You're the Hero Of Light, Charlie Brown

by Tiger lover 16

When the evil denisen of Darkness, the dreaded Dark Witch, escapes from her prison she sets about to build an army of villains to conquer the realm of light, and shroud all worlds in eternal darkness! Charlie Brown is made the new guardian of the light, and tasked with uniting fictions greatest heroes in an epic war to defend their worlds. Can you say "Good grief"? CBxPP and more.

9. You're in the Mushroom Kingdom, CB pt 2

Tiger Lover 16: Hi folks. Been a while I know. I'll save most of what I have to say for the bottom notes, but I'd first like to say I'm sorry I haven't updated my other stories. I understand some people must be frustrated, but I can't really write for a story unless I feel inspired to write for it, and a lot of the inspiration I am getting recently is to write this story. I will eventually get back to my other stories, I want to continue them, but I'm going to stop making promises for when I might update because I'm feeling guilty every time I fail to live up to them. Anyway, enough talk, enjoy the chapter

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Chapter 8, You're in the Mushroom Kingdom Charlie Brown, Part 2

The first glimpse of sunlight shone over the hills far from the Mushroom Castle. As the sun grew higher the drawbridge to the castle slowly lowered, and from the entrance emerged our heroes. Charlie Brown, Sparky and Mario walked at the front of the pack, Luigi and Snoopy walking close behind them with Woodstock perched on the latter's shoulder. Behind them Yoshi trotted along, Sally riding on his back. Bringing up the rear of the group were Toad and Toadsworth, who were just seeing the group off.

After that minor incident with Snoopy and Woodstock absconding with the Toad Brigade's space ship, the group had returned to the castle for a short break and were now prepared to make the long journey to rescue princess Peach and Peppermint Patty from Bowser's clutches.

The heroes stopped at the end of the drawbridge, turning to face the cheerfully waving Toad and the respectful Toadsworth.

"Well, so long, have a safe trip!" Toad called out.

"Take good care of yourselves, and see the princess returned safely" The older Toad instructed.

"Don't worry, we will. You guys just look after the castle. And try not to let it get taken over by some other villain while we're gone" Mario replied.

"Aww, you don't have to worry about that, everything will be fine" Toad said confidently. No sooner had he said that did the archway leading into the castle suddenly collapse upon itself. Toad and Toadsworth looked back in disbelief, turned back to the Mario brothers and smiled uneasily.

"You might want to get a squad to repair all the damage while we're out" Luigi commented. After a few more goodbyes the group finally set out, walking around the castle and setting off down a narrow road leading into vast green fields filled with blocks, bushes, ledges, oddly rectangular and square hills, and many other strange things that you would only find here in the Mushroom world.

Sally, Snoopy and Woodstock stared around in wonder at everything they saw, admiring every bit of unearthly fauna they passed. While at the front of the party, Mario, Charlie Brown, and Sparky talked things through.

"Well, to answer your question, there are many, many castles on the way to Darkland, strongholds either belonging to Toads or other races, or castles that have been abandoned for whatever reason. Bowser and his minions normally stop at a few of these castles on their way home, so if we're quick we can catch up with them and rescue Patty and the Princess without having to travel all the way to Darkland. Still, I wouldn't set my hopes too high if I were you, Bowser does have a gift for making quick getaways" Mario explained to Charlie Brown, who nodded.

"Well, we can try. We have to try, Peppermint Patty and your princess are counting on us" Charlie Brown said urgently.

"They are, but let's just try to stay calm and keep moving" Sparky said prudently. Charlie Brown responded by taking a deep breath and walking at a slightly quicker pace.

"I ought to tell you now, the path to these-a castles is long, this could-a take us at least a couple of days. We can't all fly at-a near light speed like you can, and I wouldn't recommend you flying on ahead and trying to-a handle everything yourself. Bowser may not be very smart, but he's-a very dangerous, rush into a battle and you're asking to get killed" Mario forewarned.

"Ok then. So, how long is the way?" Charlie Brown asked, not really wanting to take too long to finish this because of all the other friends he would have to find once Peppermint Patty and Sally were safely back at the light palace.

"Well, the grasslands are-a the easiest terrain to navigate, so we should-a be at the end castle by midday. If-a luck's on our side, Bowser just might have docked the Doomship there and we can-a rush in. He normally gets away when it's just me and Luigi and perhaps Yoshi, but with yours and Sally's help we just might finish it there" Mario said optimistically. Charlie Brown lightened up at that.

As the three leaders of the group discussed their strategy, Sally and the others dedicated more time to taking in the sites.

"So how do the blocks stay up?" Sally asked Luigi as Yoshi led her under a row of floating brick blocks.

"Magic. That's-a really all I can-a say, magic rules over logic in this world. The blocks are-a held up by an invisible force, but they can be dragged down. I know there are-a some enthusists who collect them, they don't like Mario and-a me very much because we make the blocks "Valueless" when we take the coins or power-ups inside them. But that's-a basically the point of them anyway, most of the kingdoms income comes from coins collected from these blocks. And a few power-ups can make menial labour a lot less excruciating. But to get back to the point of your question, no one really knows specifically why they float; they just do" Luigi explained. Sally nodded all the way through his speech, still gazing at the fauna.

Behind them Snoopy and Woodstock took up the rear of the group, though Luigi made a conscious effort to keep looking back at them to make sure they didn't wander off. The two animals mostly just observed their surroundings, thinking of what fun things they might get up to.

About ten minutes into the trek the group passed by a series of rivers and wooden bridges, while crossing one of them Mario pointed out a couple of round red fish hopping in and out of the water.

"See those, they're Cheep-Cheeps" Mario said. Sally frowned.

"What kind of a silly name is that?" She asked.

"It's the kind of name Toads give to what they first thought were flying fish. That's not the important thing though" Luigi replied "As silly as they sound, Cheep-Cheeps are pesky little things. Get too close and they'll jump out and latch onto your heads, and it's very difficult to pull them off"

While the Mario brothers were explaining this Snoopy and Woodstock were standing on the edge of the bridge, looking down at the water. A cheep-cheep suddenly shot up and grabbed Woodstock in it's mouth, falling back into the water afterwards. Snoopy stared at the spot Woodstock had been standing for a moment before letting out a surprised "Gah!". Then without a moments hesitation he dived into the river. Splashes and ripples spread over the waters surface before Snoopy emerged on the bank, dragging the Cheep-Cheep with him and proceeding to do the Heimlich manoeuver on the rotund fish. After a few tries the fish finally coughed Woodstock back up. The little bird simply sat blinking in a puddle of fish spit.

"You alright Woodstock?" Snoopy asked. Woodstock blinked a few more times before shaking himself dry and tweeting a response. Snoopy sighed and gave the fish a stern look "And what do you have to say for yourself?"

The Cheep-Cheep made a gurgling sound, brought it's tailfin up to Snoopy's face and shook itself, smacking the beagle repetedly until he let go and proceeding to hop back into the river. Snoopy rubbed his face a bit then shook his paw at the water, growling a few choice remarks.

The duo soon re-joined the rest of the group on the stroll. Charlie Brown gave them a brief look before noticing a few goombas marching around up ahead.

"Well, looks like we're in for a fight" Charlie Brown said. Mario and Luigi chuckled.

"It's-a only a couple of goombas Charlie, relax" Mario said calmly, he looked back at Yoshi "You know what to-a do buddy?"

Yoshi perked up and nodded vigorously, rushing up to the front of the pack. As the six goombas neared they eventually noticed the heroes coming up and broke into a run. Yoshi held his arms out, as though instructing everybody to stay back, and opened his mouth. The dinos' extremely long tongue shot out and rapped around the goomba in the front, dragging it into the mouth of Yoshi, who devoured him in one large gulp. Yoshi immediately proceeded to swallow the other five goombas, eating them all before they'd got within five feet of him.

"Yosh, Yoshi" Yoshi said victoriously. Charlie Brown, Sally, Snoopy and Woodstock were all stunned. The latter two were the first to get over it and began clapping, while Charlie Brown just stared.

"So that's what you meant by he can take care of himself" Charlie Brown said, astounded. Mario nodded.

"Still got any-a doubts your sister's not well protected?" Mario asked, knowing the answer.

Speaking of Sally, the younger Brown was petting and rubbing Yoshi's head.

"You sure showed them didn't you" Sally praised, as Yoshi began rubbing his head against her belly in a cat-like manner "Hmm, maybe I oughta have you do the same thing to the next kid that laughs at my show and tell project?"

"Yoshi doesn't eat people. Besides, I think there are-a morality issues with dinosaurs eating children" Luigi commented. Sally shrugged innocently.

"I was only being sarcastic. No need to take everything so literally" Sally said, urging Yoshi to start walking again.

And so with that little distraction out of the way, the group continued on their journey through the plains of the Mushroom Kingdom. They walked. And walked. And Walked... and walked... and walked a little more... strolled, marched, trotted through many, many more fields... then walked a little more... and walked... and kept on walking for what felt like hours on end. It wasn't long until Sally's nerves finally got the better of her and she screamed out in frustration.

"Good grief! How much farther away is this stupid castle?!" Sally yelled at the top of her lungs, startling her companions. Mario turned cautiously to look at her.

"Um, still pretty far. We've-a only been walking for-" Mario quickly checked his watch "One hour and-a twelve minutes"

"Well it feels like forever!" Sally said, folding her arms grumpily. Luigi shrugged innocently.

"Yeah, I suppose it does seem a lot longer when you're just walking endlessly. Maybe we should play a game" The green-clad plumber suggested.

"Like what?" Charlie Brown wondered. Luigi hummed thoughtfully.

"Well... how about "I spy"?" He proposed. Sally waved her hand dismissively.

"Pass. That game is for babies" Sally complained. Luigi frowned.

"Hey, I play "I spy"" Luigi protested. Sally blushed and looked away, too awkward to say anything.

"We could always sing a song" Mario suggested. That garnered much interest from Luigi.

"Hey, yeah. And I know just the one" Luigi said, and then cleared his throat. Mario and Yoshi's eyes widened in shock, the latter covered his ears while Mario tried to protest

"W-wait, I didn't mean y-" but too late. Luigi had already begun to sing, in a very loud, awful voice:

"Over the river, and through the wood,

to Grandfathers House we go-"

Charlie Brown, Sally, Snoopy, Woodstock and even Sparky all covered their ears. Luigi's singing was so bad that it actually pained them to hear it, even Sparky's despite him being a spirit. Luigi himself didn't notice their pain, having closed his eyes the moment he started singing, so he just kept on doing it.

"The horse knows the way to carry the slay,

through the white and drifted snow!

Oooooooh, over the river, and through the-" Luigi was, quite thankfully, cut off as Snoopy desperately threw a pebble at the back of his head. The younger Mario brother squawked in pain, while everyone else just sighed and gasped as their ears ceased to ache.

"Ow. Hey, what gives?" Luigi asked, turning around to face Snoopy, who waved at him with an apologetic look.

"Luigi, might I remind you of last Sunday at the bar" Mario interjected, rubbing his left ear. Luigi thought for a moment.

"Oh, yeah, karaoke night. I sang summer nights and everyone..." Comprehension dawned on Luigi's face "... Ran out screaming... Oh, right" Luigi turned to the rest of the party with an impish look "Sorry kids, sometimes I forget what an atrocious singer I am"

"Oh, it wasn't that bad" Charlie Brown said, hoping to keep Luigi from feeling too bad about himself. He knew what that was like. Unfortunately, Sally didn't seem to catch the meaning of that.

"What are you talking about, his voice sounds like a Howler Monkey choking on a-"

"Sally!" Charlie Brown cut his sister off with a loud whisper. Sally glared at him for a second before catching on, then turning to look Luigi right in the face. She gulped.

"Um, and by that I mean-"

"It's ok Sally, I know you're right" Luigi said with a sigh, walking on. The rest of the group exchanged awkward looks before following after him.

Nobody dared to speak again for a good ten minutes. However, boredom set back in quickly.

"So, singing and games are out, what else can we do to pass the time?" Sally wondered. Sparky floated down between the group.

"You could just talk. Seriously, with all this spare time I'm surprised you all don't take the chance to get to know each other better" Said Sparky.

"Oh, yeah. I guess that would be the obvious thing to do, huh" Charlie Brown scratched his head, embarrassed he hadn't thought of that much earlier.

"Well, I'm-a up for it" Mario said with a shrug "Well, you and Sally already know a little about us, mind-a telling us something about yourselves?"

"Ok. Well, we're pretty normal... or, we live normal lives at least" Charlie Brown began, taking a moment to think about what he could discuss "We come from Birchwood, it's a small rural town. I play baseball, though I'm not very good at it, and I fly kites... I have even less luck at that. I also like football... I'm terrible at that..."

"To be fair Lucy's more to blame though. She always pulls the ball away before he can kick it and he goes flying" Sally clarified. The Mario brothers and Yoshi winced

"Ouch" Said Luigi.

"Yeah, ouch" Charlie Brown rubbed his back as the memories repeated in his head.

"Anything you are-a good at then?" Mario asked. Charlie Brown took a long time to reply.

"... Well, I guess I did pretty well fighting Joe Agate, but other than that you can pretty much describe me as a screw up" Charlie Brown sighed. Mario raised an eyebrow and patted his shoulder.

"Aw, it-a can't be that bad" Mario said kindly.

"Actually, the truth is it's a lot more depressing. But I'd rather not talk much about that right now" Charlie Brown replied. Mario nodded in understanding.

