Somewhere deep within Mushroom Castle, in an old abandoned store room full of old abandoned junk, thin black lines erupted from the ground. They shot out—not in spontaneous direction, but into a familiar shape. The shape of a door. As the lines ceased movement, bright red filled their blankness from the floor up, and a lovely trim of rainbow snaked around the edges and condensed into a star in the center.

As the peculiar door was completed, a click was heard from the opposing side, and the door slowly creaked open. A tentative head poked out to survey the surroundings, and, finding no living soul about, addressed the others behind him.

"I think it's clear…" Luigi said, stepping slowly out of the small door as he opened it wider.

Livi bounded out behind him, glancing to a small window on the far side of the room. "See? You were all worried for nothing! It's only morning just now, and we left at like one! We've only been gone a few hours!"

Luigi leapt up a pile of boxes to peer out the window into Toad Town. He gave a heavy sigh, slowly shaking his head. "The Toads are setting up for the Star Festival tonight… we've been gone four days…"

Livi's face fell to horror. "Oh… that ain't good…"

"Oh, please… as though it even matters…" Dimentio nodded back towards Mr. L, saying, "Don't you think they'd realize something happened once we came back with him in tow?

"He does have a point…" Luigi said as he clambered down. "How are we going to explain Mr. L being back?"

The man in question shrugged carelessly. "Why not just tell 'em what happened?"

Kamek smiled sarcastically. "Oh, yes, brilliant idea! Let's tell them we kidnapped the poor little fangirl and drug her down into the Underwhere! Oh! And while we're at it, let's not forget to mention that we lost her, got her frozen solid in Bonechill's Prison, let her fall off a cliff, nearly got Dimentio executed, started several fights, caused the Prison to cave in on itself, and stole a soul from Jaydes' clutches!"

Mr. L blinked. "…damn… busy night, huh?"

"Are you serious?" Livi whined. "How the hell am I not even tired! Four days, no sleep, right? How does that work?"

Dimentio placed a hand on her shoulder. "Time doesn't pass in the Underwhere, darling…"

"Oh…" Livi said. "…I knew that."

"Alright, so are we having that which is a plan or noing?" Fawful inquired, stepping to the center of the group with folded arms and a sneer on his face.

"I guess not…" Luigi moaned. "We'll have to… hide Mr. L, until we can think of something…"

"Are you serious?" Mr. L snapped. "What, like I'm a freakin' Chomp you found on the side of the road?"

"OMIGOD I WANT A PET CHAIN CHOMP!" Livi screamed.

Luigi quickly clapped his hands over her mouth. "Will you shut up? Someone's gonna find us!"

Livi nodded, mumbling something in the affirmative into Luigi's gloves.

"Surely…we can find a way to sort this mess out…" Dimentio began in his soothing, musical tones as he came up behind Mr. L and placed a gloved hand on either of his shoulders. "…for now, at least, we'll sneak up to the fangirl's room, and decide what is to be done there."

Kamek shrugged. "Sounds like that's about all we can do for now…"

"Well, c'mon then…" Luigi said, opening the door to the rest of the castle. "Let's get going before somebody—AHH! DAISY!"

Sure enough, there stood the flower Princess, arms folded, and a devious smirk Jaydes herself would be proud of plastered all over her face. She drummed her fingers on the side of her arm, giving the odd group a thorough look down. With an amused twitch at the corner of her lips, she locked eyes with Livi and declared, "Busted."

"Shit!" Livi snapped. "Look, Daisy, I know you hate me and everything, but can't you cut me a break just this—"

"Sooo…" Daisy interrupted, leaning against the doorframe as she casually examined her nails (which, by the way, she couldn't have seen for the glove she wore over them). "…we had a bit of a fiasco over in Sarasaland… we were bombed by, uh… Bonsai Bills… know anything about that, Livi?"

Livi glanced around to her fandoms, silently begging for help, before deciding an appropriate response would be "The Koopalings made me do it!"

Daisy sneered at the fangirl. "Uh-huh, I'm sure…" she sarcastically spat.

Livi glared at her. "Alright, look. I bombed your stupid kingdom, alright? But, for good reason! I wanted you out of my hair to prevent exactly this kind of crap!"

"Oh, really? And how exactly did that work out?" Daisy asked, a mischievous smile lighting up her face.

"WILL YOU STOP TAUNTING ME AND HELP ME OUT FOR ONCE IN YOUR STUPID LIFE?" Livi screeched at the top of her lungs.

