"You are back so soon, and yet your body lacks the filth your mouth spewed upon your arrival. Dare I ask if you've been slacking off?"
Mario shrugged as he headed towards the elevator that would take him to Garson's bar. He then checked his wrist for a non-existent watch just to take that nonexistent watch and transform it into an imaginary cellphone. The conversation that went on with this fake person would have been quite enlightening had Merlon not grabbed Mario's imaginary cellphone and slammed it on the ground. With a sigh, Mario turned around and faced Merlon again.
"Do you think I am that senile? Peasants like you could never afford a cell phone much less one made entirely out of air! Did you steal this device from Merlee?"
Mario's mouth widened.
"But more importantly where is Tippi? I still sense that you do not have the ability to flip between dimensions. She also is clearly not with Red as you could not have reached him without this power so why isn't she by your side?"
Merlon glared as Mario shuffled his feet awkwardly.
"Well, Merlon you see…"
Mario put a hand into his pocket. He pulled out twenty gold coins.
"Tippi is currently... busy at the moment."
He rubbed the gold coins between his fingers.
"Tell me Merlon, surely you wouldn't mind having cash instead of questions wouldn't you?"
Merlon's eye's widened.
"My boy! How dare you would even insinuate I would take a bribe, much less one as pitiful as that."
Mario sighed, closing his eyes as he put the coins back.
"Figures..."
He muttered.
Well, there's one last thing I can try.
He thought, suddenly looking at Merlon with excited eyes.
"Hey Merlon! Turn around! An invisible girl's falling from the sky!"
"Huh? Where?"
Merlon questioned turning around and looking up towards the sky.
Mario then started to dash, releasing a loud sigh upon reaching the elevator and jumping in.
"Oh hey uh... where am I?"
A young blond woman asks a robed man in black as she awakes in a town with rotting wood, and a number of stores boarded up. Her vision was a bit blurred from the fall. She barely made out the robed man as he looked down at her. Shaking his head the robed man helped her to her feet.
"My lady, this is Flopside. You took quite a fall."
The young blond woman nods, rubbing the grains of dirt from her dress.
"I myself am Norlem, I watch over this land. We don't have much, but allow me to offer you a place to sleep at least. Until we can help you return home."
The young blond woman frowns at this offer but the man called 'Norlem' seems unphased by this, continuing anyway.
"Now, I know as a flopsonian, we generally don't pry into others affairs, but I was wondering if you would be alright giving me your name at least? Simply, so I have something to call you by."
The young woman opened her mouth but no sound came out. She is embarrassed to say, she cannot remember. She can't remember where ' home' is much less her name.
Before she is able to voice this, a woman and a masked man come towards her. The latter casually floating, apparently lacking any desire to use his legs. She struggles to make out the finer details of their features, the fall still making her vision a bit blurred.
"Ahh, Norlem! How lovely to see you at this time of night!"
The masked man says, smiling back at them.
"Now like a curious passerby about to light your house on fire, I have to know. Who is this mystery girl, able to weaponize beauty like knives!"
The young blond woman blushed.
She still had no idea how to answer that question.
"Ahahahahaha, look Nastasia, my dear, I have charmed her so well, she has become speechless. Like a woman's first time seeing a man in the nude!"
The woman called 'Nastasia' elbowed him, giving a warning glare.
"I'm sorry, Dimentio can be a bit... crude when it comes to humor."
The blond women only nodded. Still unsure what to say.
"By the way-"
Nastasia asked.
"Norlem, what was her name?"
...
The vision faded away and Tippi awoke in the field of world one. Still, in the third dimension, she wandered aimlessly, muttering a few obscenities as she searched for a way home.
Dimentio and Nastasia reviewed the past few hours of surveillance footage of their newest hoard of future minions. A few hours of comforting each other and the two had barely calmed down from the traumatic events encoded in Luigi's mind. Recovery was a long time coming but alas, work came before anything else to them. They would rest only when control of the universe was safely in Dimentio's hands.
Dimentio flipped to another camera, watching the creatures roaming mindlessly through the lower outer interior of Castle Bleck. The meeting was tomorrow and while both had their notes prepared, they still needed to determine who among the minions in the lower castle grounds would be good candidates to join the army.
Sadly, the first few hours of footage were not promising.
The majority of minions had failed to find the bathroom, leading the surrounding outer interior of Castle Bleck to become a biohazard. Even more horrible, none of the goomba's roaming about appeared particularly strong, minus the one or two overly muscular ones who may have taken a steroid too many. Nastasia and he had sadly concluded, that the majority of goomba's would likely be good as food rather than fighters. They only had so many resources, and it would be imperative that the strongest soldiers were always well fed. It made little sense to feed weak soldiers who would likely die by the droves in battle. Count Bleck himself may have been wealthy, but his money was not infinite. He would not appreciate the two of them wasting it needlessly.
Dimentio sighed, changing his attention towards the koopas. Honestly, while slightly tougher then the goomba's, they were still so hopelessly weak. Frankly, if Count Bleck was not rich, he would have them roasted in the oven like the goomba's would be. Still, they at least were passable as army-men if only by the skin of their teeth.
He couldn't help but snicker when his eyes went to a group of toads, cowering pathetically in a corner.
Truthfully, they looked quite delicious. Their mushroom caps would go perfectly in a hot fudge roasted goomba sundae. He whispered to Nastasia to save a few for him. Toads themselves were quite a delicacy after all. It'd be unlikely he'd find more of them again for a while.
Nastasia examined the paratroopas, and paragoombas next. Count Bleck had taken special care to use a magical spell to keep their wings folded in, preventing any of them from fleeing the castle needlessly. Agreement was unison that any flying creature would be quite valuable to be kept alive as a potential spy.