"Ok then, so talk about-a something you want to discuss instead" Mario suggested. Charlie Brown hummed while thinking it through. Not exactly a socialite, Charlie Brown hardly ever met new people in Birchwood that would hold a conversation with him for more than five minutes, so he wasn't even sure where to go now that baseball and kite flying were out of the way. And Mario and Luigi already knew about Snoopy's antics and his powers, so what would the next most interesting thing about him be?

"Well... I have a pen-pal" Charlie Brown finally replied.

"Oh, I had-a one of those once" Luigi chimed in from behind.

"Really?" Charlie Brown and Sally asked, both far more interested in hearing about the Mario brothers than discussing themselves.

"Yeah, it was back in-a my plumbing days. This foreign girl called Gretta, I don't-a remember what country she was-a from. I remember we-a used to talk about our different cultures and-a stuff, and I think she kinda liked me" Luigi's cheeks reddened as he said that.

"Ooh, did you ever meet and kiss her?" Sally asked, a romantic at heart. Luigi sighed.

"Maybe I-a would have. I'd booked a flight to-a go meet her, but I injured my back a few days before that during a plumbing job. I sent a letter to say I wasn't-a coming, but I kinda left out the why part..." Luigi explained awkwardly. Charlie Brown looked at him sympathetically, knowing the response couldn't have been good.

"So what did she say?" Charlie Brown asked, but Luigi remained silent. Instead Mario answered for him.

"She didn't say anything. But I'm-a guessing she was pretty ticked off, because she then sent Luigi a parcel. When he-a opened it a pie shot out and-a splatted him in the face" Mario said. It took great effort for Charlie Brown and Sally not to laugh at that imagery.

"Yeah, and it was a cherry pie, and she knew I was allergic to those. My-a face was swollen for two weeks after, I couldn't go out in public once" Luigi said, throwing his hands in the air in an exaggerated manner "I never got back in touch with her after that. Oh wait, I did once soon after... the only response I-a got was another parcel containing a rabid weasel..."

"Rabbit weasel?" Sally blinked "I didn't know you could breed them"

"He said rabid weasel, Sally. Rabid as in it had rabies" Charlie Brown corrected. Sally hastily thought of a cover up.

"Um, I knew that. I was just joking to lighten the mood" Sally said. Charlie Brown rolled his eyes. They then widened and he turned back to Luigi.

"Wait, wouldn't getting attacked by a rabid weasel give you rabies? How'd you survive that?"

Luigi shrugged nonchalantly "I had a good doctor"

"Thanks" Said Mario.

Another few seconds of silence passed before Mario spoke up again "Ok, so why don't you tell us something about yourself Sally?"

"Oh, ok. Well, I'm eleven going on twelve, I have blond hair and usually wear a blue or pink spotted dress" Sally replied. Everyone gave her odd looks, Yoshi even stopped walking to stare back at her strangely "... What?"

"Um, I meant something that's not obvious and that we don't already know" Mario replied in a deadpan manner.

"Oh, right. Well, I like the easy life. No sports or kites for me, my favourite past time is to lay back in my beanbag and watch tv. I'm not lazy though, I like an adventure as much as the next kid. And also like the next kid, I HATE school. It's not just that the teacher always asks me questions I don't know, but the stupid textbooks don't teach me anything anyway. All that new math stuff they're still trying to teach us is unbearable. I remember one time in kindergarden I wanted to know what two and two is, and my stupid book just gave me a bunch of equations that would only make sense to Steven Hawking, and even he'd have to think for a moment about it! Where was I? Oh yeah, I'm also sweet and sincere, and my boyfriend is Linus, he's my sweet baboo" Sally clapped her hands together and began fantasising at that last part, hearts rising up around her head. Mario and Luigi gave them a curious look before turning to Charlie Brown for clarification.

"Linus is my best friend, he's trapped on another world. And he and Sally aren't in a relationship, she's just saying that. Actually, Linus refuses to return her feelings" Charlie Brown explained plainly.

"He loves me really, he's just shy" Sally waved off her brothers remark. Mario gave Sally an amused look and chuckled inwardly. How he remembered being a child in love... he really hoped it worked out better for Sally.

The heroes passed by a series of hills, all of which varied in shape. Some were tall and oval, and others were rectangular. The oval hills were covered completely in grass, while the rectangle ones mostly only had a layer of grass on the top while the rest of the hill was dirt. Charlie Brown gave these hills an odd look, and in his distraction he wound up inadvertently walking into one. Falling on his back, Charlie Brown looked up to find a particularly large mountainside standing in the way. Charlie Brown wondered how he'd missed something so tall.

"Well now what are we supposed to do?" Sally complained. She had reason to be grumpy, the mountainside, Charlie Brown now realised, stretched for seemingly miles to the east and west, creating a seemingly impassable wall.

"I could always fly us over" Charlie Brown suggested, floating slightly above the ground to emphasise. Mario shook his head politely.

"Could, but the path is very steep on top of that hill, and it's a long way across. Easier to take the underground route" Mario said, walking towards a nearby bush.

"Underground?" Charlie Brown asked Luigi.

"Yep, it's a series of tunnels beneath the surface. You can enter it through certain pipes. It's the quickest way to get around the mountains" Luigi explained.

"Ah, here it is!" Mario called out, moving the bush aside to reveal a warp pipe. Sally gave the green pipe a questionable look, which turned to shock as Mario said "Ok, everyone down the pipe"

"What!?" Sally exclaimed, earning curious stares from her companions.

"What's wrong?" Luigi asked.

"You want us to go sliding down a random pipe? Nuh-uh, there's no way I'm doing something that gross" Sally declared while folding her arms. Mario scratched his head.

"It's not a sewer pipe silly, it's perfectly clean" Mario said, wiping his gloved hand against the inside of the pipe and showing it to Sally, revealing his glove to still be perfectly clean. Sally looked at him and hummed.

"Yeah, well I still don't feel comfortable with it" Sally replied. Charlie Brown sighed as he tried to reason with his sister.

"I've been down one of these pipes Sally, it's not much different than going down a slide. And you like slides" Charlie Brown pointed out, but Sally still wouldn't listen. Luigi sighed at her stubbornness and put a finger to his mustache, looking thoughtful. A light bulb appeared above his head as he had an idea.

"Oh, Yoshi" Luigi called, pulling out what might have been a plum. Yoshi, whom Sally was still riding on, looked at the fruit as his eyes widened. The little dinosaur began hopping around excitedly as Luigi walked towards the pipe, keeping the plum in plain sight. Sally watched him suspiciously, quickly catching on.

"Hey, what do you-" Sally began, stopping herself as Luigi threw the supposed plum down the warp pipe.

"Go get it" Luigi called jovially. Yoshi cheered and ran forward, ignoring Sally's protests as he jumped down the pipe, taking her with him. Mario, Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Woodstock looked stunned as Luigi turned to them with a grin.

"That was pretty clever of you, little bro" Mario complimented Luigi's craftiness. Luigi chuckled appreciatively.

"Well you know, I do have other talents apart from being the comic relief sidekick" Luigi said, turning around and walking to the pipe. A few feet away he tripped on a rock, causing him to go flying into the pipe face first with a loud "Waaaah!"

Mario and Charlie Brown exchanged odd looks, the former rolled his eyes before jumping into the pipe himself, followed soon after by the latter. Snoopy got up on top of the pipe next, imitated the position of a world famous diver and dived straight in. Woodstock chirped a few unintelligible words before flapping his wings, flying in loops around the pipe as he slowly ascended and then flipping around several times above it before he lost control and just fell into the pipe.

When Charlie Brown came out the other end he found himself in a dark tunnel, though surprisingly not as dark as a tunnel underground with no direct sunlight should be. He could see most of his surroundings quite clearly. To his side he found Sally and Yoshi. Sally seemed positively ecstatic.

"Wow, that was just like going down a slide. Can we do it again? Please?!" Sally asked with all her childish glee. Charlie Brown rolled his eyes, not sure if he should be amused or exasperated by his sister's hypocrisy.

Charlie Brown took a moment to take in his surroundings a bit more. The terrain was naturally rocky, the path was somewhat narrow, though the group could all stand together it seemed they couldn't go any other way but forward. There seemed to be a few blocks floating around or otherwise embedded into the ground, unlike the blocks he'd seen above ground these were dark blue and had a checkered pattern. Charlie Brown suspected they would hurt a bit more if you tried bumping them with your head.

Charlie Brown was brought out of his thoughts as Snoopy suddenly flew out of the pipe behind him, knocking the boy down as Snoopy landed on his back in a standing position.

"Perfect landing" Snoopy gloated. He looked down to see Charlie Brown looking up with an annoyed expression "Oh, excuse me" He thought sheepishly, hopping off the boy and allowing him to get up. Woodstock came flying out of the pipe the next second, bouncing off the back of Charlie Brown's head before being caught by Snoopy right before he could hit the ground.

"So, how long is this tunnel?" Charlie Brown asked, rubbing the back of his head.

"Eh, how long is a piece-a string?" Mario asked, shrugging "Just-a kidding, though truthfully I never have-a taken the time to-a measure the distance. If you're going by-a the time it takes to get through it however, I'd say-a ten minutes at the most. Just be aware of-a pit-falls and ledges you have to jump over"

"Oh, and-a perhaps the occasional moving platforms and pillars of-a conjoined fireballs" Luigi chimed in.

"Wait, pillars of conjoined what?" Sally was confused.

"Luigi, that's-a castle based obstacles, you don't find walls of-a fire in the underground" Mario pointed out.

"Oh yeah. Oops, sorry 'bout that" Luigi scratched his head sheepishly "Yeah, forget what I said, but-a the platform things true"

"Why does it feel like normality is a foreign concept in this world?" Charlie Brown wondered out loud.

With the explanations out of the way the group walked on through the tunnel. The path was surprisingly flat and even for the most part, though as Mario said there were plenty of times where they had to jump over large rocks in their way. The walls on their left side often sported large holes they could see through, Charlie Brown spotted an underground lake and a cavern full of crystals, which Sally seemed eager to explore but Mario insisted that the group keep moving on the straight path. Sally put up a bit of a fuss at that, but considering Yoshi was moving her everywhere and he tended to listen a bit more to his actual owners, she couldn't do anything about it. All in all, everything appeared quiet.

"So, do you mind if I ask why there are pipes leading to underground tunnels and rooms inside castles?" Charlie Brown asked Mario after five minutes.

"They go to-a more places than-a that, depending on what warp pipe you take you could-a end up anywhere in-a the world. Nobody really knows where they-a came from, they've-a been here for-a thousands of years. I guess-a some ancient civilization discovered plumbing and-a used pipes as an inspiration for some-a long range transportation system" Mario replied.

While her brother expressed amazement at this revelation, Sally and Yoshi trailed along at the back of the pack. With not much excitement happening since leaving the castle Sally was starting to become bored. Considering everything she had heard about Bowser and the koopas she expected to have witnessed a few giant monster battles by now, but no. This whole time the most exciting thing she'd seen was Yoshi swallowing a couple of walking mushrooms. Patting the side of Yoshi's head in frustration Sally looked around, noticing another tunnel leading away from the group, shrouded in darkness but for one faint glow in the distance. She perked up, thinking it must be some kind of treasure. With a quick look to make sure none of her teammates were paying her any mind, Sally motioned Yoshi to stop. The cutesy dinosaur stretched his head back to look at her.

"Hey Yoshi, I think I saw some food down that tunnel" Sally whispered craftily to him. Yoshi began wagging his tail in a dog-like manner and immediately changed his course down the dark tunnel. The rest of the group failed to notice, all listening to Mario talk about the origin of the koopas and why the Toads wore mushroom shaped hats. Only Sparky, whom Sally had failed to take note of because he had made himself invisible, realized her absence after a few moments.

"Would everyone kindly look behind themselves for a moment" Sparky called out to the rest of the group, who all looked back to face him, at the same time noticing Sally and Yoshi's disappearance. While the Mario brothers scratched their heads Charlie Brown sighed.

"Which way?" Charlie Brown asked tiredly.

"I have a good guess. Follow me" Sparky said, leading the group back the other way.

With Sally and Yoshi meanwhile, the former was beginning to regret her decision. This part of the tunnel was unreasonably dark compared to the rest of the underground she had seen, which kind of made a lot more sense considering they were underground. And the light she had seen earlier had faded, and she was already starting to feel like they were totally lost.

"Ok, maybe we should go back before we get in trouble" Sally said. Yoshi, who was now visibly terrified of his inky black surroundings, nodded and chirped in agreement "Only question is... which way is back again?"

"Yoshi" Yoshi replied in an "I dunno?" fashion. A moment later the dinosaur tripped up on an unseen rock, and as he fell he sent Sally flying a good ten feet forward on her stomach, getting her dress covered in dust in the process.

"Oh yes, real nice" Sally complained. As she got up and dusted herself off, she noticed a light just like the one she'd seen earlier shining not too far ahead of her. Grinning eagerly, Sally turned back to her dinosaur buddy and said "Come on Yoshi, I think I just found the treasure"

Yoshi got up and followed her obediently. After a quick run, Sally found herself at what looked like the end of this part of the tunnel. Near the wall the source of the light floated above the ground, a single gold coin. Sally raised an eyebrow.

"That's it? One gold coin?" Sally said, moving forward and taking hold of the shining coin. She admired her reflection in the coin for a moment and turned it over.

