I: Aboard The Enemy Ship

As had been planned, Toad managed to grab onto the ship's anchor, followed by Hoops, Berry, Mario, Link, Peach, Rosy, and Mosaic. Luigi reached out to grab the anchor as well, however, he missed it and began to fall back down. Before he got out of reach, Mosaic managed to catch him, mainly thanks to his cape giving him a slower fall.

"Woah...thanks Mo-a-saic," Luigi thanked him.

"You're welcome," Mosaic responded.

Suddenly, a loud clank was created by something, in which Toad questioned what the cause of it was.

"Mama mia!" Mario said, seeming to know what the cause of the clank was. "We have-a too much-a weight on the chain! You guys up-a there, get on the-a ship! Now!" Mario proceeded to inform with a panicked tone.

Having heard this, Toad, Hoops and Berry frantically climb up the chain and aboard the airship. Mario then started climbing himself, and shouted for Link, Peach, Rosy, Mosaic and Luigi to all do the same, which they all did.

Once they were all aboard the airship, they took a moment to catch their breath.

"That was a close-a one, if we held on much-a longer, we'd all be in deep spaghetti," Luigi said with relief.

Hoops began to say, "Now that we're here, we should stay on this ship and hope it-" before being shushed by Link.

"But why-" Hoops said.

"Because we need to be real quiet as we don't want anyone to know we're here," Link said, interrupting Hoops again.

"Okie dokie," said Luigi as they walked away, only to then trip and fall. Over his own cape no less, then giving an "oof," after doing so.

"Guys... I said don't move!" Link once again said firmly but quietly.

As the group snuck around the ship, hiding behind crates as they did so, Toad accidentally pressed his foot onto something on the ship. This thing appeared to be a wooden pressure plate that was hidden on the ground and opened a hatch right above them where a bunch of cannonballs started to unload from it and fall down above them. Seeing the cannons, the group quickly jumped out of the way to dodge them. This, however, came at the expense of the metal spheres causing a large racket, to the groups' discomposure, them covering their ears due to such. Just as it seemed as if things couldn't get any louder than they now were, one last cannonball rolled out of one of the hatches and smashed Berry right over the head. Berry began to whine quietly after being hit by it.

"N...No, No, No, No, No..Berry...please...please don't-" Rosy began to say, trying to get him to calm down, but to no avail.

Berry then began crying out very loudly, alerting their enemies of their presence.

Due to such, the ships weapons activate and begin to fire at the group.

"Oh this is just great, now everyone knows that we're here," Hoops said sarcastically.

Hoops, being too busy complaining about what Berry caused, hadn't realized a cannonball was on it's way over to him. By the time he noticed it, it was too late to react. The cannonball knocked Hoops into the wall, causing his 3-D glasses to fall off, but worse, for his body to flicker between red and dark green, indicating he had lost his fire power.

"Welp, there goes that." Hoops then stated, then crawling over to his 3-D glasses and picks them up in his hand. "Welp, I obviously don't need these at this point, so may as well put them away," Hoops said, putting the glasses away.

Hoops didn't exactly have much time to be complaining however, his and the others' surroundings were as if they were right in the middle of a warzone. Cannonballs and bullet bills alike assaulted the group from all sides, and from small compartments in the ship were mole-like creatures wearing goggles, rocky wrenches, whom hench their name, threw wrenches at the group.

After dodging the attacks for a bit of time, eventually Mosaic spoke up, saying "Alright, I've had enough of being target practice, let's see if we can destroy these cannons and deal with these rocky wrenches."

Peach, on the other hand, had other plans, not too far from them at all, she saw an elevated door, that based on its design and position seemed to lead to the ship's interior.

"Guys! Follow my lead! We can duck for cover over there!" Peach informed the others, pointing at the door.

"That's a good idea Peach," Rosy responded to Peach.

"Come on-a Peach! We can-a take them!" Mario argued.

"Mario, I don't think so," Peach responded, then running towards the direction of the door, signaling the others to follow her lead.

"Yeah, I honestly agree with-a Peach brother," Luigi stopped a moment to tell Mario, before continuing to follow Peach's lead.

Mario decided that it's probably best to just go with the others and followed them as well to the door, climbing up a short ladder while doing so.

Once everyone had gotten inside, away from all the chaos, they stopped to catch their breath. Then afterward observing the scenery of the ship, seeing that there's wooden boarding on all sides, and seeing several metallic parts in some places, contracting in and out, and several small chutes with steam releasing from them. They figured that this must have been the engine room of the airship. As the group looked around, Hoops noticed several question blocks on the ground lined up in a horizontal row. Not saying a word, Hoops crawled over to them and bashes each with his fist, hoping he'd find something of use inside.

He bashed the first one, finding only coins. Then the next, and also found nothing but coins. He then bashed the third one hoping it'd contain a power-up, however, it unfortunately, didn't. It, however, DID contain something else. A green object with two contracting flat pads connected by a flexible X in between the two. This was a springboard. "Huh, it's no power up, but it'll do," Hoops said, then putting it in his bag despite it not being one.

"Hey Hoops, you may want to look at this," Mosaic quietly said to Hoops, who was with the rest of the group looking at something in another room.

This puzzled Hoops, however, he just said alright and scurried over to see what it was.

The room the others were looking at had a steering lever in the center with two handles, to the left of it was a 10 by 4 wooden grid of buttons on a panel that reached far enough to touch the wall on the left side of the room. And on the right of the desk was a digital screen, displaying what looked to be a map. And above the steering equipment were large square windows that reached across the entire room. Finally, on the ground left of the control deck, was a large wooden crate.

