we start a fire? One bigger than the fireball," Meta Knight proposed. Mario looked around for a good firestarter. The walls? Who knew what they were made of, and if they were even inflammable. The carpets? It would catch, but for how long? The floor was the coldest area in the room right now. The cushions! That was it! Mario gripped his fireball and slung it at the chair. Some ice chipped off, but the chair wasn't free just yet. He had to throw a few more until the head of the seat managed to catch on fire.
"Princess!" Mario yelled, "Hold your head near-a the fire!"
Peach placed her hands on the sides of the chair for support and held her neck right up against the chair. As the flames on the chair crackled, the ice finally slowed to a halt at the base of her head.
"Phew." Mario rubbed his forehead, dry as it had become under the arid oppression of the ice. "So, Princess, are you-a alright-"
"Mario, arm. Now," the princess said.
"What-?"
"Put your arm in front of my face now!"
Mario did as the princess instructed. The princess dug her nose into his elbow and let out a hearty sneeze.
"Thank you, Mario. The smoke is bothering my nose, and I didn't want to put out the fire."
"Eck." Mario pulled his arm away in disgust. "My arm's-a wet."
"At least you can still feel your arms!" Peach looked at Mario through bloodshot eyes. Tears dribbled down her cheeks, freezing solid as they reached the bottom of her face. "I feel like my fingers could snap off any second."
"The Princess raises a good point," Meta Knight said, "Her brain may not be iced, but it still isn't safe for the rest of her body to be frozen like this. Even Bowser, big as he is, won't last very long like that."
"So how do we-a stop this ice?" Mario asked.
"We can't. If we find the one on this plane who can stop it, though, I'm sure we could...convince them."
"You're right. Princess, will you be alright-a here?"
"I won't be great, but I'll be fine." Peach gave her friends a gentle smile. "Go get 'em, super stars."
Mario and Meta Knight turned to each other again. They nodded, their eyes brimming with determination. Meta Knight perched himself on Mario's shoulder, and together, they ran out the door to face their frigid foe.