"Well, it's not much, but at least it's treasure" Sally commented. Yoshi walked up to her, and she held the coin out to show him "Look Yoshi, gold" Yoshi saw his own big nosed reflection in the coin and giggled, poking his tongue out to see if that image would reflect in it too. Sally giggled at his antics, before her attention was caught by an odd noise from behind her. She turned around to see a large brown mole dig it's way out of the ground, looking right at her with it's sealed eyes.

"Aww, how cute" Sally said, tapping Yoshi's shoulder and pointing the creature out to him "Look Yoshi, a cute little mole"

To her surprise Yoshi screamed at the sight of the mole and launched his tongue at it, dragging the mole into his mouth and swallowing it. Sally was horrified.

"Now what was that about?!" Sally demanded. Yoshi tried to explain his actions to her, but naturally nothing he said made any sense to her as it was in his own language. He was interrupted as the ground around the two of them began to shake, and the next thing you know Sally and Yoshi were surrounded by dozens of identical moles. Yoshi cowered behind Sally, who herself was surprised by their sudden appearance but not quite scared.

"Um... hi there, little moles" Sally said with a wave. The moles all made angry faces at her, which made her nervous. Then, one of the moles, who was oddly wearing a pair of sunglasses, hopped down in front of her.

"Hey toots, that coin's our. Give it back now or else" The mole spoke up. Sally's eyes widened and she gaped at it. Then her expression changed to a frown.

"Did you just call me toots?" Sally asked.

"Yeah, toots, now give us our coin" The mole demanded, in a much ruder tone, only managing to tick Sally off further.

"Oh no, first things first, you do not call me toots, got it!" Sally said defiantly. The rest of the moles made angry squeaking sounds and shook their paws at her, as the clear leader folded his arms and tapped his foot. Yoshi tapped Sally's shoulder and said his name, trying to make her see reason, but she ignored him.

"You're in our tunnel girly, so I'll call you whatever I dang want. Now I'm going to tell you one last time, give back our coin or we'll pound you" The mole said viciously. Sally slapped him.

"Now where do you get off threatening young ladies like that. You better apologise now or I'm not giving you anything" Sally said angrily. The mole rubbed his head and growled, as the rest of the moles surrounding Sally and Yoshi growled with him and some began bumping their fists together. Sally finally realised the danger she was in and gulped.

Back where the dark tunnel began, Charlie Brown, Mario, Sparky and the other arrived and were preparing to go looking for their wandering friends. But then suddenly they were all knocked back as Yoshi, Sally riding on his back again, came speeding out of the tunnel and back down the path they had been going earlier.

"Run, run! Run for your lives!" Sally yelled. Charlie Brown and friends looked after her in confusion then glanced back down the dark tunnel, where they saw the incoming figures of the moles charging at them, some now wielding clubs. Mario's eyes widened while Luigi let out a very cartoony scream of terror.

"Uh oh, Monty Moles" Mario gasped.

"What are they?" Charlie Brown asked.

"Something you really want to run away from!" Luigi yelled as he got up and ran after Sally and Yoshi, screaming his head off. Mario quickly followed suit, sans the screaming part. With a quick look back to the incoming stampede of moles, Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Woodstock ran after them, while Sparky reassumed his invisible state. The moles burst out into the main tunnel all at once and charged after the heroes, ready to pound them.

After a few frantic moments of running, Woodstock suddenly tripped up. His tweets of terror reached the ears of Snoopy and Charlie Brown, who looked back at him in concern. Snoopy wasted no time in running to his friends aid, but when he got to him the moles were almost upon them. Snoopy stared at the horde in fear, but then he suddenly took on a brave and heroic stance.

"This looks like a job for-" Snoopy pulled out a black domino mask and put it on over his eyes "-The Masked Marvel!"

As the moles prepared to beat down upon the beagle, Snoopy suddenly assumed a karate stance and aimed a flying kick at the lead mole, sending him flying back and into five other moles, knocking them all down. The rest of the moles stopped for a second to gasp at this development, all looking at Snoopy. The masked beagle motioned for them to come at him, to which they all charged forth.

With amazing acrobatic skills, Snoopy leapt over the moles, kicking the two at the back of the pack before landing on his hands and backflipping back onto his feet, before charging at the Monty moles from behind. Swinging his fists wildly, the Masked Marvel sent the moles flying in all direction. When he had got them all, the Marvel turned around and stood in a heroic fashion. Three of the club wielding moles got up and ran at him. Snoopy dodged several swipes from the wooden clubs, he poked one of the moles in both eyes and snatched his weapon, using it to disarm the other two and bonk them on the heads.

While these three were dazed, the other Monty Moles got up and made to attack the Masked Marvel all at once. But Snoopy was ready for them. As the moles approached, the Masked Marvel kicked, punched, and leapfrogged over them all, dodging all their wild attack and sending the moles flying about the tunnel once more. Standing victoriously on a boulder, Snoopy gave a heroic pose and gloated.

"Ha ha, silly moles. You can not hope to compare to the awesome mightiness that is the Masked Marvel!" Snoopy declared in his most melodramatic voice, standing tall, heroic and arrogant above them all... and then a rock hit him in the face. Snoopy stumbled backwards and rubbed his face in pain, before shaking his fist and growling at the moles.

"Hey, who threw that!?" Snoopy demanded to know. The moles responded by throwing another rock at him. Then another, then another, and another, until a whole shower of rocks were flying at Snoopy. The Masked Marvel covered his face and tried backing away from the shower of pain, but he ended up slipping and landing hard on the floor. The Monty Moles seized the opportunity to dog pile on him and began to beat up the wannabe hero.

Charlie Brown and Woodstock watched the scene unfold. At first in awe at Snoopy's fighting prowess, the boy and the bird now looked on in concern for the pooch.

"Well, it was almost a heroic moment for him" Charlie Brown shrugged. Woodstock tweeted to him in a worried fashion, Charlie Brown nodded and fired a light beam at the pile of moles, who were all sent flying by the attack. Charlie Brown flew in and grabbed Snoopy, then flew off after Mario and Luigi. Woodstock grabbed onto the unconscious Snoopy's tail as they passed. The moles rubbed their heads and shook off the effect of the blast. The glasses wearing leader of the pack caught sight of Charlie Brown flying away and pointed it out to the others, leading them to resume their chase.

With the moles catching up in a surprisingly short amount of time, Charlie Brown flew at top speed down the tunnel. He was going so fast he didn't see Mario and Luigi running back to look for him until he crashed right into the latter. The two heroes rolled to a halt, stars circled Luigi's head as Snoopy and Woodstock went flying out of Charlie Brown's hands.

"Urgh... sorry, I'm so sorry" Charlie Brown muttered, Luigi waved his hand, looked serenely in the other direction and mumbled an incomprehensible reply. Mario waved his hand in front of his brothers face, worried about his almost delirious state. Luigi just stared down the tunnel in a goofy manner... until he caught sight of the incoming Monty Moles, then his senses quickly came back to him as he let out a squeak and got running again. Charlie Brown gathered up Snoopy and Woodstock and was led further into the tunnel by Mario.

"Don't-a worry, the next pipe's just up ahead" Mario told his young friend. Within another minute of running Charlie Brown could see the big green pipe appear in the distance, a wave of relief washed over him. The moles behind picked up their pace, growling loudly and ready to pummel.

Two more Monty Moles popped up from the ground in front of Mario and Charlie Brown with a loud "Ha ha", but were both quickly stomped back into their holes as Mario and Charlie Brown simply jumped on them and kept on running.

Luigi stood by the side of the pipe, motioning frantically for his friends to jump in. Mario ran in head first, while Charlie Brown entered second with the animals in tow. Luigi glanced back at the oncoming horde, now just seconds away. He gave them a sly smile and a wave before hopping through the pipe too.

The heroes came out on a road in the middle of a lush valley, the hills that had blocked their path earlier would be visible in the distance if they turned around. Charlie Brown panted from fear and exhaustion, while Mario and Luigi merely took deep breaths and took a moment to regain their composures. Charlie Brown placed Snoopy down on the grass, Woodstock hopped off and began looking over his beagle buddy. Charlie Brown looked around and saw his sister and Yoshi, both panting even worse than him.

After everyone had had a moment to readjust themselves, Sparky reappeared and asked "Ok, so, is everyone unharmed?"

"Well, Snoopy took a beating, but other than that I think we're alright" Charlie Brown replied, looking at Snoopy. Woodstock had taken out a nurses hat and was currently taking the dogs temperature.

"What happened to him then?" Sparky asked, looking down at the beagle in concern.

"Well, he pulled out his old masked marvel disguise and decided to play superhero, it worked at first... but then he got cocky" Charlie Brown replied. Sparky nodded.

"Ok, sit down by his side and I'll instruct you on how to heal him" Sparky said. As Charlie Brown did as he was instructed Luigi looked back at the pipe and chuckled.

"Well, that-a sure was a close one. Not-a like those moles were ever a match for us anyway" Luigi said, pointing a finger to his chest boastfully. The leading Monty Mole popped up out of the pipe and threw a rock at the back of his head, sending Luigi falling on his face.

"And don't come back now, ya hear!" The Mole said in a tough voice, hopping back down the pipe. The rest of the group stared at the pipe for a moment before looking down at Luigi, who let out a depressed sigh while not moving from his face down position.

"Why am I always the victim to-a these kind of jokes?" Luigi asked out loud. Mario hoisted him back into an upright position and gave his brother a comforting pat on the back, before turning to Sally.

"By the way Sally, why-a did the Monty moles start-a chasing you in the first place?" He asked her. Sally straightened her frizzled hair before replying.

"Oh, it was because I grabbed some coin they all said belonged to them. It was floating around in the middle of a dark tunnel, how was I supposed to know it belonged to anyone?" Sally asked, holding up said coin. Mario, Luigi and Sparky all looked at the coin and gave Sally a frown.

"Well no wonder. Monty moles hate it when people take their stuff. Why didn't you just give it back?" Sparky asked sternly. Sally shrugged.

"Hey, finders keepers. Besides, we got out of there alive, didn't we. Far as I'm concerned it's mine now. A gold coin like this is bound to buy me a lot of new bows" Sally said, playing around with the coin. Charlie Brown rolled his eyes and sighed at his sisters greed, while Sparky just gave her an uncertain look.

"I find it appropriate to tell you that Mushroom coins are only worth about a single dollar by your worlds expenses" Sparky told her. The smile suddenly vanished off of Sally's face, replaced by a look of blank surprise. She glanced down at the coin again, frowned, then walked up to the warp pipe in a huff and flicked the coin down it.

"Hey, moles! You can have your cheap gold back!" Sally called down the pipe. The sounds of the moles rejoicing echoed up the pipe, as did the things they said.

"Yes, the pretty shiny round thing is mine again!" Called the voice of the lead mole.

"Hey, can I hold it?" Asked another voice.

"No way, get your own pretty sphere, loser!"

"But I wanna hold it!"

"Me too!"

"Hey, let me take a look!"

"NO, NO, the coin is MINE!"

"Hey, get your paws off me!"

The sound of punching and biting and kicking echoed out of the pipe as the Monty moles clearly broke out into a brawl. Sally looked down the pipe curiously for a moment, before a disturbed expression filled her face and she backed away slowly.

After Charlie Brown successfully healed Snoopy's injuries and gave his sister a stern speech about how stealing from a pack of anthropomorphic moles is wrong and liable to get her and everyone else killed, which Sally only half listened to, the heroes continued on down their trek. None of them really wanted to talk about what had just happened, so they just kept silent for a moment until Charlie Brown grew curious as to the time.

"I'll-a check" Luigi said as Charlie Brown brought up the subject, pulling out a pocket watch from his overalls "It's-a five minutes to noon. Boy, time sure flies doesn't it?"

"Actually, we're-a making pretty good time" Mario supplied "We just-a passed the underground, we should be at-a the castle in about an hour"

"An hour? That's good. Do you think Bowser will still be there?" Charlie Brown asked hopefully. Mario shrugged.

"Like I said earlier, I dunno. He could-a be? We'll-a just have to see when we get-a there. But it's-a likely" Mario replied, half-satisfying Charlie Brown "Saying that though, there's a village up ahead. We should stop and take a break"

"Good idea. I'm getting saddle sores from riding Yoshi all morning" Sally added, Yoshi made an apologetic noise as though believing such was his fault.

A village huh? Charlie Brown really didn't want to take too long in case they missed Bowser and it took them longer to rescue Patty and the princess. But then again, when would he next get the opportunity to visit a Toad village? Surely they wouldn't be there longer than they needed to. And it was coming up to lunch time, no doubt Snoopy would be begging for food soon, so he'd have to see to that.

"How far is this village?" Charlie Brown asked.

"It's-a just over this here hill" Luigi said, pointing to a small and easily climbable hill unlike the one they had come across earlier.

"Well, that was convenient" Snoopy commented.

"III IIII" Woodstock nodded.

The group walked up the hillside, when they made it to the top they were greeted by the site of a small village surrounded by a moat with a river nearby. The houses were all designed to look like the Mushroom caps of the Toads. Or at least the top halves were, the bottom halves were clearly wooden. It looked like a very peaceful and pleasant place.

"Wow, I'd like to live here" Sally commented, having the best viewpoint from atop Yoshi.

"Yeah, Toad architecture is-a pretty nice to look at, huh?" Luigi said.