However, the scenery within the room was not the eye-catching thing to the group, it was who was piloting the airship. The creature bore an appearance resembling a turtle. Their legs were short and stubby, they had a red, spiked shell, a mouth cream in color, their belly was covered in scutes, and most notable of all, two large, bulky fists that like their feet were yellow in color.

Not only that, but next to them was another reptilian creature whom looked similar, but had several differences in their appearance, their legs and arms were instead pink, their shell lacked spikes and instead had a ladybug print, a ponytail which was held together by a green accessory, and held a white boomerang with a bow wrapped around it's tip. The two creatures were a Boom Boom and a Pom Pom.

"Yeah, them," Mosaic informed Hoops. The group then stopped peaking and went back into the engine room to discuss.

"They seem to be the ones controlling the-a airship," said Mario.

"What are we going to do?" Rosy asked.

Berry, wanting to find a peaceful solution that didn't involve violence said in his language a plan involving luring them away from the control board, that they could...only for Hoops to interrupt and explain why things wouldn't work.

"Berry, it's not that simple, these are Bowser's minions, it's hard to really take a nonviolent approach here," Hoops explained to Berry.

Unwilling, Berry admitted them to be right, having a sad look on his face, but not going on for much longer about it.

"What I think we should do is give those two a whooping and ask questions later." Toad suggested.

"That could work," Mosaic stated. "And considering how much we outnumber them, we have the odds greatly in our favor," he continued.

"In that case, we should suit up a bit before doing so," Link stated.

After thinking things over a while, the group realized that the only one with a power-up at the moment would be Luigi with his cape, which he had managed to hold onto despite the assault from the airship's weapons. Hoops looks over their power-ups, seeing the fire flower, blue shell, hammer suit, rainbow star, and the recently acquired springboard.

"I think what we should do is conserve our power-ups and use only two of them for now," Hoops informed the rest of the group.

"Hmm...But who's gonna use-a what?" Mario asked.

"I was just trying to think of that…" Hoops replied unamused, then starting to think a bit. Afterward, he gave his decision. "I believe the what we should do is that I use the blue shell and that Toad uses the Fire Flower," decided Hoops.

"Why is that?" Rosy questioned. "And why should you get another power up when you just had one?" Rosy asked.

"To be honest, I was sort of thinking the same thing," Link added.

Defensively as held the blue shell in his hand and threw it the fire flower to Toad, Hoops explained himself, still being quiet. "I'm not taking the blue shell because I 'want' it, I'm trying to be rational," Hoops started to explain.

"How so?" Rosy asked.

"I was thinking over everyone's, including my own natural abilities and realized that quite a number of us already have an effective form of combat we can use," Hoops continued. "Mario, Luigi and Mosaic all have elemental kinetic abilities, Peach and Link both have weapons on hand already, Peach her frying pan, Link his sword and multiple other things. As well as this, me and Toad are the two quickest in the group, so it'd help for it to be the two of us to receive the power-ups," Hoops continued explaining.

"But what about me and Berry?" Rosy asked.

Hoops had realized he didn't actually take Rosy into account, so he quickly thought something up. "It's because you have rolling abilities you can use already," Hoops told Rosy.

"What about Berry though?" Rosy asked.

"Regarding Berry, I didn't want to put that responsibility on him and he's unwilling to fight as it is," Hoops answered.

"Fair enough..." Rosy responded.

"Anyway, we've talked enough, and in fact should stop as someone could eventually end up hearing our chatter," Hoops said.

Afterward, Hoops absorbed the blue shell power and changed appearance. Most of his body was now encased in a Koopa-shell-like casing, which had sockets for each of his legs, as well as his face.

"Honestly, I think that Hoops made a reasonable explanation and that Toad should use the fire flower," Mosaic said.

"I second Mosaic," Link added in agreement.

"Ah alright," Toad said, then absorbing the fire flower, which caused his hat and clothes to become blue as opposed to red after doing so. Toad then creates a blue fireball in his hand, and says "Just call me, 'The Flaming Fungus'"

Playing along, Mario said "Alrighta then 'Flaming Fungus', let's a go kick those turtles into their shells!"

Afterward, everyone, with Toad leading the rush into the control room and said person jumped into the air and ambushed the Boom Boom with a fireball. After being shot with the fireball, the Boom turned around, angry, and saw Toad along with the rest of the group. Due to this, the Boom Boom signaled for Pom Pom to help them out, despite them making it clear they acknowledged the group's presence. With Boom Boom then swinging their arms in circles ready to fight. "Charge!" Toad then yelled out of nowhere, the group then running towards the two like a mob. Pom Pom threw their boomerang desperately, hoping it'd do something, not that it did much as Link quickly slashed it away.

The group beat the two down rather quickly, delivering blow after blow to them, not giving them much chance to fight back, eventually knocking them both out the windows of the control room and off the airship, shattering the glass from doing so.

II: Take Control

"Wow, that was surprisingly easy," Hoops stated.

"To be fair, we did heavily outnumber them, plus, Boom Boom and Pom Pom aren't Bowser's strongest underlings," Link said in response to Hoops.

"Now that we've defeated them, and rather quickly no less, what do we do with the ship?" Toad questioned.

Mosaic, having his attention on the control panel, noticed the digital map on the right, and noticed there was a beeping noise coming from it. This beeping being from a tracker which was keeping track of some large, red, blinking object on the map. Based on the objects' shape, he presumed that this must have been the Flagship.

"Maybe we just-a should destroy this-a airship," Mario suggested.

"let's not rush to ideas so quick Mario," Mosaic responded. "Take a look at this," He then said giving the others a hand signal.

After everyone took a look Luigi asked, "Am I-a looking at what I think I-a am?"

"It's a map right?" Peach then asked.

"Exactly," Mosaic responded. "Now please turn your attention to the large flashing red icon in the distance on it," Mosaic continued.