Daisy pursed her lips, tapping on her chin with one finger. "Hmm… I dunno… That'd be a lot of trouble on my part, and I'm already so tired from dealing with the Bill damage… I think I should do the easy thing and just let Peachy know what you've been up to."

Livi's face went livid. "You little—"

Luigi clapped his hands over Livi's mouth as she continued to shriek. "Oh, wow, nice vocabulary you've picked up on, there…"

Livi ignored him, continuing to yell as she simultaneously tried to kick Luigi off and snag a handful of Daisy's hair. Daisy just cocked an eyebrow as she coolly leaned back, not even phased by the sudden outburst. "Look, Daisy…" Luigi said as he struggled to keep Livi quiet. "We've had a really rough night—this is the last thing we need… we'll tell Mario and Peach eventually, but please don't rat us out!"

Daisy said nothing. She just stood there with her arms folded across her chest, staring at Luigi with a rather blank expression.

Luigi groaned. "C'mon, Daisy! If you rat them out, I'll get in trouble too!"

Daisy was unmoved.

Luigi narrowed his eyes at her. "Okay, you suck."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Mr. L moaned as he approached the flower princess. "Look, girlie, I think all of us have had about enough shit for one night. Nobody wants to hear you bitchin', and your shallow little threats ain't scarin' us. So, why don't you just skip your frilly self off somewhere else and leave us the hell alone, huh?"

Daisy stared at Mr. L for about as long as she did Luigi. However, her eyes were wide as dinner plates. They slowly looked Mr. L up and down. Once she had a pretty good summary of him, she glanced between the Green Thunder and Luigi over and over for a good five minutes.

Finally, Daisy opened her mouth, sucked in a frightened gasp, shrieked "PEACH!" at the top of her lungs, and tore off down the hallway before any of the fandoms could even flinch.

"Mm-mhh!" Livi shrieked struggling against Luigi.

Luigi shakily released the fangirl. "S-sorry, Liv… wha?"

"I SAID DAMMIT!" Livi yelled. "STUPID NO-GOOD FLOWER PRINCESS THINKS SHE'S CAN JUST WALTZ IN HERE AND RUIN MY FREAKING LIFE!"

"Calm down, Livi…" Kamek said as he laid a hesitant hand on Livi's shoulder. "She was just freaked out… we might have been able to reason with her if someone hadn't scared the living daylights out of her."

Mr. L narrowed his eyes. "…Are you implying this is my fault?"

Kamek shot him a look. "No, Mr. L. I'm stating the simple fact that this is entirely your fault."

"What? Hey, I never even asked to jump on the crazy train!" Mr. L yelled, jabbing a finger at Kamek. "You losers are the ones that came down and shanghaied me into this!"

"Oh, Mr. L, surely you aren't saying you'd rather we'd left you in the Underwhere?" Dimentio said, feigning disappointment. "You'd prefer to stay locked in your bedroom… being enslaved to Jaydes… enduring hour after insufferable hour with her prattling little Luvbi by your si—"

"NO." Mr. L immediately said, eyes widening at the thought. "No thanks. I'm good."

Dimentio quickly found his smile again. "I thought so."

The conversation was quickly interrupted, however. Loud jumps and two sets of clicking heels were soon heard rushing down the hall in the group's direction. Daisy could be heard frantically choking out a stream of babbled nonsense at her two companions—identified at their worried cries as Mario and Peach.

"Grounded." Fawful said for the fifteenth time in the past twenty seconds. "Grounded! Me! I am being a feared villain of much the grandness! No one has the 'grounding' of me! This is possessing such stupidness!"

"Tell me about it!" Livi agreed, rapidly flipping through TV channels from where she laid on her bed, her other arm locked around Dimentio's neck. "I'm not their kid! They can't tell me what to do!"

Luigi sighed heavily as he took a seat beside Kamek on the floor. "Livi, they're just worried about you—I've told you that. They want you to be careful."

"Who cares about being careful?" Livi demanded, Dimentio emitting a short choking sound as she tightened her grip. "That's what 1-Ups are for!"

Luigi gave her a look. "Have you ever eaten a 1-Up?"

Livi looked away, and promptly flopped back onto the bed. "This sucks."