"I would have thought a kingdom constantly under attack by an army of turtles would look a little more war torn, but this village looks like a real quiet and safe place" Charlie Brown said. Perhaps he was a living jynx, because no sooner had he spoken that sentence did a huge explosion echo from the towns centre, followed by several smaller explosions and panicked screams from the residents.

The heroes stared at the scene unfold with shocked expression. Mario and Luigi exchanged looks before charging down the path to the village. Yoshi quickly realized where they were going and followed, taking Sally with him. Charlie Brown took a bit longer to react, but when he realized where everyone was going he flew after them, Snoopy, Woodstock and Sparky following behind him.

The gang arrived at the gates of the village, where there were two statues of eyed mushrooms at either side. Charlie Brown and Mario looked through the gates to see the attackers. There was a large tank moving around, with a Monty mole standing out of the cockpit. Hammer Bros were stationed around the village square, throwing their signature weapons in the directions of terrified citizens or else breaking windows. And at the centre of it all was a koopa that looked a lot like Bowser, but much younger and just barely taller than Mario, with shorter red hair and a babyish face, which was currently filled with devilish delight as he ordered the minions around.

"Who..." Charlie Brown began.

"Bowser Jr, Bowser's youngest child" Mario answered.

"And a big pain in-a the butt" Luigi continued "The little tyke is every bit as mean as his dad, though since he's a baby he's hardly as threatening. He's come up with a few schemes of his own, but usually he just likes bullying innocent Toads, like he's doing right now"

"So, I'm guessing we should all go stop him" Sally said.

"Yep" Mario nodded, kicking open the gates and leading the group inside the village.

At the centre of the square Bowser Jr stood laughing as his minions caused a fuss. The youngster was hopping around childishly, occasionally shooting fireballs at Toads trying to hide just to see their terrified reactions. He let out another laugh, which was interrupted by a shout of "Hey, Junior!"

Bowser Jr turned around, immediately receiving a boot to the face which sent him sliding back, his spikes leaving a few gashes in the ground. The koopa prince shook his head and looked up, seeing Mario, Luigi, Charlie Brown and the others standing heroically over him.

"Sorry sport, time to-a put an end to your mischief" Mario told him. Bowser Jr growled.

"Mario!" Jr said resentfully.

"Mario!" The Toads said joyously.

"Mario!" The evil minions said fearfully.

"Notice how they only say his name and not mine" Luigi whispered to Charlie Brown.

"So, Mario" Bowser Jr began, speaking in a manner befitting of a stereotypical Saturday morning cartoon villain. Probably had watched too many, that is if they had cartoons in this world "You've come to foil my heinous plan to raid the Toad village and scare the living daylight out of these innocent citizens, have you. Well, my heroic foe, I'll have you know I've prepared for your arrival. Minions! Attack!"

The Monty Mole hopped back into the tank, the turret of which it aimed at the Mario Brothers. The Hammer bros stopped terrorising the citizens and formed a circle around the heroes, along with a few more Koopas with blue shells and helmets wielding boomerangs. And just to make things worse, a bunch of piranha plants popped up out of the various bushes planted around the square.

The non powered or heroic members of the group gulped, while the Mario Bros just looked determined and Charlie Brown looked, nervous, but also determined.

"Well what are you waiting for! Pound 'em!" Bowser Jr called, dropping the campy villain impression and returning to his regular high pitched growl.

The fight started with a bang, literally, as the tank fired two bullet bills in the heroes direction.

"Scatter!" Mario instructed. The Mario bros leapt in opposite directions, getting the bullet bills to follow them while the rest of the group separated to fight the rest of the minions.

A pair of hammer bros ran at Charlie Brown, who set up a shield for them to crash into. Unfortunately he set it up too soon and they had time to break to a halt, then throw their hammers over the barrier. Charlie Brown jumped back to avoid it, but was struck from behind by a boomerang from one of the blue shelled koopas, called Boomerang Bros incase you didn't know that. Yeah, really.

Charlie Brown got up and dodged another hammer from the Hammer Bros, only to be charge at by all three koopas. Charlie Brown lit up his hands and fired a large beam at the Bros, sending them flying and crashing into random houses. Charlie Brown smiled, but the smirk was wiped off his face as another hammer landed on his head. He turned around to find practically a whole army of Hammer Bros standing behind him. Charlie Brown gulped as the turtles began pelting him with their weapons, Charlie Brown's light shield just barely holding them off.

Sally and Yoshi meanwhile were doing a bit better. One of the Boomerang Bros threw it's boomerang at them, only for Yoshi to swallow the weapon and then swallow him. However, as with most koopas Yoshi couldn't digest him properly so spat him out, hitting another Boomerang Bro in the process and knocking them both out.

"Nice one Yoshi" Sally complimented the dinosaur, who blushed and waved his hand modestly. Their cutesy moment was cut short as a piranha plant shot out and tried to bite them, only to miss as Yoshi jumped up and landed on it's head, crushing the monstrous plant. Sally patted Yoshi's shoulder and pointed to the various other piranha plants looking hungrily at them. Yoshi puffed up his chest heroically and began spitting his tongue out at the plants, pulling them all forward to be swallowed. While he was doing this a Hammer Bro ran up from behind and leapt into the air, holding it's hammer high and ready to strike. Sally looked back to see the Hammer Bro descend upon them. Too late to react, all Sally could do was gasp as the koopa got ready to strike...

Just before the Hammer Bro could do any damage a rock was suddenly flung forward and struck him in the face, The Hammer Bro landed painfully right behind Yoshi and was struck on the head by it's own hammer. Sally looked over in the direction the rock had come from, to see Woodstock holding up a slingshot which Snoopy was using to fling rocks at the Hammer and Boomerang Bros. Woodstock was having a bit of trouble holding the slingshot up while Snoopy was firing so rapidly, but they were hitting a lot of enemies.

Mario and Luigi meanwhile were dealing with the Monty Tank. They had managed to lead the bullet bills it was firing into a pair of Hammer Bros, and were now working on a way to take out the armoured vehicle. Of course, it wasn't a matter of defeating the tank, they just needed to take out the Monty Mole operating it. None of the koopas were authorised to use those kinds of tanks, and they probably wouldn't know how either, so no one else could use it if they beat the mole.

"Luigi, pass me that-a bag of-a power-ups!" Mario called to his younger brother, who pulled out said bag and slid it over in Mario's direction while leaping over another bullet bill from the tank. Mario took out a brown leaf with eyes, which when held tightly enough gave him the ears and tail of a raccoon.

After the brothers had exchanged glances and nods, mentally conversing their battle strategy, Mario used his suit's powers and flew high up into the air out of sight from the Monty tank... don't ask me how they work that way, they just do.

With Mario out of the way, the Monty tank paid it's full attention to Luigi, who was soon forced to dodge twelve bullets a minute. It didn't do much to stop him, he would just lead the bullet bills into each other or into the hammer bros that were also trying to attack him. As Luigi expertly dodged the bullets, Mario flew higher and higher, positioning his flight pattern so he was always directly above the Monty Tank. When at last he reached a suitable height Mario pulled out a coin and flicked it downwards. The coin fell at great speed right onto the tank, creating a resonating gong sound. The cockpit to the tank opened up as the Monty Mole came out to identify the source of the noise, while up above Mario ceased flying and performed a ground pound, rocketing himself downwards. The Monty Mole looked around and eventually turned his head upwards. When he saw Mario diving towards him the mole's eyes popped open in shock, but he was unable to do anything else before Mario landed on him with a great thud. Mario shook off the hard landing and looked down at the Monty Mole, squashed down to the size of a pancake, although his wriggling claws suggested he was still alive. Mario pulled the mole out of the tank and placed him down on a nearby bench, before using his raccoon suit-powered strength to effortlessly lift up the tank, spin it around and throw it into the distance.

Luigi walked up behind Mario as he was admiring his handiwork.

"Wow, nice-a shot" Luigi complimented.

"Thanks. You see, this is-a why this is my favourite power-up" Mario commented as he stroked his own tail. A fireball suddenly shot out from behind them and struck Mario in the back, causing Luigi to let out a girlish scream. Mario rolled five feet across the floor, there was a downbeat sound effect as his raccoon features vanished and he returned to his normal form. Mario looked up to see Bowser Jr glaring angrily.

"Grr, ruin my fun will ya! Well I'll fix you, you... you... plumber!" Bowser Jr yelled threateningly. Mario and Luigi weren't threatened.

"Wow, is-a that really the best insult you can-a come up with?" Mario said in a deadpan voice. Bowser Jr spat another fireball at him, which Mario jumped over before assuming a battle stance "I-a got this one Luigi, you-a go and see to the townsfolk"

Luigi gave a respectful nod and ran off, as Mario and Bowser Jr stared each other down.

Meanwhile, let's take a look at how the other members of the group are doing. Sally and Yoshi are just finishing off the rest of the piranha plants, Snoopy and Woodstock are still hurling rocks at the Hammer Bros, and Sparky is merely watching the events unfold. After hearing a terrified shriek that didn't sound like it was coming from one of the spectating Toads, the spirit turned around to see a trio of Boomerang Bros quaking in their boots at the sight of him. Sparky raised a ghostly eyebrow, floating slightly towards them, making the turtles jump back in fright.

"It's a ghost! A big, scary, dead ghost!" The Boomerang Bro in the front yelped, shivering uncontrollably. Noticing their feat of him, a lightbulb went off in Sparky's head and he began making erratic and stereotypical ghostly movements.

"Ooooooooh, I am the evil spirit of the scary dog man! I have come to feast on the souls of you three koopas, oooooooohhhhhhh!" Sparky said in his best impression of a scary ghosts voice. The three Boomerang bros screamed at the top of their lungs, their eyes almost popped out of their sockets in their terror, and then they ran off crying like little babies. Sparky watched them run with mild amusement.

"I cannot believe that worked" Sparky said to himself, chuckling "Well, guess it just goes to show you don't need a physical body or amazing powers to be useful in a fight. Ha, ha, ha-" Sparky's chuckles were interrupted as a light beam passed right through his chest, crashing against a lamppost. Sparky stared at said lamppost in confusion, looking back to find Charlie Brown pinned down by more than a dozen Hammer Brothers, with only one arm loose.

The Hammer Bros struggled to keep Charlie Brown under control, but Charlie Brown had had enough. Forming a thick aura of light around himself, Charlie Brown used his powers of flight to propel himself into the air, sending the Hammer Bros flying as he did so. Floating high above them, Charlie Brown panted briefly before blasting the still conscious Hammer Bros with light spheres until he was sure they were all unconscious.

Charlie Brown sighed and rubbed his aching neck. 'Ok, so I'm getting off to a bad start. No need to worry, right. It could be worse' He tried to tell himself. But being Charlie Brown, insecurity was already starting to set in. And when Charlie Brown feels insecure, bad things tended to happen to him.

Charlie Brown looked around, noticing that most of the Hammer or Boomerang Bros were either unconscious or retreating. Ok, so that was a good sigh. Now he just needed to find Bowser Jr. Charlie Brown flew around the square and eventually found the koopaling engaged in battle with Mario. Junior slashed at Mario several times with his claws. Mario swiftly dodged them all before jumping over Bowser Jr, kicking him in the back of the head as he did so and sending him down. On the ground Bowser Jr threw a tantrum and sunk into his shell, before somehow propelling himself backwards at Mario, who dodged to the right and allowed Jr to crash through a bench and into a statue, stunning him for a moment and making him pop out of the shell. Mario ran for the koopa prince with his fist raise, Bowser Jr retaliated by shooting a fireball at him. Mario quickly back flipped to avoid it, only to have Bowser Jr leap up and punch him in the face, smashing Mario against the ground.

Seeing Mario in trouble, and mentally scolding himself for just watching up until now, Charlie Brown aimed carefully at Bowser Jr and channelled light into his palm. He pictured Lucy yelling at him to hit the target, and prepared to fire.

Only one problem, Bowser Jr and Mario were jumping around like crazy and he couldn't actually get a good shot. A few times Charlie Brown made to fire a light beam only to hold back when Mario jumped in the way of Jr. Sweat drops formed over Charlie Brown's brow, he decided to move closer to get a better shot. But then he saw Bowser Jr land a kick to Mario's stomach, before jumping up and preparing to slash down at him with his claws. In a moment of panic, Charlie Brown let loose a large light beam in the young koopa's direction. For a second it looked like the beam would reach it's target, but at the last second Mario leapt backwards and was struck full force. With an audible scream, Mario was sent flying right over Bowser Jr and straight into a wall, which crumbled on top of him.

Charlie Brown's heart stopped for a moment. What had he done? Good God, what had he done? Forgetting everything else, Charlie Brown flew forward at full speed to check on his team mate. He found Mario partially buried under the rubble of the house. A slight ounce of relief coursed through him as he saw Mario was quite clearly alive and not even bleeding, but still clearly injured from that attack.

In a panic, Charlie Brown got on his knees and began shovelling the rubble off of Mario's body with his hands, pulling the plumber to safety. His face contorted with worry and guilt, Charlie Brown began checking for a pulse, as nearby Bowser Jr watched on with uncertainty before bursting out laughing.

"Ha ha, hey, thanks for the assist there pal! Ol' potato nose had it coming for a long time, ha, ha, ha!" Bowser Jr chortled in his grating childish voice. Charlie Brown, already overcome with grief over what he'd just done to Mario, could not help but grit his teeth and fly at Jr with the intent to punch his lights out. Bowser Jr just stood calmly, waiting for just the right moment to sidestep out of the way so that Charlie Brown, not really looking where he was going, ended up crashing face first into a tree, with so much force that the tree split in half. And of course the tree did not fall in the other direction, it came toppling right down on Charlie Brown, trapping him underneath it.