"Hey isn't that…" Hoops started.

Mosaic figuring what his question is responded, "I believe so, I think that's Bowser's flagship."

"So...what exactly are you saying we should do?" Rosy asked.

"I believe what we should do is pilot this airship and follow Bowser's flagship with it," Mosaic answered.

"Mosaic...as great of an idea that-a is, it can't be-a done," Luigi started. Luigi continued, "There's a bunch of-a things we'd to do to get it-a working like figuring out what fuels it and-"

However, he then got cut off when Mosaic simply just grabbed on the steering lever and tilted it, controlling the ship successfully. "Or I can just do something like that," Mosaic then responded.

Mosaic as he controlled the ship looked to his left and just noticed there is a furnace which acted as the ship's fuel.

"Also Hoops, could you along with Toad and Link keep that thing running?" Mosaic then asked them to do, pointing at it.

"Alright, then I suppose," Hoops said, with Toad and Link giving Mosaic an okay as well and picking up two of the shovels near it and shoveling coal into the furnace.

"Alright, so based on this map, the other ships are around seven miles north of us," Mosaic stated.

Suddenly, a rattling sound was heard from outside the ship.

"What was-a that?" Mario questioned.

Peach seemed to have an idea of what it probably was and asked Mosaic a question. "Mosaic, do you see a 'Disable Weapons' button on the control panel?" she asked.

After being asked, Mosaic examined the control panel and quickly found the button as unlike the other buttons' blue color, this one was orange and had "Disable Weapons" printed on it, then pushing the button.

Everyone gave another listen to see if they heard anything. They didn't, which made them realize the weapons were disabled now, to their relief.

"Alright, now where were we? Pursuing the air fleet and boarding the flagship correct?" Mosaic asked the group.

"Mhmm," Hoops responded.

"Then, in that case, let's go get them!" Mosaic said and started piloting the ship north to chase the fleet.

III: Invading The Invaders

Meanwhile, at Bowser's flagship, said owner of the flagship sat in the director's seat in the control room, which notably had a rather large interior, much larger than that of the normal airships, with Bowser Jr and Kamek nearby, and the Koopalings further away from the control panels.

"Bowser Jr., I'd like you to check how close we are to Grassland's castle so that we can prepare to kidnap the king there," Bowser ordered his son.

"Aye-aye king dad!" Bowser Jr. responded. Bowser Jr then checked the digital map covering an entire side of the wall in the room. "We're a mere five miles away from the castle Dad," Bowser Jr. told their dad.

"Perfect, shouldn't be long now before we arrive there so we can attack the castle and imprison the king," Bowser said.

"Your wickedness, shouldn't we do a roll call on all of the ships to make sure their all present and none have fallen behind?" Kamek asked Bowser.

"Ah, I almost forgot, good idea Kamek," Bowser said, then grabbing the microphone on the center of the control panel and making a broadcast. "Attention all pilots! Avert your ears to the speaker for roll call!" Bowser announced. "Ship A-9!" Bowser called. "Present," the pilot responded. "Ship E-7!" Bowser continued. "Present," E-7's pilot responded.

Bowser continued to call off more of the ships and eventually made it to the ship that, unbeknownst to them, had by hijacked by Team S.M.B.X and The Mosaic Group.

"Ship C-15!" Bowser called.

Back at the hijacked ship, Mario recognized bowser's voice, and quietly told the others "It sounds-a like Bowser's doing a roll-a call, don't talk into the speaker-a mic."

"Why n-" Hoops tried to ask.

Mario interrupted him and explained, "Because we don't-a need him to know we're-a here."

"Good point, I'll be silent," Hoops replied.

By now, Bowser had called the ship multiple times with no answer. Due to this, Bowser realizes that due to the lack thereof, this meant the ship was missing.

"Either those incompetent fools aren't at the deck or are sleeping on the job," Bowser presumed.

"But uh, king dad, didn't you have us wire the ships to go through the entirety of them?" Ludwig asked Bowser.

"Yeah, they did, glad I remembered," Bowser replied. "Another possibility is that...hmm...someone hijacked the ship," Bowser said. "Someone like…" Bowser continued.

"Someone like...the Marios? And their other meddling friends perhaps?" Roy asked.

"Yes, it could be, and know what? I bet it is them that took the ship!" Bowser stated, acknowledging Roy.

Meanwhile, Mosaic figured that Bowser wasn't using the mic anymore. "He doesn't seem to be talking anymore, one of you guys could just mute it," Mosaic told the others. Toad began walking over to it to mute it when Mosaic said, "Actually...maybe not, Bowser or someone could slip up and reveal some useful information.".\

"Good point, maybe I shouldn't," Toad replied.

"Hey Mosaic, look at the map," Hoops told him. Mosaic looked at the map upon the desk, seeing that they're surrounded by airships. "This means that we're right in the middle of the fleet at this point," Hoops said, then continuing and began to say, "And now we should-".

However, in the middle of his talking, the voice on the speaker came back, this voice being Bowser's.

"First off, roll call...is off…" Bowser announced.

"Whew, that's-a a relief," Luigi said.

"Second off, I'd like to talk to the people piloting Ship 'C-15'" Bowser said.

"I spoke too-a soon.." Luigi said in response.

Mosaic, now forming a paranoid look on his face, looked at the ship number, reading it as "C-15".

"Uh oh…" Mosaic said under his breath.

Bowser then continued. "I've noticed that whoever's piloting this ship didn't answer during roll call, and know what else? I believe there's a clear reason why," Bowser stated. "Maybe the pilots aren't supposed to be in there, to begin with," Bowser continued to go on about. "MARIO! LUIGI! And whoever is with you! WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! So why don't you just show yourselves?" Bowser proceeded to roar into the mic.