Almost finished with their evaluations, Dimentio and Nastasia were about to turn the camera off just to find their eyes going wide.
"K- dude are ya seeing this?"
Nastasia had asked pointing to a giant figure in the darkness with a spiked shell.
Truly Dimentio couldn't help but admire the creature, it appeared quite strong, dare he say maybe stronger than he was.
"I think it's-"
Nastasia trailed off squinting her eyes to ensure her sight was right.
"Hmmm?"
Dimentio raised his eyebrows grimacing somewhat upon realizing what the creature was doing.
"Ohh for the love of Jaydes!"
Dimentio covered his eyes, quickly flicking the camera off before slamming his head into the desk.
Yes, it did happen a few hours ago and to him, it did appear to be a monstrous beast but could it at the very least exercise some decorum?
He knew that being trapped in Castle Bleck a few of the creatures would likely be feeling quite horny but alas was it really necessary for them to engage in coitus mindlessly on one of Castle Bleck's front porches? Really, it's why the closet was there. He couldn't imagine any other purpose that one closet inside the outer interior of Castle Bleck could serve.
Mario slammed his head on the bar table as he gulped down his 10th glass of milk at Garson's. With some drunken pleading, he'd convinced the ancient barkeeper to let him take a single bar stool cushion home as a housewarming gift. The full chair was out of the question, not unless he had 200 coins to spare, and if he wanted to maintain his drinking habit then well…
Garson patted his pocket full of coins as he watched Mario put a hand over his mouth. Understanding the signal, he opened up the drawer containing his puke pans and placed it next to Mario's head. Hearing the beginnings of a massive hurl Garson turned away having no desire to see the end of the show. Once Mario's hurls ceased and his breaths came out in heavy pants Garson took the puke pan from Mario and placed it in the sink. Shaking his head he sighed as Mario thanked him and put another ten coins in his hand. Silently motioning to be given another round.
"You really have a problem red poster but if ya paying me I guess it's fine."
Mario gave Garson the finger behind his back. When the barkeeper returned to serve his drink Mario gave a loud belch before leaning his head down to take a sip of his milk.
"Anything you want to talk about man? You seem down. Even for being red's imposter."
Garson tapped his finger on the bar stand as he waited for Mario to stop sipping his milk.
"I'll neva...find dem."
The man in red slurred slumping his head back down again.
"Never find who?"
"My brother...friends...lovaaaaaa."
Mario over emphasized. His mind losing any strength left to be coherent.
"Well if ya keep getting drunk… on milk... and man… I'd never thought that was possible till now… of course, ya won't. Here. Bars about to close so let's take ya home. Where's this abandoned house ya found red-poster?"
Gurgling and in no state for talking, Mario pulled out a pencil and paper from his pocket and wordlessly drew the door to World One.
Garson nodded and went around his bar stand, helping Mario out of his chair and allowing him to lean on his shoulder as the two of them headed towards Mario's new home.
"She's almost ready my lord".
A magikoopa had told him, holding her hand as her body was close to dispelling the eggs inside her.
Bowser was happy to see that Princess Peach would survive after all. She really was a strong lady. Bowser smiled as he sat down by her.
"Ya doing good sweetheart?"
Bowser had asked, incredibly thankful that Princess Peach had been willing to lend her own body for this task. He was quite hopeful that his magikoopa and a newly hatched army of minions should be able to find help below the abyss. Bowser also hid the thought plaguing the back of his mind that all this may have been for naught, that the abyss may very well be just that… an abyss. Frankly, he didn't have much of a choice but to try and one magikoopa without even a scepter would be screwed if they were forced into a fight.
He sighed.
Maybe if the paratroopas or paragoombas could fly they'd have better luck but alas some spell was keeping their wings folded in.
He groaned, looking back at Peach.
He couldn't help but wonder if maybe she deserved more than this life.
Garson clumsily escorted Mario to his abandoned home in section 1 of the first playground world. The bartender himself was relieved this was only an intro section, for he would likely be dead if he tried to cross section two. While the majority of the ancients could cross the playground worlds with ease, Garson knew he was still on the slow side, physically and mentally. It was why the other ancients had left him behind. Truly they had ruled him and his brother not a threat to this world and allowed them to live out their life on the mortal plane. All because they were "slow".
Shaking his head at the memory, Garson quickly spotted the house in the distance and dragged Mario forward. Opening the door he walked Mario in and gently lowered him to the ground. Putting the barstool, cushion under the man in red's head, Garson looked around the abandoned house, frowning at the emptiness. With Mario's drinking habit, he was surprised that this 'abandoned' house in the middle of nowhere wasn't some sort of crack house. Merlon himself was unable to keep an eye on the playground world's these days so they'd been sprouting across section 1 like crazy. Many of his customers had even offered him the chance to snort when Merlon was out of eyesight but Garson declined, for he was a milkman through and through. He'd been raised on milk, lived by the philosophy of milk, and by that logic would die by milk.
Leaning against the back wall as he examined the abandoned house Garson felt a strange bump press into his back. Turning around he felt the spot with his hand just to feel what appeared to be… a doorknob?
Giving the knob a slight twist a flash of white light engulfed the room just to reveal a giant red door. Garson blinked a few times at the new sight then turned back to the sleeping Mario on the floor.
"That red poster doesn't know how lucky he is.."
Garson thought.
"You ain't living in an abandoned house man, or even a crack house."
He smiled examining the elegant decal that lined the door. Double-checking the details a final time to be sure of his conclusion.
"My bro, happy days for you, you lucked out and found a whore house!"
Garson put a hand over his mouth, only laughing hysterically when the door to Mario's new home closed behind him. Oh yes, red poster would be having many fine times when he woke up, and heh perhaps he'd drop by soon enough.