Not too far away, Luigi had been rounding up the Toads who had been watching the fight and leading them to a safe distance. He would have taken them away from the scene completely, but they all complained that they wanted to see the action, so the sidekick had to settle for corralling them all in an area at the edge of the Town Square that was secluded from the fighting and had a nice safe house they could all go into in case things got too out of hand. When he believed he'd gotten everyone to safety Luigi looked around for any sign of his brother. He eventually spotted Bowser Jr atop the tree Charlie Brown was caught under, doing a sort of victory dance as Mario groaned on the floor nearby.

"Oh boy, not good" Luigi said aloud, turning to address the Toads "Ok, this is everyone right?"

"I can't find my son!" One female Toad cried out in a panic. A young Toad wandered up behind her, tugging on her shirt.

"I'm right here mom" The kid said. The mother Toad looked down and gave him a big hug.

"Oh, thank goodness!" The woman cried euphorically. After a minute of squeezing the life out of her son, she turned back to Luigi and said "Ok, now I think everyone's here"

"Well good. In that case I'm-a just gonna go bail my friends and brother out, if you come under attack just-a give me a shout" He told the crowd before running off to save the day.

Bowser Jr danced around and laughed at the top of his voice, beneath him Charlie Brown struggled to pull himself free, only to find his strength fading from him and his aura of light growing dim.

"Ha ha, yes, VICTORY. At last the koopas are victorious! Mario is beaten, and I beat him! Oh, daddy's going to be so happy!" Junior cheered.

"More like disappointed"

Bowser Jr blinked and turned around, finding Luigi standing right behind him. The younger Mario brother waved at him in a friendly manner before poking Bowser Jr in the eyes. Junior yelped and covered his eyes, while Luigi held his fist back and punched the koopaling in the stomach as hard as he could. Bowser Jr stumbled backwards and fell off the tree, landing right next to Charlie Brown's head. Junior hadn't been hurt that bad thanks to his tough shell, but he was still very annoyed.

"Grr, you'll pay for that green 'stache!" Junior yelled, spitting a fireball up at Luigi, who jumped into the air, avoiding the attack before bouncing off Bowser Jr's head. The baby koopa rubbed his head and then growled, getting into his shell and propelling himself after Luigi. Seeing the oncoming shell, Luigi ran away from it as fast as he could. Despite his Olympic level speed, Bowser Jr slowly caught up with him and soon was mere inches away from making impact. That was when Luigi decided to backflip over him, causing Bowser Jr to crash into the statue in the middle of the square. The sound of the impact resonated around the village, Bowser Jr popped out of his shell soon after looking dazed.

Charlie Brown had been so busy watching Luigi and Junior that he had almost forgotten he was trapped under a tree. He was reminded when he tried to get up and join the plumber only to fail because he was still stuck. Mario on the other hand had no trouble getting to his feet as he recovered, spotting his brother approach the dazed koopa kid.

Stars still circled Bowser Jr's head as Luigi approached him. Luigi hung around for a moment until Bowser Jr came back to his senses and then asked "So, ready to call it a day kid?"

Bowser Jr stared at him for a moment before roaring "Never!" And spitting a fireball at Luigi's head. The hero ducked to avoid it, but was then struck by an upper cut from Junior, sending him falling on his back. Bowser Jr stepped on Luigi's feet to hold him still while he formed another large fireball in his mouth. He was ready to burn Luigi's face off, when suddenly he was yanked from behind, causing him to swallow the fireball instead. Turning his head, Junior saw Mario grabbing hold of his tail and proceeding to tug with all his strength. Bowser Jr was pulled off of Luigi and off his feet, Mario then proceeded to spin the young Koopa around rapidly. Seeing what his brother was doing, Luigi got up and ran back a few yards, waving to Mario. Seeing the indication, Mario released his grip on Junior and sent him flying towards Luigi, who started running before giving Junior a jump kick to the face, the force of which sent him spinning through the air and crashing through the tree, freeing Charlie Brown in the process.

Bowser Jr rolled spinning across the square, coming to a stop besides the village gates where the last remaining Hammer Bros had retreated to. One of the Hammer Brothers stooped down and poked the side of Junior's face to determine if he was still conscious. Bowser Jr opened his eyes and looked groggily at the minion.

"Um, your highness, now might be a good time to retreat" The Hammer Bro told him. If he had been talking to Bowser himself he might have been scolded for suggesting that, but Junior was somewhat more reasonable.

"Yeah, good thinking. I've had my fun, let's get out while the going's good" Bowser Jr declared. The Hammer Brothers took this as their cue to run off, leaving their prince to find his feet on his own. Nearby Mario and Luigi ran to confront him, Bowser Jr just glared at them and shook his fist, declaring "I'll get you guys next time!" Before running off after his minions. Mario and Luigi stopped by the gates to watch the little brat retreat, both sighed in relief.

"Well, another day saved" Mario said cheerfully.

"Yeah" Luigi nodded in equal mirth.

Charlie Brown walked up to the duo from behind, his healing ability was in full effect easing the wounds he'd sustained during the fight, though he still looked battered. Something Sally took notice of as she, Yoshi, Snoopy and Woodstock re-joined the rest of the group.

"Yikes, are you alright big brother?" Sally asked. Charlie Brown sighed.

"I'll be fine Sally" Charlie Brown told her half heartedly, though that was still enough to comfort her. Mario and Luigi turned around to greet the rest gang, and Sparky quickly re-joined them.

"Well, that was a spectacle. Luckily it seems none of the civilians were harmed during the raid. There's a fair bit of property damage, but I hear Toad's are experts at rebuilding things, so it shouldn't be a problem. Good work everyone, you all did well" Sparky congratulated the heroes. Charlie Brown was the only one not listening to him, instead looking at Mario in concern.

"I'm really, really sorry I hit you like that, I-" Charlie Brown began, but Mario, seeing he was about to go into a long guilty rant, held up his hand to silence Charlie Brown.

"Don't-a worry about it Charlie Brown, everything's fine. Accidents happen, it didn't-a hurt too badly. I mean, it hurt, but I have a high pain tolerance. Just don't worry about it, ok" Mario said in a kind tone, which only slightly worked to ease Charlie Brown's concern.

---

After everyone had had a moment to calm down and catch up with one another, the group decided to go check on the situation in the village. As they walked down the main path of the village, the heroes found themselves greeted by many a gracious Toad, all loudly thanking them for chasing Bowser Jr. away. Charlie Brown, though still feeling guilty about his botched efforts during the fight, nevertheless began to beam brightly as he waved to everyone. Snoopy kissed a few people's hands while Sally rode atop Yoshi, waving to the Toads with her hand in the air as if she were a visiting princess. Mario & Luigi, who were used to this kind of praise, just waved back to the crowd and smiled.

"Wooow...so this is what being a hero feels like?" Charlie Brown said as he waved to the happy Toads. "I've never been congratulated for anything in my life. This is...different."

Luigi waved and answered Charlie Brown, "Oooh yeah. This is the life heroes lead, Charlie Brown. Beating evil, shaking hands, and kissing babies. Every day holds something new and evil...but it's always the same at the end. I don't-a mind though. It-a gives me a sense of accomplishment. The people love their heroes here, and they always expect us when the chips are down. And it's-a your duty to give them what they ask for. Reliability is key for being a hero. You can't-a let them down, Charlie Brown."

Charlie Brown immediately put his hand down, and his expression fell once more. The near-bald kid looked down and blinked twice, then put on a frown. A rush of guilt and pessimistic feelings began to overflow his mind. If what Luigi said about being a hero was true, then he was already a failure.

Sally looked around and saw a clothes shop in the village to her right. She directed Yoshi to it and entered into the store, hoping to maybe find a new pretty dress. She stepped down from Yoshi and made her way through the store's inventory. But...then she began to frown as she dug through the store's selections. In typical Sally fashion, she stomped her way to the clerk's desk and began to demand an explanation.

"I thought this was a clothes' store." She said in a loud tone. The clerk, a Toad with an orange spotted cap, was taken aback by her bravado.

"Well, it is ma'am." The Toad said, politely "Peruse around and pick what you like!"

Sally sneered, "Oh, SURE! I'll pick through your varying degree of clothes! I sure do love MUSHROOM HAT NUMBER EIGHT! And BLUE VEST NUMBER NINETEEN looks flattering! WHITE PANTS NUMBER THIRTY-EIGHT is beautiful! And I better get BROWN SHOES NUMBER SIXTY-SIX before they're gone! Those are one of a kind!...WHAT KIND OF SHANGHAI OPERATION ARE YOU RUNNING HERE?" Sally screamed, causing the poor Toad to flip over in the air and land on his backside.

He got up and tried to calm Sally down, "Ma'am, ma'am, I don't even know what you mean! What's wrong with our selection? These are all the latest Toad fashion trends!"

"THIS IS NOT FASHION! IT'S A TRICK! I WAS ALMOST TRICKED! THE PRETTY ADVERTISING AND LIGHTS CAN DRAW ANY UNSUSPECTING GIRL INTO HERE AND GET BAMBOOZLED! I AM NOT HERE TO-"

Yoshi used his head to push Sally out of the door, hoping to end her tirade in the building. Sally looks back at the store, then back at Yoshi. "Good thinking, Yoshi. We should take this to the streets and let the people know!"

The green dinosaur sighed and allowed Sally onto his back before walking down the street to rejoin the group.

Woodstock, flying in loop-de-loops, began pointing to the inside of his mouth, signifying his hunger. Snoopy's stomach rumbled as well, and the beagle was just reminded of the fact...

...that he missed lunch.

This fact, as it dawned on Snoopy, caused the beagle's eyes to grow bloodshot. His fur grew wilder and his breaths drew shorter. He ran towards his master and began to wildly throttle him while letting out spastic yelps. Charlie Brown fell onto the ground once Snoopy dropped him and observed his dog's theatrics. Mario and Luigi were somewhat disturbed by Snoopy's lack of decorum in public...

...but darnit, this was LUNCH we're talking about!

Snoopy began to grow faint, and his knees trembled. He let out cries of anguish and despair, and pointed to his stomach as his final act before passing out over Charlie Brown's stomach. The Mario Bros. looked over at Charlie Brown, their eyebrows raised and their... curiosities... peaked.

"Err, What was that?" Mario asked, perplexed by the entire scene. "Was-a Snoopy have a seizure?"

"No..." Charlie Brown looked up into the air and mentally groaned before picking his dog up. "...He missed lunch. Where's the nearest food place?"

A Toad with a map tapped Charlie Brown on the shoulder from behind. The hero of light turned around and looked down at the Toad. The nice villager pointed in the direction of the village diner and grinned happily. Sparky chuckled as he floated up from behind Charlie Brown. "Well, that was good fortune. Let's all go get something to eat before we head back onto the road. It'll do you all good to fill up..." Sparky looked over at Snoopy, who groaned in "agony". "Some more than others..." the spirit deadpanned.

The group entered the diner and grabbed a couple of tables to eat at. They all ordered and spent a few minutes inside the diner, eating, conversing, and sharing stories. Snoopy, now full, hopped out of his seat and grabbed Woodstock. Snoopy eyed the bag of power-ups Mario had at his side and grabbed them while no one was looking. He then ran into the bathroom with them with a slow flying Woodstock in tow.

Meanwhile Mario, while laughing with the group, noticed Charlie Brown sitting at another table by himself. He had barely touched his sandwich and wouldn't even bother lifting his head and looking up. Mario raised an eyebrow and left the group to go talk to Charlie Brown.

Charlie picked at his sandwich, not even attempting to eat it. Mario sat down at his table, startling the boy. "What's-a the matter, kid? You didn't even-a take a bite out of your sandwich. A growing hero like you needs your food. What's wrong?"

Charlie Brown sighed... and looked up at Mario... then looked back down. He continued to poke and stare at it as he answered Mario. "...I screwed up out there against Bowser Jr."

"Oh, that? Oh don't-a worry about that, kid! You don't-a always win 'em on the first few goes! Me and-a Luigi screwed up loads of times fighting evil in our first battles with Bowser. It's hard doing something you're new at. Just have to train to get better" Mario smiled at Charlie Brown, who looked up and sighed before looking down.

"Yeah, well, I almost screwed it up for everybody. Bowser Jr. almost won because I accidently hit you, with how strong my light beams are I could've seriously hurt you. I was the weak link. And that's not even the biggest mistake I've made, I've let all of my friends be captured and scattered across the universe and I couldn't even do anything to stop Bowser making off with Peppermint Patty and your princess. If I'm as powerful as Sparky says I am, I should have been able to prevent all of those things easily, but as usual I just screwed it up" Charlie Brown put his hands on his cheeks and continued to look at his sandwich. "I'm not reliable like Luigi said heroes should be. Sparky keeps saying I'm the best choice for this job, and for a minute after I first beat Joe I even started to believe him. But after all this, I just don't know any more. Trusting ME with saving the worlds isn't a very wise thing...*Sighs*, I can already see Lucy now... along with Violet and Patty... laughing and berating me on my screw-up... what a hero I am..." Charlie Brown sighed. Mario just looked on and couldn't help but feel sorry for the kid. This was worse than he had described it earlier.