Mosaic took another look at the map, realizing that they were heading straight for Bowser's flagship as it was right in front of them, with a large black flag imprinted with a red skull to boot.

"Guys...do you realize what we're right in front of?" Mosaic asked the others. The others went over to the window to see what Mosaic was talking about.

"Hey…" Rosy said.

Berry added in his language "isn't..."

"That…" Hoops added next.

"Right…" Link added.

"Over…" Luigi said next.

"There…" Peach said.

Then Toad followed "In…"

Mario continued "The-a distance…".

And finally, all the eight of simultaneously said "Bowser's flagship!?"

"I believe so, and I have an idea," Mosaic stated. "Hoops, take over on piloting for a bit so I can say something into the speaker," Mosaic then asked Hoops, which Hoops accepted.

"Wait, you're going to alert them of our presence?" Link asked Mosaic.

"I am, but just wait and see what I have in store for them," Mosaic responded.

Mosaic then cleared his throat and started to talk through the speaker and said the following, "Hey...Bowser, I want you to know, we are here, and yep, we did hijack your airship, and I'm sure you and your minions want to rip us to shreds for that. Well, I have a question for you...how would you like to meet us personally? As I speak, we're boarding your flagship now, so… what do you say, Bowser? Will you accept our offer?"

Bowser then thought about the situation a bit, and realized what it is, after thinking it over, he gave Mosaic his answer.

"With pleasure," Bowser decided.

"Well alright then, just come out when you're ready to begin," Mosaic responded.

IV: Showdown

Mosaic then stopped talking and realized that they've landed on the flagship itself, and decided to take a look outside at the ship's scenery. As he did so, he realized the ship was loaded with weapons.

Everywhere he looked he saw cannons, bill blasters, and flame canisters left and right. As well as this, he noticed that most of the material was made out of bore a darkish shade of gray as opposed to the normal brown shade that the airships had. A bit further ahead, he noticed a short staircase which lead up to more of the same. And at the end of it, saw a large door that opened from the bottom, and looked as if it was electric powered and metallic. Other details he noticed on the door were that the bottom was lined with gold rounded protrusions. On either side of a few feet away were gray crates, and along with this, on either side of the door were smaller doors, each of which was notably marked "Containment Room".

"What could be in there?" Mosaic thought to himself.

Realizing however what would be smart to do considering the ship's layout, he figured they should make necessary preparations.

"Hey guys, I think we should suit up a bit more," Mosaic suggested.

Hoops looked in the bag again and realized a detail and mentioned it to Mosaic. "Mosaic, we only have one power up left," Hoops informed Mosaic, that being the bomb suit.

The bomb suit had a pretty similar design to a hammer suit, the only difference, however, was that while the hammer suit had a black shade, the bomb suit, on the other hand, was dark green.

"Oh wow, you're right," Mosaic replied.

"Who's going to use it th-" Hoops started to say.

"I will," someone said.

This someone to be exact was Princess Peach, who takes the bomb suit from Hoops and touches it. And with a poof, seemingly from magic or some mysterious phenomenon, it fit on Peach perfectly.

"Oh...I was-a going to take-a it," Mario said, a bit disappointed.

"Mario, this isn't really about who gets what, the overall goal is just to foil Bowser's plan again, correct?" Peach asked Mario.

"Yeah, you're a right," Mario replied. "And considering we've-a used about all of our-a power ups, aside from the rainbow star, which we should-a save, we should-a be 'Ready to rumble'," Mario said, everyone then proceeding to get out of the airship through the recently broken window.

Once everyone ran to where they were around a couple of meters away from the door to the control room, they simply waited. After a bit of time passed, the metallic door began to rise, revealing Bowser standing behind it, whom of which marched outside and glared at them.

"All of you prepare to be destroyed!" Bowser shouted, pointing at them while doing so.

Both Team S.M.B.X and The Mosaic Group, whom both had already prepared for battle were surprised by this.

"You and what army?" Toad asked.

"This one," Bowser said, then proceeding to yell, "Bowser Jr.! Kamek! Larry, Morton, Wendy, Iggy, Roy, Lemmy and Ludwig! Get over here and help me clobber these meddlers!"

The nine of them each showed up subsequently, each of them with a different weapon. Larry, Iggy, Ludwig, and Kamek appeared to be holding magic wands. Morton and Roy both were holding cannons of some kind, Morton's looking like a one-hand one that fired cannonballs, while Roy's, on the other hand, was a bit bigger, and based on the skull imprinted on the cannon's base, seemed to launch bullet bills. Wendy was wearing a pair of golden, presumably magic rings, and finally, Lemmy was not only rolling on a ball, but wielded a round, purple object with yellow star markings on them, and a fuse uptop...a bomb. Each of them also looked as ready Bowser was.

Luigi then noticed a bit of an alarming detail and whispered it to Mario.

"Oh no...we're-a outnumbered 2 to 1, maybe we should-a quit while we're-a behind," Luigi whispered.

"Oh uh uh uh, no we're-a not, we are going to split-a the job." Mario began to explain to Luigi. "Each of use will a take on one of them." Mario finished explaining to Luigi.

"But umm, there's-a nine of us and ten of them as I-a said, won'-ta one of us need to take two of them on at-a once?" Luigi responded.

"Yes, that's-a true, I'll do it," Mario responded. "Are you-a sure brother? Who are you going to deal-a with?" Luigi asked.

"I'll deal with-a Bowser and Bowser Jr., you're-a taking on-a Kamek," Mario explained.

Which Luigi responded, "Me?"

