Chapter 1
A Blue Collar Washes Up on Shore!
The hurricane raged through the Southern region of the place, rain beating down hard on everything and anything, twisting thin palm trees and bending them over to a new permanent stance, like the crooked back of a once active old man. A flash of lightning lit the sky for only a millisecond, before the night sky turned completely dark again. Many of the islands served as a form of habitat to some people, but only middle-class workers. One large island stood proud and shining with bright lights in the center of the archipelago. All around it was not only a high defensive wall, but inside the walls was a very rich, posh looking city. This was where the upper class and holders of power and even nobles lived. Everyone had the money and made the moves for the rest of the scattered islands on the watery chess board.
"Oh, what another dreary storm," huffed a long-faced fellow. He had neatly combed black hair that was slicked back, revealing the normal professional bowl cut he'd get from his personal barber. His inner eyebrows were angled upward, giving him either a permanent sad look or a permanent pseudo confident look; either way, one could tell he lived a wealthy life simply by looking at him. He had a large, hooked purple nose and beneath that shot out two L-shaped strands of thick mustache jutting out beyond the contours of either side of his long face. Thin, pursed lips were stretched far from below his nose, and a small bandage was on his left cheek. This was just the long face of Wario cousin Winston McWellington; typical face of an all powerful rich person. "If this archipelago's buildings are torn down once more, that's more money out of the Rich Hooey Fund."
The Rich Hooey Fund was a special yearly fund headed by Winston's club, The Rich Hooey Society. As of right now, they had deposited over 3 trillion coins. Their main goal with these coins was to make the rest of the world just like their island- posh appearing and appealing to, who Winston thought, were the Watchers in case they decided to buy the planet for a fine price one day. Winston was always the paranoid one, always thinking outer beings were watching the Earth. Which was why Wario and Waluigi took a disliking to Winston. They gave him a family nickname: Fellow Longface Stache III. And Fellow Longface Stache III stuck with him forever.
Tonight, however, things would change for Winston.
He was seated in a large leather chair before a gaping brick fireplace, brightly lit with dancing flames, a huge book open in his lap. He was garbed in a deep purple robe with what seemed to be a huge napkin stuffed into the front collar, and silk pants with shimmering black dress shoes. Winston's rather big head was rested on a frail looking fist, his eyelids drooping as he stared down at the book, sighing. Ah, the boring life of the rich.
Thunder roared outside the window as rain kept batting the fragile glass; one of these days, it would soon break. Nothing going on outside other than the storm, crashing waves, and… what seemed to be a shattering raft and a man screaming before it was cut short by a wave. Winston perked his head up for only a brief moment, his brain processing what that sound was just now, before reverting his mindset to the book. Then it happened.
A soggy book crashed through his window of his den, landing on the velvet carpet next to the tall bear statue and golden suit of armor. The wet thud was enough to get Winston jumping out of his puffy red leather chair, exclaiming wildly as though a wildebeest just casually jumped through the stained glass window. Shaking violently with fright, Winston carefully approached the wet book, dripping like a spat up rat from the mouth of a tiger.
His greatest fear was that his suit was going to get drenched by the heavy downpour outside, and that his perfect coif would slop over his eyes.
Treating the book like such, Winston only barely pinched the cover of the book and picked it up, holding it away from him and running it quickly to a table he had no care for, plopping it with a splat on the table and opening the book. Inside were wet pages filled with the text that seemed to be written by… an octopus. The paper may have survived, but the ink sure didn't, apparently.
"Such wondrous writing," drawled Winston sarcastically. As he flipped through the pages, six separate, smaller ones fell from the book, flat on the carpet. He heard this slap, and took a quick double take- oh no! Something wet landed on his priceless carpet! He picked up the six papers the same way he did the book.
"I know some documentation that is going to meet a flaming, exquisite end," chuckled the rich man. Just before he could even consider casually tossing it into his roaring fireplace, Winston's round ears picked up the faint calls of a rough-voiced man calling for help through the noisy rain. Disappointed that someone had to ruin his fun, Winston set the stuck-together papers next to the journal of psychiatric ink blotches.
"Don't you jump in that fire just yet," taunted Winston. "I will watch you."
He gave a sigh and looked at the gaping hole in his window. The man outside continued calling.
"Help me!"
It seemed to grow louder…
"Can somebody please help me?!"
Winston looked down at the slightly ruined carpet in distaste. That was the call of an island outcast who washed up on shore of the wrong island. He was sure of that.