"I can-a tell that you weren't-a very well received back where you come from..." Mario said. "Somebody always there to criticize and put you down?"

Charlie Brown sighed..."You don't know the half of it...I can see them all here, telling me how much of a screw-up I am..."

"Well they aren't-a here, Charlie Brown. You can-a prove them wrong right now!" Mario said, giving CB a firm voice to listen to, "You can-a either sit here and sulk and-a prove them right...or get up and-a be the best darn hero you can ever be! Why not try and be a hero? We rely on you to help out and beat these evil powers that-a be! Heroes never start out as true blue-a heroes! They grow into their role! And Charlie Brown...I just know you'll-a grow into the role. I bet a plate of-a spaghetti and my mama's famous three cheese lasagna on it!"

Mario's pep talk gave Charlie Brown a bit of hope, as it caused him to produce a tiny smile. The boy looked up at Mario and sighed, then picked up his sandwich. He took a bite out of it for the first time since he bought it, and talked after swallowing. "Thanks Mario...I needed a small pep talk. I have low-confidence episodes sometimes. Comes with being me. I want to be able to help...and with you encouraging me, hopefully I can reach that goal."

Mario gave Charlie Brown a reassuring pat on the shoulder, "No-a problem, son. I just know you'll be a full-fledged hero soon. Trust-a me." He gave CB a wink and then began to talk more to the young boy, just to keep him company.

In the bathroom, Snoopy and Woodstock began playing around in the power-ups bag. The two animals knew they prooobably shouldn't be doing this...but the fun that could be had couldn't be ignored. Besides, when else could they do this?

Snoopy picked up a blue shell and activated it, turning into Blue Shell Snoopy. He smiled happily and ran at a wall. He retreated into his shell and spun right through the wall, landing into the kitchen. He bounced around the room, going unnoticed by the Toad chefs working inside, and grabbed a sandwich (free of charge of course). He bounced back into the bathroom and began to slow down his spinning and bouncing. He came to a halt back to his original spot and exited from his shell. The beagle looked at the sandwich he collected and began to take a bite out of it, satiating his hunger from the exciting bouncing.

Woodstock was next, digging through the bag and collecting a yellow square with an exclamation point. He stumbled around with it, but managed to throw it into the air. Woodstock flew up and pounded the block, which turned him into a metal version of himself. Amazed at his new form, Woodstock tried to fly, but could barely get himself a half a millimeter off the ground. The metal bird fell, creating a shockwave that sent Snoopy falling over. Woodstock had gotten himself stuck in the ground after falling and struggled to pop out. Snoopy got up and began trying to pull the heavy metal Woodstock out of the hole. The power-up wore off, however, and Woodstock easily popped out and flew over a stall and into a toilet. The wet bird walked under the stall door and stood there, soaking wet. Snoopy snickered sheepishly and dug into the bag once more. Woodstock used paper towels to dry himself...but soon began to feel a warm heat over him that started to dry him quicker. Woodstock sighed and relaxed in the heat. The warm bird calmly looked up...

...TO SEE A STREAM OF FIRE OVER HIS HEAD!

"IIIP!" He screeched as he stared up into the fire filled air! "iiiiiiiiiiiiii! iiiiiiiiiiiiii!" He continuously chirped, but when he turned around he saw Snoopy, with red ears, blowing flames at him to help dry him off. After getting completely dry, Woodstock flew up and loop-de-looped right back into the bag. Snoopy, meanwhile, took a liking to the powers from the Fire Flower. He grinned devilishly and blew fire at the ceiling, melting a giant hole in it. He observed his work, and looked on with admiration and awe. Woodstock then popped back out of the bag and began to struggle lifting something. Snoopy was perplexed as to what Woodstock was about to pick up...but was amazed when he saw him raise up a giant mushroom with a yellow cap with red polka-dots.

Outside, Luigi laughed and talked with the group, and then reached down to pick up the bag of power-ups. He then realized that the bag wasn't there.

"Uuuh, where's-a the bag?" He said, moving his hand around under the table. "Uuum...a-Mario...where's the bag?" He asked across the room to his brother, who turned around. Mario gave Luigi a discerning look and shook his head.

"Oh-a Luigi! You-a lost the bag? I told you to keep up with it!" He scolded his younger brother.

Luigi shrugged and defended himself, "I-a never lost it! I brought it in here and put it under the table! Somebody must-a took it!"

"Well who did then?" Mario replied back, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

Suddenly, a large "CRASH!" could be heard. The entire diner was rocked by a large rumbling that came from the bathroom. The heroes all got up and ran outside...

...to find a GIANT Woodstock with a fireblazing Snoopy on his head. The now giant canary began to fly and took off from the restaurant. Snoopy laughed and yucked it up on Woodstock's head, but then lost his balance and fell...right into his mouth! Snoopy was somewhat disturbed and disgusted by the change of scenery, and began to heat up Woodstock's insides to get him to open up. Not able to stand the intense heat from his mouth, the loudly screeching Woodstock opened his burning mouth. With the fire blazing out of the bird's mouth and onto the village, mixed in with his own giant size and loud screeching, Woodstock seemed like a giant, yellow, firebreathing dragon to the Toads. They all ran in fear, trying to avoid the "Yellow Dragon of Doom".

"THE PROPHECIEEES! THEY WERE REEEAL!" Screamed out one old and crazy Toad, who jumped over a bridge and into the water.

The heroes and Sally & Yoshi all stared wide-eyed at this scene unfold before them. As Woodstock flew out of the village, the heroes just stared at the destruction that was caused all around them. Sparky looked over into the restaurant, which was now roofless, and raised his hand to get the waitress Toad's attention. With a loud and calm (yet trembling) voice, he said-

"Check please."

---

(Half an hour and much explaining later)

The heroes were just leaving the village and looking around the grasslands for any sign of Snoopy and Woodstock. After a lengthy search for the duo, Sparky eventually spotted them behind a bush. Woodstock had luckily returned to his normal tiny size, though Snoopy still retained his fire-Snoopy form, and was using his powers to juggle fireballs for his and Woodstock's amusement. Sparky flew back to the group and led them to the duo. At first Snoopy looked glad to see his friends again, but then he realized they were all glaring at him. Snoopy dispersed the fireballs and looked at the floor regretfully, as did Woodstock. Charlie Brown sighed.

"You're a lot of trouble sometimes, you know that" Charlie Brown told his dog.

"One million coins. ONE MILLION COINS. That's how much the damage will cost that you did to the restaurant and the rest of the village, how are we supposed to pay for that?!" Sally complained.

"Don't-a worry, Mario and I have-a collected a fortune in coins in all-a the years we've-a been fighting evil. Should only-a half empty our accounts" Luigi replied, somewhat dejectedly.

"It doesn't-a matter, it's only solid gold coins. There's-a millions more floating around where-a those came from. We can all be mad at Snoopy later, we're-a not that-a far from the castle" Mario explained.

"Really?" Charlie Brown asked, earning a nod.

"Yep, it's-a just half a mile down the road, we'll-a be there in no-a time" Luigi said eagerly. This did get the groups spirits up.

"Alright then, let's get there quickly while we still have a chance to save our friends" Charlie Brown said, leading the rest of the group away. Snoopy and Woodstock gladly followed, relieved their punishments were being delayed. At least they were until Charlie Brown turned around and said "And don't think we're going to forget about what you two did. I'm taking away your tv privileges for the next three weeks"

Snoopy stopped and began to spasm nervously, letting out an anguished howl as Woodstock began to cry.

As the heroes marched on, mere minutes away from their destination, a figure watched them from above. Riding his broom, Kamek observed the heroes every movement, as he had done since they had exited the underground. A devilish smile spread across his face as he sped off ahead of them.

Moments later, Charlie Brown caught sight of a hill where a small stone castle stood. Not nearly as grand as the Mushroom Castle, but still more impressive and charming than most buildings. But it wasn't even that which excited him. No, that was the enormous shit docked at the other side of the castle.

"Hmm... yep, that's-a Bowser's Doomship alright" Mario said confidently.

"Well, looks like we did-a make it on time. Good, good" Luigi said calmly. Then erratically he yelled "Now come on! We gotta hurry up and get-a there before they take off! Move, move, move!"

At Luigi's insistence the group ran at full speed towards the hill, marching up the hill towards the castle gate. As they were running, Mario began to take notice of something. There were no minions blocking their path thus far, and there didn't seem to be any up ahead. Now that was discouraging. Under normal circumstances Bowser would have any castle he was occupying surrounded with guards, there'd be goombas, koopas, wigglers, fire snakes, blorgs, lakitu's and all sorts. But no, so far none.

Mario skidded to a stop. It took the others a full ten seconds to realize he was no longer keeping up with them and rejoin him.

"Hey Mario, what's up?" Luigi asked, confused by his brothers actions. Mario just looked around carefully and hummed.

"Surely you all-a notice the stunning lack of enemies around here?" He informed them. Everyone looked around to see that he was right.

"Yeah, so?" Sally asked, not quite getting the point.

"So, why would Bowser not want to have guards patrolling the area incase we attacked" Sparky answered for Mario, looking thoughtful "I'm going to guess that he has something more sinister in store for us in the castle"

"So it's a trap?" Charlie Brown asked. Sparky nodded, and Luigi sighed.

"So wait, if it's a trap then what do we do? It would be stupid to just charge in now, and how else are we going to get to Peppermint Patty and the Princess" Sally said in a grumpy voice.

"It's-a probably nothing we can't-a handle anyway. Bowser's traps usually just involve setting us up against some sort of-a giant monster or-a making us go through some maze filled with-a booby traps or something, let's-a just keep moving" Luigi said nonchalantly, continuing to walk up to the castle. Mario was not quite so confident.

"I-a don't know Luigi, some of his last plans have-a been getting progressively smarter. This could be trouble" Mario said cautiously, but Luigi just shrugged.

"It's-a Bowser, he's never been good at-a stopping us. It'll be fine" Luigi said calmly.

Mario shook his head, but eventually warmed up to Luigi's suggestion.

"I suppose-a you're right. But still, I got a funny feeling about this" Mario said, slowly following after his brother.

The rest of the group had their doubts, Charlie Brown in particular. But when he thought that Peppermint Patty was probably inside, and that trap or not this was his best chance to save her before he screwed things up any more, he decided that it didn't matter what sort of mess they got themselves into. He promised he'd save his friend, and that was just what he was going to do.

Another minute of hiking and the heroes reached the enormous wooden doors to the castle. Mario pushed open the left door and poked his head inside for a quick look around. Finding nothing too out of the ordinary, he pulled his head back and motioned everyone inside, but warned them all to watch out for anything suspicious and keep their guard up at all times. As everyone else entered the castle however, Yoshi jumped back before Sally could usher him in. She looked down at Yoshi's face, the poor dinosaur looked absolutely terrified.

"Oh yeah, Yoshi doesn't-a like going into castles under koopa control. Scared 'cause we-a usually run into ghosts in these-a sort of places" Luigi said. After glancing over his shoulder and thinking about it for a moment he shivered "Makes me kinda wish I'd-a brought along my-a Poltergust 5000. But hey, too late now"

Charlie Brown noticed that while Luigi managed to fake a confident facial expression, his legs were trembling. Actually, he might have been trembling aswell at the thought of encountering ghosts, but the fact that he'd been hanging around with a talking spirit dog for the past two days had him feeling surprisingly calm about it.

Sally took another look at Yoshi's nervous face and patted the top of his head. "It's ok Yoshi, you don't have to go inside if you don't want to" She told him soothingly.

"As it were, it's probably best Sally and Yoshi do remain outside, as well as Snoopy and Woodstock. Whether Bowser's traps tend to be effective or not, it would be reckless to put them in harms way" Sparky said to the leading members of the team, Mario and Charlie Brown, who both nodded.

"That sounds reasonable" Charlie Brown said, turning to his sister "You sure you can keep Snoopy under control for a few minutes?" Sally casually waved her hand.

"Pfft, please. He's just one beagle. And if he tries wandering off, I can always have Yoshi swallow him and spit him back up. That would teach him a lesson" Sally said thoughtfully. Snoopy shivered at the look in her eye.

"I gotta be careful not to get on her bad side when she's riding that dinosaur. Woodstock, make a note of that" Snoopy said, Woodstock immediately pulled out his small typewriter.

"Well, I still got a funny feeling about-a this, but we're probably running out of-a time. So, here we go" Mario said, stepping through the doors and into the castle. After a last glance at his sister and pet, Charlie Brown followed. Sparky floated in after him, Luigi prepared to follow when Charlie Brown suddenly closed the door behind him, causing Luigi to bump face first into the door and fall on his backside, holding his nose. Hearing the bump from the other side, Charlie Brown opened the door back up again and helped Luigi up.

"Sorry, sorry, I thought you'd already gone in" Charlie Brown apologised meekly, Luigi just told him not to worry about it and continued inside.

Clearly this castle must have been home to Toads at some point, for the entrance hall hosted a large number of statues and silk tapestries of the mushroom people. Two stone statues of Toad knights stood at either side of the entrance, and there were at least twenty paintings covering the walls featuring Toads in various different landscapes and clothing, though all sporting the traditional hat. The floors were white and bare, apart from a fine red carpet that lead from the doors up a large marble staircase, which lead to a landing with a single door. Charlie Brown remembered something Mario had said about abandoned castles, if this castle had been abandoned for a time it hardly showed it. The hall was in remarkable shape, you couldn't tell that nobody lived here.

"So, does anybody live here now?" Charlie Brown asked.

