Chapter Two: The End?

WARNING: NIVEAU AND CREATIVITY HEAVILY DROPPING FROM NOW ON

A week had passed.

Despite everyone who had survived the alien attack being just fine, nobody dared to do anything.
The point where Peach, Bowser and Rosalina had allied would usually be the part of the story where everyone gets determined, but this wasn't the case.
People were just sitting in the remains of their houses, ignoring the cold and the rain that had been going on for a week now.
Mario and Luigi went down the mountain every day to gather as much food and water as possible, Peach and Bowser spent almost all of their time in Peach's Castle, discussing, while Rosalina was feeding her Lumas Star Bits.
The next day, a few brave Toads and Goombas had finally decided to build a rudimentary rope elevator down the mountain's east side towards the plains which would make getting up and down much easier,however,their spirits didn't exactly lift when one of them fell fivehundret meters down to his demise.

Finally, on a monday the depression had reached it's cracking point.

No one, literally no one was out on the provisorically patched roads of Toad Town and even Peach who had constantly remained optimistic, was about to cry.
Around noon, Mario went out through the ghostly emptiness of the city, when he noticed something, no someone unlikely.
A person, Mario had never seen before, a young woman with shining gold hair and a light-blue visor over her left eye in a black leather jacket was pacing the streets of the town, muttering to herself.
The weird thing about her was a high-tech looking belt she was wearing,which seemed as though it was emitting an abnormal kind of energy.
She also had a futuristic laser gun strapped to her belt which made her look even more out of place.

„Hello there Miss! Can I help you?" Mario politely approached the stranger.
„Oh, hello...Mario! Why, you must be the famous Mario!" The unkown person answered in a sweet voice,as though it belonged to an angel.
„How do you know my name?!"
„C'mon, everybody knows your name!
You are a legendary hero since your childhood days when you saved the world from aliens,everybody knows your stories. My mother has always told me about your legendary adventures when I was young. Nothing made me fall asleep as good as the stories about you!"
„Eh, yeah..." Mario was getting very red (redder than already) „Yeah,I sorta have that effect on people.
So,uh...would you mind introducing ourself to me?" Mario asked.
„Oh," the woman replied, waving her hair out of her face „sure!
My name's Clarisse, Clarisse Lockwell, I come from North Kryania, far north from here.
I came here becaue, well..." She blushed „I heard word that you and your friends have recently moved here and have come into a lot of trouble with...some...people." She suddenly grabbed her laser gun in it's holster while the expression on her face went from cheery to a very dark look of hate.
-„So...want to inroduce yourself to my other friends?"
„Sure!"-

They both went up to Peach's castle.

After having introduced herself to the others, Clarisse decided to take a walk around Toad Town and take a closer look at it.
They visited the depressed Toads,looked around the buildings and when they came back to the castle in the evening, Clarisse looked heavily depressed.
When being asked why she looked so sad, however, she didn't respond.
She expressed that she would like to stay in the Kingdom for a while and Peach offered her an empty room in her castle to stay in.

Over the following months, the Bros., Clara and Bowser went on great, andventurous jurneys through the world, getting to know it and each other better and better with Clara recently, knowing Mario so well by now felt like she had developed a serious crush on him.

A wednessday,(the friends had just returned from another adventure) about a year later began very strange.
The sky was clouded and there was absolutely no wind breaking the frightening silence, just like there were no birds flying around and again, noone was outside, however, everybody felt that something was coming.

Something big.

Luigi went to the smaller alleys of the town to check on the townspeople just when it happened.
The sky suddenly broke, revealing a massive metal object and hundrets of the already known Trad soldiers and spaceships emerged from it.

Chaos immediately broke out.

The Mario Bros., Peach, Rosalina, Bowser and Clarisse all stormed out of the castle, the Bros. with their hammers ready, just like Rosalina was shooting red lightnings from her wand at the alien soldiers, Bowser flexing his exoskeletal claw extensions and Clarisse drawing her laser gun and shooting blue streaks of light at the invasors.

As the battle went on, Clarisse stormed up to the center of the town which the alien mothership was aiming a massive laser cannon at.
Mario just caught a glimpse of her, removing her golden toupée, revealing the green vines on her head as he whacked an alien soldier with his hammer.
Clara Zyrox shouted „Hey! It's me!" up at the mothership which suddenly took her on board with a tractor beam.
On board of the INSINE Ω Inc. mothership, everyone was being quite calm, having the exectution of their plan quite under control as Clara dashed through the corridoors, having only one thing in mind: Her boss.

When she had reached her boss' office, the door opened without Clara even pressing the door opener.
Corporate President Ripeawf was sitting in his chair, his back to the door, watching the destruction through the windows.
„Sir!" Clara panted „You can't do this! There are people down there, people with hopes and dreams! You're commiting genocide!"
„Please, Clara, calm down. Take a seat and I will explain to you why these inferior creatureshave no use for us."
„They may have no use for you, but they want to live, don't you understand that?
I was against this whole operation anyways, this is madness!"
„Are you calling me a madman, Miss Zyrox?" The CEO replied in a dangerous tone.
"Yes." Clara answered, now very determined. „"Madman" doesn't even describe it."Megalomaniac" would rather fit, or "Greedy mass-murderer"!"
„If you think of me and my ways that way, dear Miss Zyrox, I think it would be best for you to repent from this company and forget about it. Shall I get your papers, because (I might not have expressed myself clear enough), you're-"

A buzzing bang errupted and a blue light shot across the office, hitting the CEO in the heart.