Looked like he had to sacrifice his ever perfect coif just to see if his calculations were correct.
So he stuck his head through the window and tried to peer through the heavy curtain of rain. He could only see a black shadow of what would be the rocks and then hills of the island outside the city gates. Just silhouettes against a dark purple sea of storm clouds and ocean spray. Suddenly, lightning illuminated the sky! For the split instance, Winston could see a man crawling closer and closer to the window of his house. He only caught what seemed to be blue overalls, a red hat, and torn white gloves, which now was just a crawling grey figure now as the white light faded.
"Help…… meeeeee…." wheezed the man.
"The boogeymonster!" cried Winston. He took the golden helmet off the gold statue next to him and threw it dead on at the man's head. A loud dong! ensued next, followed by a facepress into the ground after a gravelly groan. Lightning struck again, this time showing the full color and appearance of the "boogeymonster" that Winston "killed" with a "golden helmet." Brown shaggy hair just casually cascaded from underneath the hat down the red shirted-blue overalled back. The red hat had an "M" emblem on it. That tipped something off in Winston's jewel encrusted brain.
The one and only… he began thinking. No, it cannot be! It is preposterous!
"I cannot believe I killed the Mario Mario!" Winston exclaimed in wild sudden depression to the stormy skies above. No longer caring about his appearance, the Rich Hooey leader leapt from his window and threw the assumed Mario's body over his shoulder, leaping back into the manor through the window, laying him carefully on the floor by the fireplace.
"That old, dripping wet book must be his," the rich man said in worry as he ran out into the corridor to his personal assistant's room.
"Ansis, go get the cooks to prepare a chicken noodle soup at once!" Winston ordered. "That means now!"
The white tiger demon Winston named Ansis, sitting so rudely on his bed, just gave a cold bang-covered green eyed glare before nodding in approval followed by an adolescent sounding "Yes sir." He got up, brushing the shoulder length hair out with a clawed hand before heading for the kitchen, giving the command, "The Hooey wants a chicken noodle soup, chop chop."
Winston, on the other hand, went back to where the alleged Mario was laying… but found he was no longer there!
"Oh how rude," Winston grumbled aloud. "Time to play hide and seek already, Mr. Mario?"
"Yes," came a gruff New Yorker reply. The island outcast man stood next to the statue, in an attack-ready position, holding the pike like a combat staff before him with both hands, looking like he wanted to kill. "Tell me where I am, or I will be forced to kill you."
Winston was taken back. This soon, someone he rescued wanted to kill him? This… had to be the first time, interestingly enough. Now Winston laughed a hearty "Uh huh huh huh huh huuuuuhhhhhh" style laugh. This amused him so suddenly.
"Quick to conclusions, are we, my young guest?" he said, rubbing his long chin, thinking of how to end this… minor tiff. "I only rescued you out of guilt of knocking you unconscious, not because I wanted to hold your middle class presence hostage. Put that pike up, you're causing me fright."
The man now softened himself a little, but was still in a cautious stance.
"Who may you be?" he asked.
"Me? Why, I am Winston McWellington, head of the Rich Hooey Society. I am one of the five Ringbearers who own this archipelago," Winston explained, showing off the small green ring on his ring finger. It bore the symbol of money- your average Kingdom Coin. "Now that I have introduced myself, what is your identity?"
Clearly, Winston knew who this man was… but he wanted to be sure that it really was him.
The man then put the pike down; he was no longer in a threatening pose with it. Did he trust Winston enough to tell?
"Okay… I am Mario M. Mario, and I am on a mission to Kong Island to help my old rival Donkey Kong fight off King K. Rool, who had teamed up with Bowser," the outcast said. He shook off the shag from his face and revealed a heavily bearded face riddled with scars from what could only be guessed as rock wounds. A strap was missing from his overalls, as was the right sleeve. A few fingers were missing from one glove, and the other glove was just plain gone. His eyes were bloodshot.
Though he didn't look like it, this was in fact, the main character of our story. Mario.
"And where is my collection of Plumber's Logs?" Mario asked as he set the pike back in the golden armor suit's hands.
"Oh, that dampened bound together collection of psychology tools?" Winston asked, and at the same told, explained the fate of the Logs.
Mario's jaw dropped- WIDE.
All of his logs were ruined by the rain and seawater?! How?!
He made a dash for his journal and flipped through every page. All of his recordings, his findings, and his experiences on his raft ride- blotched!
"Need another journal?" asked Winston, holding up a fresh black leather-bound book.