"Why, you-a thinking of moving in?" Luigi asked jokingly.

"Well, no, I'm just wondering if Bowser might have captured anyone who was living here and we should rescue them too" Charlie Brown replied.

"You don't-a have to worry about that. This here's one of the castles Bowser captures most-a frequently during his kidnapping plots. The Toads that lived here abandoned it years ago when they realized how-a dangerous it was to-a live here. Though I think they-a sometimes use it for parties and religious banquets" Mario explained, taking a few steps forward and looking around. He let out a loud hmmm. "Ok, now I know he's-a up to something. No guards patrolling outside-a the castle is one thing, but no-one watching the entrance? I'm starting to wonder if we should-a just go around the castle and see if we can-a just have you fly us onto the doomship, Charlie Brown"

"Hey, that's-a not a bad idea. Why didn't I think of that?" Luigi slapped himself, walking back to the doors "If-a we know it's a trap, no sense just-a walking into it, even if Bowser's traps are always ill conceived" Luigi grabbed the handle to the doors and pulled. Nothing happened. Luigi's eyebrows rose in confusion as he pulled again. Door didn't budge. Luigi tried yanking the door handle and pulling with all his might, succeeding at nothing but pulling a joint in his arm. He let out a loud yelp, let go of the handle and turned to his teammates while nursing his arm "Well, that's just great. The doors are locked"

"Um, Luigi, you have to-a push the doors to open them from the inside" Mario said, giving his brother an odd look. Luigi smiled meekly.

"Oh. Heh heh. My mistake" Luigi said, turning around and confidently pushing the door. It didn't budge. Luigi stared incredulously at the doors and began shoving as hard as he could, to no effect. After ten seconds Luigi gave up and shrugged at his brother "Ok, now it's locked for real"

"It can't be locked, it was open when we-a came in" Mario said, walking up to the door and giving it a push himself, along with Charlie Brown. Sparky watched them try in vain to open the door and offered his suggestion.

"I'm guessing they're enchanted to lock once we entered. Seems our only option is to go deeper into the castle" Sparky said. Mario shrugged indifferently before walking over to the staircase.

"Well, never mind then. Come on gang, let's-a go see what old scale face has-a in store for us" Mario said in a conversational tone. Charlie Brown, Luigi and Sparky followed.

"You know, if this is a trap then shouldn't we be a bit more worried?" Charlie Brown asked the green-clad plumber.

"I can't-a speak for the rest of you, but I'm-a plenty worried. Of course, I worry about everything. Literally everything. I worry about-a stepping outside the door and wandering the streets at night. I'm-a scared of practically everything that moves, I can't-a remember a time I wasn't worried to tell you the truth" Luigi replied sincerely. Charlie Brown blinked in surprise.

"Then how aren't you a nervous wreck?" Charlie Brown asked. Luigi chuckled.

"For a time I was. But I've-a just learned to live with it. That and-a being severely under appreciated. I'm-a coward, and everyone knows it, but I've-a seen and done so much over the years, fear just-a doesn't have as much of an affect on me as it-a used to. Sure, there are times when I-a freak out and lose it, but generally I've learned to face my fear and do my best to-a help out. That's another part of-a being a hero kid, no matter how hard or daunting a task you're-a faced with, you'll do it, no matter if you're afraid" Luigi explained matter-of-factly. He gave Charlie Brown a knowing look and added "The same thing applies to doubts and other insecurities, Charlie Brown"

Charlie Brown stopped for a moment to think about that. He felt a sudden burst of respect for Luigi's ability to put his fears aside to do good. Could he really do the same thing about his self-doubt?

Noticing the others were all at the top of the staircase by now and he was still at the bottom Charlie Brown shook these thoughts aside and ran up the stairs. When he had rejoined the group Mario carefully opened the door and lead the four of them through. The heroes found themselves in another large hall, slightly bigger and much darker than the last one with three more doors, one at the other end of the room, and one each to the far right and left. Doors, might I add, that were obscured by walls of dark mist.

"What the what?" Mario said, noticing the oddity. There was a sudden whooshing sound behind the group, and everyone turned to find the door that they just came through was also blocked off by the same dark mist.

"Well, you were right Mario, it was a trap" Charlie Brown pointed out the obvious.

The heroes looked to the centre of the room, where three objects suddenly fell from the sky and became embedded in the ground. Closer inspection revealed them to be what looked like blunt swords, with several dents that made the top halves of the swords (The ones facing down) look like three conjoined scallops. The heroes gave these unconventionally shaped blades strange looks, but they were all taken aback as three rings of dark purple fire formed around the weapons. The rings moved in a clockwise motion before suddenly closing in on themselves, then forming into the figures of three monstrous black creatures. Creatures sporting tails, purple horns, wings growing out of their elbows, and heart shaped holes in their chests. The beings, whatever they were, bared a passing resemblance to what devils might look like.

The heroes were in awe at the mysterious beings, Mario and Luigi especially since they were something the duo had genuinely never seen before in all their travels. But none were more concerned than Sparky, who's eyes were wide with fear and sudden realization.

"What are they?" Charlie Brown asked the Mario brothers, thinking they would be the most likely to know. But they couldn't answer, instead Sparky informed everyone.

"They are Invisibles, an uncommon variety of Heartless" Charlie Brown gaped at the dog spirit.

"Heartless?!" Charlie Brown yelped. Sparky nodded.

"Um, those shadowy things you said work for the Dark Witch?" Mario asked, eyeing the very visible Invisibles with some curiosity.

"Indeed. Seems my sister has made a few alliances while of her own while we've kept busy" Sparky said gravely. The three heartless picked up their swords and stared unblinkingly at Charlie Brown and the Mario Brothers. The heroes got into their battle positions and prepared for a fight, the Invisibles tossed their weapons into the air, caught them, and lunged forward to attack.

---

Back outside the castle, Sally and Yoshi stood by calmly. Snoopy and Woodstock had acquired a ball from somewhere and were playing a game of catch, though every time Woodstock made to catch the ball he would just get squashed into the ground.

'Snoopy needs to think of some new games that don't have a detrimental effect on Woodstocks health' Sally thought to herself 'Wow, I almost sounded like my sweet baboo with that last part. He's always saying smart and wise things, it's so cute' Sally's face lit up as she began fantasising romantic thought about her beloved Linus... her face dropped into a sad frown as she remembered the predicament he was in.

'Oh Linus, I hope we find you soon' Sally thought wistfully. Following up from this thought, she turned to the castle door and yelled "Hurry up big brother! My sweet baboo's still waiting for me to rescue him!"

Yoshi, who had just been gazing at a passing butterfly, jumped a bit at Sally's exclamation. He shook his head and looked around for where the butterfly now was. While looking he was something heading his way. Something green and glowing and moving very fast...

"Yoshi!" Yoshi leapt back at just the right moment to avoid the magic blast, which instead left a burning mark into the castle wall. Yoshi's sudden movement and the sight of the attack brought Sally out of her daydreaming state, as well as grabbing the attention of Snoopy and Woodstock.

The sidekicks looked in the direction of the blast, to see Kamek floating over them on his broom. The old magikoopa was clutching his glowing wand and staring intently at Yoshi.

"So, we meet again my old foe" Kamek said. Yoshi frowned at the wizard, while Sally just looked around as though expecting to see someone.

"Um, are you talking to me?" Sally asked. Kamek looked at her and raised an eyebrow... or, a wrinkle that was in the area his eyebrow would be if he had any.

"Um, no, I was referring to the Yoshi" Kamek answered awkwardly. Sally looked down at Yoshi and noticed the glare he was giving the magikoopa.

"I didn't know you had your own enemies Yoshi" Sally said.

"Yoshi!" Yoshi told Kamek in a stern voice. Kamek grinned sinisterly.

"Still as incomprehensible as ever I see. Well, no matter, I didn't come here to share stories over cups of coffee. I'm here to kill you all" Kamek announced. Sally blinked a few times before recognising Kamek's obvious turtle features.

"You're one of those koopas, aren't you!" Sally shouted in an accusing tone. Kamek chuckled.

"Little girl, I am the court wizard of the Koopa empire, commander of the magikoopas and his nastiness Bowser's right hand man. And as the koopa king's most loyal servant, I've been granted the task of disposing of his enemies before they intercept him. I had a very simple but brilliant plan you see, first I would create an illusion of our Doomship on the other side of this castle, leading you straight here. Then, once you meddlesome heroes were inside, you would be set upon by those dark creatures our new benefactor lent us" Kamek explained. Sally gasped and growled at him.

"So it was a trap! How dare you trap my brother, if he gets hurt I'm going to slug you!" Sally shook her fist threateningly. Kamek chuckled.

"Yes, good luck "Slugging" me from up here, child. Anyway, I'm glad you and the mongrels were left out here. I've got a score with that dinosaur you're riding that I've been meaning to settle for a good few years now" Kamek said wickedly. Snoopy and Woodstock growled and tweeted indignantly at his mongrel comment, while Yoshi raised his fists and looked ready to fight. Sally gave Kamek an arrogant look.

"Well, you're about to have another score to settle, because we're gonna kick your butt!" Sally declared.

"Oh, is that so?" Kamek said with a grin. From out of the sky a troop of Shy Guys swooped down and surrounded Snoopy and Woodstock. The animals jumped in fright at their sudden appearance before Snoopy took on a fighting stance, Woodstock merely hiding behind him.

Yoshi, seeing his new friends in danger, prepared to come to their aid before Kamek shot another magic blast at him, forcing him to leap back. Kamek fired another blast at Yoshi, then another, then another, until Yoshi was a good distance away from Snoopy, Woodstock and the shy guys, at which point Kamek floated down off his broom and blocked Sally and Yoshi's path. Kamek held his wand forward and glowered at Yoshi, who shot back a determined look as he got ready to fight.

"Go get 'im Yoshi. No Mercy!" Sally yelled.

"Yoshi!" Yoshi declared as he ran forward, and Kamek prepared to strike.

---

Back inside the castle, the battle between Charlie Brown, the Mario Brothers and the Invisibles was heating up. Appropriately, the heroes took to fighting one heartless each, taking their battles to different corners of the room. The Invisibles quickly proved themselves worthy foes, they were quick and swift, and as Charlie Brown found out their blades, while seemingly not sharp enough to cut anything, still hurt like heck if they managed to strike you with them.

Mario caught his opponent off balanced and bounded forward. A moment before he could reach it, the Invisible regained it's momentum and swung it's sword at him. It would have taken the plumbers head clean off if Mario hadn't ducked backwards and proceeded to pounce at the Invisible, punching it right in the chest and sending it flying. The Invisible caught itself in mid air right before it hit the wall and flew at Mario, who jumped up and landed a hard downwards kick to the monsters back, stomping it onto the floor.

"I don't-a see why you're-a so worried about these-a monsters, Sparky. They're not-a so tough" Mario called to the spirit Guardian, who was spectating from the corner of the room.

"Pay attention or you'll soon find yourself corrected" Sparky called back urgently. Before Mario could react the Invisible suddenly shot up and sent him flying backwards, landing on his face. Mario got up and saw the Invisible charge at him again, Mario quickly rolled out of the way before it could strike down with it's blade, only to be swatted away as the heartless took another swing.

Charlie Brown ducked and flew over every swing of his opponent's sword. Utilising his superior speed, Charlie Brown flew behind the Invisible and struck it in the back with a powerful light blast. A blast which would have surely fried a Shadow and maybe even a Neo Shadow, but this heartless proved much more durable, almost shrugging off the blast before turning around and swinging at him again. Charlie Brown flew back and dodged this attack, only to have the Invisible fly over him and strike from behind. Charlie Brown grabbed the blade in his light covered palms, and with great effort he managed to pull it out of the Invisible's grip and throw it away, before proceeding to strike the heartless with a roundhouse of punches that sent it flying into the wall.

Charlie Brown floated above the heartless and looked down at it. The Invisible wasn't moving, it could have been knocked out. Or it was faking. If Charlie Brown had really defeated it he was sure the heartless would just disintegrate. He didn't want to take any chances this time, so Charlie Brown lit up his palm and aimed for the Invisible's head. He was distracted however by a loud crash from behind him.

Turning around he saw Luigi had been knocked back into a wall by the Invisible he was fighting. The heartless flew at the green-capped plumber and tried to strike him again, but Luigi slid passed the space beneath the Invisible and it instead struck the wall. Charlie Brown made to fly in and lend a hand, but his own opponent got up and tackled him into the ground. Charlie Brown got up, to see the Invisible holding it's hand out. The sword Charlie Brown had thrown away suddenly floated up and returned to the hand of the heartless, who pointed it at Charlie Brown's face. Charlie Brown sighed, Luigi would have to solve his own problems.

Speaking of whom, Luigi was now rapidly dodging another barrage of attack from the heartless, when it stopped for a moment Luigi took the chance to jump up high and kick it in the face. The Invisible staggered back, before becoming enraged and trying to smack Luigi's head off. Luigi hopped and scurried out of the way, and between all his dodging he still had the time to call out and ask "Hey Sparky, you say these things are called Invisibles! Why?"

As Luigi asked that question, the Invisible pulled back and threw it's sword into the air, before grabbing it again and slamming it into the ground before vanishing from sight. Luigi blinked at the spot the heartless had disappeared from.

"Um, never mind, I think I-huh? Uh-oh" Luigi suddenly found himself surrounded by a swirling ring of dark purple flames.