"Yes," Mario replied, and then proceeded to quietly whisper to each of the others who to deal with as well, telling them, "Berry is-a dealing with Lemmy, Peach will fight-a Wendy, Toad will-a contend with Iggy, Link will-a fight Roy, Mosaic will go against-a Ludwig, Rosy, Larry and finally Hoops, you-a handle Morton,"

"Are you losers done flapping your lips and ready to rumble!?" Roy yelled at the group.

"That's-a my line!" Mario said, then saying, "But regardless, everyone, let's-a go! CHARGE!" After Mario's statement, both sides began to charge at one another, yelling as they did so.

Mario started off the brawl with leaping above Bowser and holding his hammer overhead, which Bowser dodged, and yelled, "Bowser Jr.! Help me out!"

Then proceeding to blast a fireball toward Mario, which he with quick precision deflected with a swing of his hammer. Bowser Jr. prepared a green shell and then threw it at Mario as he was looking the other way. However, Mario saw the shell coming and swiftly kicked it back at Bowser Jr. with ease, which sent him flying and bashing the back of his shell into a cannon, then getting back up.

"Mario! Just you wait!" Bowser Jr. yelled, running his way again.

Meanwhile, Link and Hoops were working together to deal with Morton and Roy's assault from their utilities while dodging and blocking their attacks, which they for a good while did so skillfully. Link found an opening in the assault and fired three sword beams Roy's direction. However, Roy managed to block two of the three shots with their cannon but didn't see the third and got hit.

Hoops on the other hand stayed true to his job and charged Morton's way, spinning into his shell while doing so in an attempt to ram into Morton, which he did successfully, which Morton let a wail out in pain and then proceeded to try to give Hoops a taste of his own medicine by spinning into him inside his own shell. However, Hoops had gotten back out of his shell by then and noticed his attempt, quickly evading it, causing Morton to accidentally ram into Roy, causing both to be hurt by the impact.

"Hey! Watch where you're spinning!" Roy angrily yelled at Morton.

"Sorry, but that slippery beetle was too fast for me," Morton replied.

"New strategy! Let's barrage them!" Roy suggested, which Morton agreed and the both of them prepared again to aim at the two.

As this occurred, Berry fought with Lemmy, the latter of which chased the other on his ball trying to hurl star bombs at the baby dino, which he was barely managing to dodge. Berry then noticed another bomb bouncing his way, and seeing own axis from Lemmy, a bit nervously, he jumped up and kicked it toward Lemmy, making Lemmy wail from the blast, fall off his ball, and try to spin into Berry. Berry, however, too scared to move, ended up being hit by Lemmy and sent flying right into Rosy, who was in the midst of brawling with Larry and knocked over amidst doing so. Larry tried to use this as an opportunity to shoot them both with a blue energy blast, but as he's about to fire, the two noticed and gained enough composure to dodge it in time, which Rosy then quickly counterattacked by rolling into him. Upon making impact she bounced off of Larry who made a loud wail in pain. By then, Lemmy showed up next to Larry.

"Hey! Help me out with these two!" Larry asked Lemmy.

Lemmy then pulled out a bomb, ready to hurl it at the duo, and Larry prepared to blast them with the wand, which both Rosy and Berry in response making a battle stance against them.

Meanwhile, Luigi dueled Kamek high up, dodging his attacks, being too cowardly to attack on the fly. However, deflecting several blasts that came his way with his cape. Luigi eventually decided he should stop acting on the defensive and instead zipped towards Kamek in an attempt to hit him with a thunder infused punch, but missed due to his own clumsiness.

Mosaic, Peach, and Toad all, on the other hand, fought with Wendy, Iggy and Ludwig, whom the latter three were chasing the former via spinning in their shells, trying to run them over. The three heroes spot a stack of crates and simultaneously all at once jump over the crates, causing the three koopalings to crash before they could react. As the three recovered, Peach prepared a bomb and then hurled it at the three, knocking them down again and beating them down further just as they were recovering. Taking no time to rest, the three went after the Koopalings again and Toad kicked Iggy at Wendy, knocking them down yet again, doing further damage.

As this happened, Kamek looked down at the battle that occurred, and speculated that his wickedness and kids may need help, so he signaled Bowser, whom along with Bowser Jr. was still fighting Mario, and shouted, "Bowser! Tell Iggy to open the doors to the containment rooms and 'Release the Beasts'," to Bowser.

"Hmm...Good idea," Bowser said. "Iggy! Use that remote control you have to open those doors," Bowser ordered him.

"Sure king dad," Iggy responded, then while he laughed hysterically, pulled out the remote and push the button.

The doors rose, and behind this door were several creatures. These creatures were round, had large sets of razor sharp teeth, had bodies that seemed to be made of metal, their eyes were white with round with black pupils, and most interesting of all had chains that attached to their bodies. These were chain chomps, and there was six to be exact.

At the moment, however, the chain chomps' chains were attached to stands on the ground that could be elevated into the ground with the click of a button, which Iggy went on the click, setting the chain chomps free to wreak havoc. Two of the chomps went after Berry and Rosy, who were still trying to deal with Larry and Lemmy, two after Link and Hoops, still fighting Morton and Roy and two after Mosaic, Toad, and Peach, whom of which were dealing with Iggy, Wendy and Ludwig rather well.

Due to the presence of the chain chomps, everyone was forced to postpone their fighting and deal with the chain chomps first.

The chomps that pursued Berry and Rosy attempted to lunge at them, however, the two managed to dodge their attack, which Berry then proceeded to try to counter by ground pounding one, however, due to the creature's metal body, didn't do much to it. Rosy then saw she's near the edge of the ship and sees an iron bar lying on the ground, giving her a rather unorthodox idea of how to deal with them and picks up the iron bar. Rosy started to get the chain chomp's attention by waving an iron bar in the air.

"How about I throw the iron bar and you fetch it?" Rosy said to the chain chomp.