Mr. L leaned against the window as he glared into Toad Town below. "Tell me about it… Look at what all's goin' on down there… and here we are, shut up in the stupid castle…"

Livi bolted upright—snatching Dimentio with her—and tried to crane her neck to see around Mr. L. "What is going on out there?"

"I told you, they're setting up for the Star Festival." Luigi said.

"Wassat?" Livi asked, looking mystified.

"It's a celebration the Toads put on." Kamek explained. "Once every one hundred years, a comet passes overhead, and is visible from Mushroom Kingdom. It is said that it rains down special stardust when the comet passes—the festival is held for the collecting of this dust."

Livi's face scrunched up. She turned to Luigi with a stupefied "Wha?"

"Super Mario Galaxy." Luigi said simply. "The comet is actually Rosalina's Observatory. Now it comes by every year to rain Star Bits, as a thank-you for our help in rescuing the Grand Stars."

"Oooooohhhhhh!" Livi said. "OMIGOSH I WANNA GO!" She suddenly started bouncing up and down as she got off on another rant. Dimentio looked to be on the verge of blacking out.

"Livi, don't break Dimentio!" Luigi called.

"Wha—OMIGOSH!" The fangirl practically flung Dimentio off the bed. He landed in a heap on the floor, coughing violently as he gasped for air. "I'm sorry Dimentio please don't die I love you!"

Mr. L was giving Livi the same look he had gotten from Daisy earlier. "…good Grambi, the hell's wrong with this kid?"

Livi ignored the comment. Her attention snapped right back to Luigi. "Weegee, I wanna go to the Star Festival! It looked like so much fun! And I've never eaten a Star Bit before!"

"Well, I'm so sorry." Luigi said, dripping with sarcasm. "What do you expect me to do? I'm just as grounded as you are."

"Why can we not have sneaking of outness?" Fawful suddenly interjected.

A heavy silence hung in the air.

Fawful looked around at his comrades. "Oh, come on! None of you had the thinking of that?"

"Pardon us for being preoccupied with our respective fate-loathing." Dimentio said dryly as he rubbed his neck. "Though I must admit, sneaking out is not a bad idea…"

"Hell, are you kidding? It's a great idea! Why haven't we done it already?" Mr. L demanded, storming over to the others.

"Can I come?" Livi whined. "I wanna sneak out too!"

"Hell yeah you're comin'!" Mr. L said, hooking his arms around her waist and slinging her over his shoulder. "C'mon, let's get goin'!"

"And what are we going to do if the others find out?" Kamek asked, though he was clearly also aching to get outside.

"I am possessing the guns in the lair which is mine." Fawful offered.

"You're not freaking shooting anyone!" Livi called, trying to twist around Mr. L's back to see him.

"Who has the saying?" Fawful shot back.

"Says me!" Livi yelled. "Fangirl's in charge!"

Dimentio laughed at that. "Since when are you in charge? Every one of us could kill you in the blink of an eye."

"Well, SO?" Livi demanded. "I'm the fangirl! Don't I win, like, invincibility or something?"

All five fandoms were suddenly laughing so hard they couldn't breathe.

Livi turned about ten shades of scarlet. "WHAT? WHAT'S SO FREAKING FUNNY?"

Turns out, with Mario, Peach, and Daisy attending the Star Festival themselves, the sneak-out went much smoother than expected. Just a minor distraction to some of the Toads on guard (distraction, here, meaning "Dimentio sending off random explosions down the hall to cause mass chaos and effectively clear the immediate area") and the fandoms and fangirl were soon outside and lost in the festival.

Livi was running about in not-so-sneaky-sneakiness as she chatted with Toads and ran through the streets—dragging Fawful by the hood of his cloak—and gobbling up any star bit that happened to pass her way. Kamek and Luigi were a bit better at playing low-key—they had found a quieter corner of the festival to hide themselves away in and talk quietly as they enjoyed the star bits and the nighttime festivities.

Mr. L noted the locations of the others (or rather, Luigi and Kamek's location, along with the general area Livi appeared to be spazzing in) and set off to find Dimentio. He discovered the jester chatting with a few other foreign creatures that had come to enjoy the festival.

Almost immediately, Dimentio bowed slightly as he bid them adieu, and the moment he had floated away from them, teleported and appeared beside Mr. L.

"Boo." He said, grinning madly.

Mr. L narrowed his eyes. "…funny." He said at last.

Dimentio chuckled. "You had something to ask me?"