„Fired. Yeah, you are." Clara said with a one-sided smile on her face, her arm outstretched, clutching her laser gun which she put back in it's holster as she walked up to the president's desk, pushing the dead body aside and taking a look on the computer.
„Well, I guess there's only one way to end this" she said to herself „Self-destruct, it's gotta be here somewhere...aha!"

The computer showed up a message saying „INITIALISE SELF-DESTRUCT?"
Clara clicked on „YES", with the computer answering „AUTHORISATION.".
„President Ripeawf, she typed in, password „Pale Girls".
AUTHORISED. SELF-DESTRUCT REQUIRES CONSTANT PRESSURE OF Y KEY."

„Wait, I gotta stay here?...Well, guess there's no way around it." she sighed „It's for the greater good."
She started the little messaging drone the president always had in his office which flew out of the window, down to the chaos-drowned town.

Mario, who was Boomerang Mario, heping Ice Luigi fight off a horde of soldiers saw the drone.
It stopped right before him, then projected a holographic Live- video chat with Clara in the office.
„Clarisse, you're one of them? Mario asked as a world in his heart broke apart.
„Yeah, I am. My real name is Clara Zyrox, I am Lead Field Operation Planning and Execution Manager at INSINE Ω Inc.."
„So...you were spying on us the whole time?"
„Yes. But I've learned. I've learned that your kind loves the life and you deserve it.
What this company's doing is wrong and only I can end it and I will end it now.
I will activate the self-destruct mechanism of this mothership, thus killing every high authority of this terrible company, shattering it.
But there's one problem." She sighed.
„I..." she sighed again „have to keep holding the y key on this computer keyboard to execute the self-destruction, that means I will die."
„No! You can't do that, not after all this! I-I will do it for you!" Mario cried in total shock and desperation.
„No Mario, don't do it. You have to live and I have to end the gruesome reign of this company.
Goodye, Mario, I love you."
„I love you too!" Mario shouted, tears in his eyes as the video chat ended and the drone shut itself off, falling to the ground.

Clara had pressed the y key.

The mothership was taking flight and within seconds, it had reached the planet's orbit where it started exploding.
Clara, filled with determination kept holding the y key as everything around her broke apart, sirens and screams echoing from every direction.
It was not easy for her to keep holding, to accept her fate to die this young, not having seen much of the world, also knowing that she really loved Mario, but that was what kept her holding on; she wanted Mario to have a happy, peaceful life together with the people he knew and loved.

WARING, TOTAL DESTRUCTION IN T-10...9...8..." the mother computer announced.

„This is it." Clara said to herself „You are going to die now, dear. It was nice knowing you world, though we saw each other only for 20 years, it was a great life. Thank you." She sighed again, breaking into tears as the countdown continued „Mom, Dad, Tom, Jerioe, I love you all! Goobye!"

Clara closed her eyes.

Boom.

The mothership exploded in a green flash of light, pieces of metal flying everywhere, the ear-deafening bang sounding in all directions.

Mario saw the explosion and fell to his knees, his tearshed face in his hands ,just as his boomerang powerup vanished and his clothes took on the familiar red-and-blue again.

„You're a hero, Clara, I will make the world remember you!" Mario shouted into the blue sky.
The Trad soldiers caught sight of the explosion as well and, knowing that this was their end, lay down their weapons and got onto their knees with Rosalina taking great joy in executing them one by one.
After being consoled by his brother, Peach and even Bowser, Mario finally got to his feet and slowly slurfed over to Rosalina who had just disposed of the Trad soldier's corpses using fire magic.
„Rosalina" Mario sobbed „Clara's just died. I know it's against the universal laws, but please, can you tell me if she's fine?"
„She is." Rosalina calmly answered giving Mario a loving smile like the one of a mother.
„She's become a bright, beatiful star in her home galaxy where everyone who know and loves her can always see her. I can also tell you how she feels right now.
She's happy, knowing that she saved your and so many other lives.

This was enough for Mario.

He knew perfectly well that Rosalina took great care of every single star in the universe and he also knew what she had told him a year ago.
„When a star dies, it shatters into stardust. Eventually, a new star is formed out of the dust. That way, it keeps going on, but it never stays all the same."

The End.

The End?

More like The Beginning!

Author's note:

Guys, I'm sorry that the story ended so abrupt and sturned out so short.

Problem is that I never really wanted to make (Re)Start in the first place, I wanted the sequel, „Super Mario (R)Evolution" to be the main act of this saga and I just saw (Re)Start as a necessary prequel.

I apologize to every reader who expected a way longer, more epic story and I promise you that this story's sequel, „Super Mario (R)Evolution" will be what you expected: long, epic and creative.

Still, I give big thanks to everyone who followed this story and kept reading it.

See you next FanFic,

your's sicerely

SMG4Fan9001