This, combined with them waving the iron bar got the chain chomp's attention, leading to them jumping around and barking excitingly. Rosy then threw the bar off the ship which the chain chomp chased right off the ship.

Berry on the other hand, still hadn't dealt with the chain chomp. Seeing that ground pounding didn't work on it, and he didn't have many other options, he decided to attempt the only other option he could think of. He jumped atop the chain chomp and tried to open his mouth and eat it, but found the chain chomp was too big to fit inside.

Rosy noticed Berry's effort, which she sighed, then said, "I'll deal with it."

She made her way over to chain chomp, grabbed it by it's chain, gave it some spins, and hurled it off the ship's side.

"That was simple. Now where were we?" Rosy then said, ready to deal with Larry and Lemmy once more.

Mosaic, Toad, and Peach dealt with the chomps differently. Toad tried to throw a fireball at one, but to no avail, which gave the chomps a chance to charge at the three, which they, however, avoided with ease. Afterward, one of the chomps tried to bite Mosaic again. Mosaic then noticed it's chain and got an idea. They dodged their bite attempt and managed to go through with his plan of grabbing them. The chain chomp was embarrassed when it realized what Mosaic just did. Mosaic however just proceeded to spin it around and hurl it off of the ship.

After he did so, Mosaic noticed that the cannons on the ship had started firing and realized they'd have to duck and cover from the bullet bills and cannonballs among everything else occurring. Among this, one of the chain chomps pursuing the three tried to go after him, however, Peach noticed and threw a bomb at them, blasting it off the ship before it could do anything.

"Wait a minute...guys, I could just destroy the cannons with these bombs," Peach said to Toad and Mosaic, and then started with hurling bombs at a 4-way cannon, demolishing it, and then prepared another for a bill blaster.

Link and Hoops tried to deal with the imminent threat of the chain chomps while also continuing to fight Roy and Morton as well. Morton fired a cannonball at the two; however, Link and Hoops managed to trick him into instead shooting one of their own chain chomps. which knocked the metallic creature unconscious.

The other chomp went after them when a crazy idea enters Hoops' head; this being to turn the chain chomp on Morton and Roy at least for a short while. The first thing Hoops did was get atop the chain chomp and get it to chase after Morton and Roy. Morton ended up being lead right into an engine tank, which let out a flame that burned him and caused him to run around crazily and fire his cannon in random directions, which left a stray cannonball lying on the ground. Afterward, Hoops got off the chomp, took it by it's chain and hurled it off the ship. Hoops then proceeded to use Morton's situation to get him good. He tucked himself into his shell, and then spun himself into Morton's direction, and connected with Morton's position, which sent Morton flying and crashing into the side deck of the ship, knocking him out.

After retracting his legs out of his shell, Hoops stated, "That's one down, nine to go!"

As he was gloating, Roy pointed his blaster at Hoops and shot a bullet bill his way, which knocked Hoops over from the impact, which Hoops quickly recovered and got ready to deal with him along with Link. As this occurred, Luigi continued to battle Kamek. Luigi made another jab at him with a volt infused punch, and this time landed a direct hit on the koopa wizard. Kamek, angered, conjured up a magic spell and blasted Luigi with it, the force of it sent Luigi plummeting towards the flagship.

Luckily for him, however, Luigi had happened to crash right into Larry and Lemmy, whom were battling Berry and Rosy. The impact knocked the two unconscious, Luigi's cape staying intact to boot.

"Thanks for making our job easier," Rosy thanked Luigi.

"Ehh, it was-a nothing" Luigi responded as he recovered from the fall.

Mario continued to fight Bowser and Bowser Jr., dealing with the two of them not all too bad as he had done such multiple times in the past. Bowser at this point however about had enough of this.

"That's enough of our charade, it's time to pull out the big guns," Bowser stated.

Bowser then proceeded to blast Mario with a fireball, which this time hit Mario and knocked him down, allowing him and Bowser Jr. to go through with their plan. Bowser pulled out a remote and pushed a button on it, opening a trapdoor within the ship and elevated to the flagship's ground level two similar looking vehicles.

They had a tall bowl shape, a propeller below in the center, a green rim at the top. And on one the body of the vehicle was a face, the face was a large, orange lipped smile, and a pair of black eyes with dashes on either side of each eye. A rather goofy look no less, these said vehicles were clown cars, one being smaller than the other; this one of course being Bowser Jr's. Bowser and Jr. both quickly made their way to the clown cars, jumped into them, and started them up and propelled them into the air.

Mario, having recovered and gotten back on his feet, saw what Bowser and Bowser Jr had done, his retort being that he put his hands on his face and exclaimed, "Oh-a NO!"

Link and Hoops, having not realized the situation with Bowser and Bowser Jr., continued their brawl with Roy, avoiding bullet bills from his cannon and directing them away from themselves to avoid harm. Realizing they needed to get rid of the cannon, Link made a bluff.

"Aah! What's that!?" Link yelled, pointing behind Roy.

"What the- What is?" Roy said, looking where Link pointed.

While he was looking the other way, Link then proceeded to pull out a bomb of his own, ignited it, and shoved it into the bill cannon.

"Hmm, guess it was nothing," Roy said, "Now to-" Roy continued as he attempted to fire his cannon, not realizing it's jammed. Puzzled by this, Roy said, "Hmm...why won't this work…" As he questioned this, he peeked into the cannon. Right when he did so however, the cannon blew up in his face, sending him flying into the air.

Link used this as a chance to unleash his own barrage on Roy, shooting hit down with several beams from his sword, spinning Roy around as the shots hit him. Hoops then, to wrap things up, ran after the plummeting koopa, jumped into the air and tucked himself into his shell and spun into Roy, knocking him away and causing him to continue to fall out of the sky and down to the land below.