Mr. L bit his lip, hating that the jester was constantly analyzing him for thoughts and emotions and constantly getting them right, but deciding nonetheless to let it go this time. "Yeah… do the others know I'm back?"

"Oh, no, of course not." Dimentio waved him off as he picked a star bit off a nearby stand and dusted it off before taking a small bite.

"…what?" Mr. L asked. He had kind of expected as much, but he was still somewhat stunned. "What do you mean no?"

Dimentio shrugged. "Why would they?"

Mr. L stood there a moment in babbling stupidity before he managed to choke out "Didn't you tell them?"

"I never had a chance to…" Dimentio calmly explained. "Think about it—when did I? Had I warned them before you were informed of my little scheme, Mimi would have never allowed me to go through with it. As soon as we confronted Jaydes on the matter, she sent us straight back home. I haven't spoken with any of them sense."

Mr. L's gaze turned worriedly to the ground. Dimentio smiled and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Oh, what's the matter, L?"

"What are they gonna do when I get back to the Castle?" Mr. L said, quieter this time.

Dimentio shrugged again. "I was going to simply let them be surprised!"

Mr. L said nothing.

"…come on, L, what have you got to be worried about?" Dimentio said softly. "I'm the one they all hate, remember? Little Mimi positively adored you, you and O'Chunks had some good times, and you were Nastasia's prized creation… they'll be thrilled to see you alive and well again."

A silence hung between the two for a moment.

"I've been… thinking…" Mr. L said, slowly, carefully, as though he were entirely unsure what he was about to say.

"Thinking?" Dimentio repeated. "About what, pray tell?"

"About… what you said…" Mr. L had to pause and gulp nervously before he went on. "…about this being your plan… all along…" The Green Thunder slowly turned to face the jester. "…It does kinda add up, lookin' back…"

Dimentio smiled gently with a soft glow in his eyes. "Does it?" He said innocently.

Mr. L nodded. "Luvbi showed me that spy orb Jaydes has. I may have been locked up in the Underwhere, but I saw everything that happened."

"And what did you see?" Dimentio prompted.

"…you hypnotized Luigi." Mr. L said slowly. "…the Floro Sprout…"

Dimentio laughed lightly.

Mr. L gave him a look. "…he thought… he was me."

Dimentio laughed again. "…Plan A." He finally said. "Hypnotism created you, so I thought for a fleeting moment of insanity the same would draw you back out. When that didn't work, I had to switch plans. I would use the Chaos Heart to open the Underwhere and—hopefully—find you down there."

Mr. L's lip twitched into a shy kind of smile. "…really?"

Dimentio nodded. "Many things I am, Mr. L, but a liar, I am not."

Mr. L's face fell at that one. "…yeah… ya are."

Dimentio laughed. "Ah ha ha ha! True, of course, I cannot deny… But, I've never once lied to you."

Mr. L looked a little ticked off at that. "Yeah." He said, firmer. "You have."

"Oh?" Dimentio asked, pretending to be rather surprised. "About what?"

"You said I was your best friend." Mr. L barked.

"You are my best friend." Dimentio said casually, examining a new star bit carefully before taking a bite. "I don't have many."

Mr. L's hands unconsciously clenched into tight fists. "You said you'd protect me. Instead, you murdered me."

"You wanted me to leave you to face the void—the entire castle was falling apart, L. O'Chunks, Mimi, and even myself hardly made it out." Dimentio stated. "And you wanted to stay in the crumbling castle to fight off the much-strong-than-all-of-us heroes and outrun the Void?" The jester shook his head. "You were safer in the Underwhere."

Mr. L made a face, trying to ignore the underlying insults in the argument. "…Dimentio… the thing is… I trusted you. And you betrayed me—"

"How so?" Dimentio interrupted.

Mr. L stiffened up. He had to fight to keep his voice level. "You're the reason I died."

Dimentio shook his head and smiled brightly. "I'm the reason you're alive."

Mr. L crossed his arms over his chest. "I could've gotten myself out."

"But, you wouldn't have, if not for me." Dimentio stated.

Mr. L narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "…how do you know?"

Dimentio winked. "You would've done it already. Don't you think?"

Mr. L continued glaring at him for a few more moments, then sighed heavily and allowed himself to relax. "…I always wondered if you're half as confident as ya look… ya always look like you just know you're right…"

Dimentio gave him a slight little smile and handed him a star bit. "…I'm not ever confident…" he after a bit. "…just optimistic, insane… and extremely lucky…"