"Goodbye! And don't come back!" Hoops yelled to him as he continued falling. Link and Hoops then gave one another a high five afterward.

"Now, we should go help the others out," Link said.

Only for the two to then hear another explosion and the ship shake. The two looked in the direction of the explosion and saw Mario running from Bowser and Jr. in their clown cars. They then hear a shot from a magic blast to the other direction, and see that Luigi, Peach, Toad, Mosaic, Berry and Rosy were all fleeing Wendy, Iggy, Ludwig, and Kamek and then seeing Toad dodge the blast fired his way. Both fleeing in panic, Mario and Mosaic ran into one another and fell over.

"Mario! We need your help!" Mosaic said to Mario in a panic.

"That's what I should-a be saying!" Mario replied, then pointing at his problem, being Bowser and Jr. The Koopalings, at least those not taken down yet, and Kamek cornered the seven and were prepared to fire a barrage on them.

Before they could do so, however, a bomb went flying into Bowser Jr's clown car and exploded on it, knocking the airborne vehicle onto the ship, and the driver, being Bowser Jr. himself out of the driving seat of it. This was done so by Link's quick thinking. Bowser Jr then attempted to start up the clown car again but found himself unable due to it being too damaged, making him kick it out of annoyance.

"He he ha! But it doesn't matter! I still have "these!" Bowser Jr said, then pulling out another green shell and throwing it toward Mario.

Mario reacted with precision by knocking the Koopa shell away with his hammer, causing it to hit Iggy instead, bounce off of him, then hitting Wendy as well, knocking both of them into a wall, knocking both unconscious.

It was now that Bowser realized his numbers were tight, and orders for Bowser Jr., Ludwig, and Kamek to attack the group. Bowser himself then tried to ram into the group with his own Clown Car, however, failed to hit them and missed. As this occurred, Kamek blasted the group with several blasts from his wand, also not landing a hit.

Amidst the fighting continuing, Mosaic had something else on his mind. He looked in the sky at the armada and realized something vital. At this point they could be getting dangerously close to the Castle of Grassland, when taking down Bowser is just a secondary goal, their main one is to stop his armada. He then on the edges of the flagship noticed a bunch of large cannons, which looked as if they were both pretty strong and fired a rather long range; This gave him an idea.

Ludwig charged in Mosaic's direction in an attempt to pound on him, which the latter dodged before he could do so. And started to run for the control room, which had been left open all this time.

Having noticed this, Bowser yelled, "Ludwig! Stop him while we deal with these other meddlers!"

"Will do King Dad!" Ludwig responded, then going after Mosaic.

Ludwig went inside the control room, and scanned the room looking for Mosaic, and is not able to find him anywhere. This is because of the fact that, at this point, Mosaic had already managed to find his way into the room with a control board that configured the settings of the flagship.

"Ah, here we are," Mosaic said.

On the board he found a large round blue button reading 'Cannon Settings' which Mosaic pressed. This brought up a menu on the interface which showed how the cannons should work and what setting to put them on. Mosaic set every single one to 'Auto' and to aim in the directions of the other airships. The system asked for confirmation, which Mosaic selected 'Yes'.

"This should be a cinch now," Mosaic stated.

V: Falling Apart

By now, Ludwig had realized where Mosaic was and made his way into the room, then said, "There you are! Now to stop you!" Ludwig then once again tried to crush Mosaic.

Mosaic however with quick thinking intercepted with a punch infused with his Chillokinenis energy, smacking Ludwig against a wall and knocking him out. Mosaic then made his way out of the flagship cannons' control area and back into the control room, where he decided to look at the controls at the commander's seat of the flagship. As he looked over all the things on it, he noticed a hidden compartment on it. He proceeded to open, curious of what it was.

What he found underneath was something that he couldn't believe he was actually seeing. It was a big, bright red, round button, which was lined with black stripes. However, that wasn't the eye-catching detail, the most eye-catching detail was what the bright yellow letters imprinted on it spelled; 'SELF-DESTRUCT BUTTON'.

Mosaic upon seeing this thought to himself, "Is he seriously that stupid? Eh, best not to look a gift Yoshi in the mouth," and then proceeded to press it, it then activated a red flashing alarm and a digitized voice saying the self-destruction sequence would active in ten minutes. After pressing the button, Mosaic went off to go tell the others, unaware that Ludwig had regained consciousness and realized the same thing.

Meanwhile, the others continued to fight Bowser, Jr., and Kamek. However, at this point, the only one they had left to deal with was Bowser as they had dealt with the other two, which they wasted no time in doing so. Peach hurled a bomb at his clown car, which damaged the vehicle. Bowser countered with ducking inside the clown car and dropping a large, gray ball onto the group, which the group avoided with ease thanks to its slow speed. Bowser then threw a pair of bob-ombs down at the group. One of which landed near Toad. Before Toad could flee from the bomb, it exploded in his face, causing him to lose his fire power. Toad is distraught at this fact, however, Link gives him a bit of encouragement.

"Don't worry Toad, we'll beat him without that," He proceeded to tell him.

Luigi, who was close enough to the other bob-omb to put it to use, haphazardly picked it up and hurled it at Bowser's vehicle again, damaging the vehicle once more.

Bowser, realizing his vehicle was heavily damaged, had the face on his clown car take on a more angry expression and start diving bombing and shaking the ground. The group fled from the rampant vehicle to avoid being crushed as they tried to find an opening, finding it hard to get one as Bowser had wised up and stopped throwing bob-ombs their way. As Mario ran and tried to think of what to do, he came across something on the ground. This object was a stray cannonball lying on the ground, presumably being the same one shot by Morton earlier. Mario grabbed the cannonball and tucked it under his arm.

As he continued to keep his distance from the clown car, he yelled, "Hoops! Dig into the bag and throw me the springboard!"

Seeing Mario's plan, Hoops agreed and dug into the bag and found the springboard and looked closely for a good opportunity to throw it to him. At this point, however, Mario had jumped into the air and was dangerously close to the clown car, having the feeling it was now or never, Hoops threw the springboard Mario's way as they plummeted to the solid ground, intercepting this and causing Mario to be propelled back up, to Bowser's surprise. Mario then, as if he were dunking a basketball in a sports event, dunked the cannonball into the clown car, knocking the contraption onto the ship and it's driver down and out.

"Did...Did I lose?" Bowser said, having quickly regained consciousness.

Team S.M.B.X, Hoops, Rosy and Berry all surrounded him.

"Yes, yes you did," Peach proceeded to say, and followed with, "Now, we'll accept your unconditional surrender."

"Surrender? Hah!" Bowser said in a seemingly cocky tone. "You must be kidding. I still have the weapons on my flagship to barrage the Grassland Castle, and besides, I still have the rest of the fleet," Bowser continued to brag, seeming to think he still had the upper hand.

Everyone then heard a loud bang, and looked in its direction, realizing it came from one of the other airships, which had just been struck with a giant gaping hole being made through it from...the flagship's own cannons? Everyone then realized the other ships had begun to suffer the same fate, all of them starting to plummet to ground below, crashing and burning.

At this point, Bowser Jr. Kamek and five of the Koopalings regained consciousness and looked for where Bowser could be, and then realized he was near the others.

"Or so you thought you had a fleet left," Hoops tautly told Bowser. "So, what'll it be?" Hoops then questioned.

Bowser tries to think of what answer to give when suddenly Mosaic comes running back and jumps on Bowser Jr.'s head again to tell the others of his exploits.

"Guys! I rigged the cannons to shoot the airships, so that's taken care of; however, we need to get off this flagship, because I've pressed it's self destruct button and this place will blow at any minute!" Mosaic informed the others.

Kamek heard this, and questioned Bowser's intelligence, asking him, "Your wickedness...a self destruct button? Really?"

Bowser makes an attempt to justify this with an explanation. "I included it because I could have needed it in case of an emergency, but it's okay that this one's falling apart, we can just head back to base and build another fleet all over again," Bowser said, then rushing for his Clown Car again, with six of the seven Koopalings as well as Bowser Jr all getting into the clown car and start making their getaway.

"Oh no you don't!" Peach said, and hurled a bomb at the clown car one last time, the blast finally knocking the clown car out of the sky, sending Bowser and his children plummeting down to the land below. Down below, Roy Koopa had landed and had just started to regain his consciousness, only to look up and see the clown car about to crash on him.

Kamek, realizing he's heavily outnumbered said, "Welp, the place is falling apart anyway, and I gotta split, tootles." Then flying away on his broom.

"What do we do-a now? The ship is-a crumbling and we have no way to get-a off of it." Luigi said, sounding scared.

"That's...actually a good-a question," Mario replied, then, along with everyone else, frantically looking for a way off. Mosaic as he looked around, took a look at the mainland from the edge of the ship the control room was on and saw in the distance a peculiar place; Grassland Castle. Mosaic then noticed another detail that due to all of the action, he hadn't noticed until now. There was a staircase on the side that lead above the control room, and in this place was...a large cannon. Mosaic realized that this was perfect.

"We'll escape the fleet the way we caught it! With a cannon!" Mosaic stated, then pointing at the cannon.

"How do you know we'll be fine?" Hoops asked Mosaic.

"So basically, because of where that cannon is pointing, we'll be able to swivel it towards Grass Land, and then launch ourselves in that direction, and if we also land in the right velocity then-" Mosaic started to explain in detail.

"So in summary, we'll land in a safe place?" Hoops asked, interrupting Mosaic.

"That's correct," Mosaic answered, and then proceeded to say, "Now everyone, get into cannon so we can aim towards Grassland Castle."

Everyone, even Luigi, said okay. And each of them one by one as they did earlier blast down towards the castle, hoping for the best.

VI: Closure

Down below, a toad that stood guard in front of Grassland Castle was going about his business in a discussion with another toad, then saw the group falling out of the sky, and quickly rushed into the castle to get something to break their fall, and came back out in time with a blue trampoline. The group all landed on it, that being, everyone other than Luigi, who landed flat on his face a feet inches off. Mosaic looked around, realizing that they're on the ground and that they're all okay.

"See, told you guys," Mosaic stated.

The two toads then began to clap a round of applause for their heroes and explain how they saw the airships were coming and how they started exploding, also asking them if it was their doing.

"Guilty! Hope you didn't mind," Rosy replied to them.

"We didn't, in fact, for all your guys' heroism and saving our fair land once again, we'd like to invite you all for dinner in our castle," One of the toads said.

"Once again?" Mosaic asked.

"Yeah, several years ago, the Mario Brothers, Mario, and Luigi once saved our land from Bowser, or one of his children, Larry Koopa, and this time, they saved their kingdom from even Bowser himself this time around" the toad explained.

"That's very interesting, are we all invited to this party?" Mosaic then asked.

Though he realized he just said they were, the toad ignored it and proceeded to say, "Yes you are, now, all of you come on in, our king is just dying to talk with you all of your exploits."

As Team S.M.B.X and The Mosaic group entered the castle, Hoops said, "Nice! A victory meal to go with our victory in battle."

"And so, once again our heroes managed to triumph over the evil Bowser and his armada. This wouldn't be the last of their adventures, far from in fact, their day today was just another day of familiarity in...the life of heroes."

Next Time...Chapter 3: Prickly Scales