"Luigi, listen to me! The exact moment those flames stop moving, jump! As high as you can" Sparky instructed from the sidelines. Luigi kept a close eye on the ring of fire as it span around him. When it finally stopped Luigi did as he was told and jumped. The blazing ring closed in on itself, creating a large purple glow which vanished just before Luigi landed. The Invisible reappeared by it's sword a moment later.

Luigi prepared himself as the Invisible flew at him again. Luigi leapt up and punched the heartless in the face with both hands, causing it to lose it's grip on the sword. Before the blade hit the ground Luigi grabbed it and stabbed the Heartless through the hole in it's chest with such force that the blunt sword stuck right through the Invisible. The monsters yellow eyes flashed at Luigi before the heartless died in a burst of smoke. Amazed and not quite sure how he'd just done all that, Luigi sighed in relief and relaxed his stance. Looking at the sword in his hand with interest, Luigi took a few swipes at the air with the blade and held it up in front of his face in a way he hoped would make him look cool. The blade promptly vanished from his hands. Luigi blinked and sighed.

"Luigi, look out!" Mario called. Luigi did not react in time to avoid a hard smack to the face from another of the Invisible's swords, which the monster had thrown at him. Luigi went flying across the room and landed with a thud, apparently unconscious, while the sword returned to it's masters hand. The Invisible looked on at the fallen plumber, it turned back towards Mario and received a strong punch in the face from said hero.

"Hey! That's-a my brother you just gob-smacked!"

The Invisible staggered backwards before slamming it's sword into the ground. Having witnessed his brother's fight, Mario waited as the ring of flames appeared around him and began spinning. When it stopped Mario jumped out of the way, avoiding the attack.

"I hardly see the point in-a that technique" Mario commented as the Invisible reappeared by it's sword. Mario stood firm as the heartless flew at him. Ducking under a long swing of it's sword, Mario bounced up and punched the Invisible in the chest. Then while it was distracted he grabbed it's foot and flipped it over, slamming the Invisible onto the ground. While the heartless struggled to get up Mario jumped onto it's chest and began relentlessly pounding it's face, hitting it a little bit harder with every blow until the Invisible couldn't take any more and died in a puff of smoke. Mario landed steadily and wiped his hands clean, taking a moment to admire his handiwork before running off to check on Luigi.

"Luigi, bro, are you alright?" Mario asked while cradling his brother's head in his arms. Luigi remained completely motionless at first, before suddenly letting out a loud snore. Mario looked at him funny for a moment, then let out a soft chuckle "Yep, you're fine"

Feeling confident his brother wouldn't suffer any permanent head injury, Mario set him down and looked around for the last Invisible. He saw the heartless being chased around by Charlie Brown, who kept trying to strike it with light spheres only to have the Invisible deflect them with it's sword. Finally the Invisible stopped moving, and Charlie Brown charged at it with light covered fists. However, he ended up walking right into a trap, as the Invisible flew up just before Charlie Brown could reach it and then swooped down, nailing Charlie Brown in the face with it's blunt sword. Charlie Brown fell to the ground and slid into the corner. The Invisible prepared to go after him, before it noticed Mario and changed it's course.

Feeling dizzy, Charlie Brown lifted his head up and began pushing himself off the ground. On the other side of the room he spotted Mario dodging swift strikes from the last invisible, landing the occasional blow to the monster's body but having a hard time avoiding being struck himself. Shrugging off his pain, Charlie Brown got to his feet, stretched out an open palm and began channelling light, ready to fire at the monster. He was about to let loose when he suddenly remembered, Mario was in the vicinity. The previous battle with Bowser Jr flashed through Charlie Brown's mind, he remembered his light beam striking Mario off guard, he remembered Mario lying injured, not sure if he was conscious or not. The light faded from Charlie Brown's hand, the boy being too afraid to attack. What if he screwed up again? What if this time he took Mario's head off? What should he do? If he just charged straight in he'd probably get in the way or get struck back by the Invisible. If he fired a light beam or sphere, he might hit Mario again.

'Oh, good grief. What do I do?' Charlie Brown asked himself, eyes closed tight in panic. He wanted to help Mario, but he was just so afraid...

Charlie Brown's eyes opened suddenly. He remembered Luigi, and how he feared everything but still went out of his way to be a hero. No matter how scared Luigi was, he always stood by Mario's side and fought the bad guys. It was easy for him. With this in mind Charlie Brown floated a bit closer to the action and charged another light beam, raising his hand.

And then lowering it.

'But what if I screw up?' Charlie Brown fretted. Then he remembered what Mario told him back at the diner. He'd said that the Mario brothers screwed up plenty of times when they first started being heroes, but that didn't stop them. The two were great heroes, the most respected people in this whole kingdom, and it was because they never gave up and always gave their best, overcoming their shortcomings to save the day. If they could do it, why couldn't he?

Banishing all negative thoughts from his mind, Charlie Brown stubbornly and determinedly raised his palms.

'Don't think about screwing up. Don't think about failure. Just do what you have to do, believe in myself. Believe in myself already!' Charlie Brown screamed in his head. Abandoning all worries, Charlie Brown finally let loose an enormous beam of light, which flew over Mario's head and struck the Invisible dead on. The heartless fell back into the light, it's body fading away in seconds.

When the light subsided Mario looked up at where the Invisible had just been floating and blinked, looking over his shoulder to see Charlie Brown floating with his palm outstretched. The kid was looking rather surprised at his success. Charlie Brown looked at Mario, who after a brief moment of hesitation smiled and gave him a thumbs up. Charlie Brown beamed, delighted with himself.

Over in the corner of the room, Luigi sat up and let out a big yawn while stretching his arms wide, apparently awaking from a pleasant sleep. He got up and walked over to where his brother was standing. Charlie Brown dropped to the floor and joined them.

"So, did we win?" Luigi asked, stifling another yawn.

"We won, Luigi. We won" Mario replied positively, smiling at Charlie Brown and patting him on the back "Told you so"

As the heroes celebrated their victory, Sparky floated forward from his own corner of the room, looking a lot less enthusiastic than his allies. Charlie Brown caught on to this, and immediately knew something was wrong "What is it?"

"Three Invisibles hiding in a castle. No, that can't be all. If my sister had this trap set, and I'm sure she had some say in it, then it would be a lot more dangerous than this. It isn't over, my friends" Sparky answered grimly. The heroes looked at him in concern and immediately let their guards back up, preparing for the worst. Suddenly they all gained curious looks.

"Um, Mario, Luigi, did the floor just start feeling... I dunno, different?" Charlie Brown asked.

"Like we might just-a sink into it?" Luigi pondered.

The three heroes looked down at their feet to find that an enormous circle of dark energy had appeared on the floor, and they were standing right in the middle of it. Three screams echoed off the walls as the trio jumped out of the way. The darkness began spiralling, and within seconds a figure began to emerge from the ground. Charlie Brown, Mario and Luigi watched in horror as an enormous creature, a black muscular beast with a flowing red mane and two huge horns. Green thorns were wrapped around it's body and limbs. Two broken chains were also wrapped around it's arms, while an unbroken chain hung between the beasts legs. The monster looked at the trembling heroes with it's glowing yellow eyes, a scowl formed across it's horrible face, it held back it's head and...

"RRRROOOOOOOOOOAAAAARRRRRRR!"

---

Back outside, Sally and Yoshi were currently preoccupied fighting Kamek while Snoopy and Woodstock tried to fend off the swarm of Shy Guys.

Yoshi stood panting from the effort of avoiding Kamek's rapid fire attack, Sally patted him comfortingly on the head and encouraged him to go on. The koopa wizard floated above the duo, holding his wand back and charging a massive ball of magical energy. Yoshi stopped panting and looked up to see the magikoopa preparing his next attack. After his magical sphere had reach the size of a basketball Kamek thrust his wand forward and sent the orb flying at Yoshi, who leaned backwards and kicked the magic ball right back at him. Kamek was so taken off guard by the act he did even both to get out of the way, and was sent flying off into the distance by the sphere.

"Wow. Can you do the same thing with a baseball bat, my brother's team could really use your help" Sally quipped. Yoshi chirped happily, before noticing another magic sphere flying at him even faster than the last. Eyes widening, Yoshi turned tail and ran, but was still caught in the radius of the blast, sending him and Sally toppling down the hill, stopping well away from the castle.

Yoshi groaned as he got up and steadied himself. Sally had had the misfortune to land in a puddle of mud, messing up her dress and hair. With a disgusted look, she got out of the puddle and wiped her shoes on the grass.

"Ok, I am definitely sending him my dry-cleaning bill" Sally complained, hoisting herself back onto Yoshi's back. The two looked up to see Kamek swooping down and shooting fire balls at them. Yoshi sidestepped the majority of the blasts before swallowing the last one. His face turned bright red for a moment before he spat out a stream of fire straight at Kamek. Shocked, Kamek ducked to avoid the blast, only to have the top of his hat still get burned off.

Patting the singed top of his hat, Kamek glared down at the duo and charged up his wand for more attacks.

Back up the hill, Snoopy was wildly flailing his arms around in an attempt to strike back at the Shy Guys. However, the fact that he was standing perfectly in place and the Shy Guys were keeping to a safe distance just resulted in him looking silly. Woodstock shook his head, embarrassed by his friends antics. Deciding he'd have to handle things himself, the little bird crouched down into a running position, picked out the weakest looking Shy Guy and rushed forward, flying in loops while aiming to strike the Shy Guy through the eye hole of it's mask. The hooded enemy merely waited until Woodstock was in arm reach then grabbed him, holding him back as Woodstock struggled determinedly to break free of his grip.

The Shy Guy gave the struggling Woodstock a curious look that somehow reflected in it's mask. A loud "Hiyaa!" suddenly echoed, the Shy Guy looked up to see Snoopy land a flying kick to the face. The Shy Guy staggered back from the attack, soon finding himself caught in the downward slope of the hill and falling backwards, ultimately rolling into a boulder and being knocked unconscious.

"Ow... Who put this here?" The Shy Guy wondered in a squeaky voice before blacking out. Back up the hill by the castle Snoopy picked Woodstock up and dusted him off before placing him gently back on the ground and looking down in the direction of the defeated Shy Guy.

"Let that be a lesson to you, no one grabs this bird out of the air except me!" Snoopy thought threateningly.

"III IIII, II I III"

Snoopy looked down at Woodstock, who was pointing nervously with his wing to behind the duo. Snoopy looked back to see one of the other Shy Guys run up and prepare to tackle him. Reacting just in the nick of time, Snoopy leapfrogged over the Shy Guy. As the Shy Guy came to a halt, Snoopy took the opportunity to grab hold of his belt and pull it off. Snoopy then used the belt as a whip to strike at the other three Shy Guys getting ready to attack him, the first Shy Guy was hit hard in the stomach making him fall to his knees in pain, the second had the belt wrapped around his feet to trip him up, and with the third Shy Guy Snoopy actually managed to knock off it's mask. Snoopy and Woodstock at first gave curious looks at the maskless Shy Guy, which turned to looks of utter horror as their minds comprehended what they were seeing. The unmasked Shy Guy covered it's face in shame, kneeled down to pick up it's mask and ran away.

The Shy Guy who's belt Snoopy had stolen was still looking around, apparently wondering where Snoopy had gone before eventually realizing he was behind him. Snoopy and Woodstock were still terrified by what they had seen, but the Shy Guy didn't notice, more concerned with the fact that he was missing his belt. Spotting it in Snoopy's paw, the Shy Guy made to pat Snoopy's shoulder. The beagle howled in shock, flipping around and assuming a threatening stance while holding the belt up in warning. The left eyehole of the Shy Guy's mask rose in confusion. Not put off by Snoopy's display, the Shy Guy held out his hand expectantly. Slowly, Snoopy calmed down and looked at the outstretched palm. Looking at the belt he was holding, Snoopy complied and handed it back to it's owner.

"Thank you" The last remaining Shy Guy said as he re-buckled his belt. Snoopy made a gesture like he was tipping a hat, then proceeded to push the Shy Guy down the hill. A few yards down, the Shy Guy that had previously collided into the boulder shook it's head and sat up, regaining consciousness. The masked hoodlum let out a relieved sigh and it's mouth hole formed into something of a grin. Then the other Shy Guy came tumbling down and crashed into him, knocking them both out in the process.

"Ha, that'll show them to mess with us, won't it" Snoopy said boastfully, Woodstock tweeted in agreement, puffing up his chest in an effort to look manly. Snoopy snickered at this display, before suddenly finding himself hoisted off the ground. Shocked, Snoopy began squirming around, looking up to see he had been grabbed by a quartet of hooded creatures with turtle like faces and a single large buck tooth each, and propellers growing out of their heads, which helped them to rise up and carry Snoopy twenty feet into the air. Getting nervous, Snoopy began struggling and hitting his captors, but was too scared to break free at this height. Woodstock, feet still planted firmly on the ground, could only look up and squawk in worry.

---

"Duck!"

Taking Mario's warning, Luigi ducked under a swipe from the monster's enormous claws. The green clad plumber was already sporting three deep gashes on his left arm and a lot of battle wear on his clothes. But he was still much better off than his teammates.

The monster continued swiping at Luigi, who just narrowly managed to avoid them for a while before the heartless grabbed hold of him and began spinning him around rapidly, then throwing him hard into a wall. Luigi fell with a thud, looking incredibly battered. The beast crouched down and bounded forward, ready to slice the plumber to pieces, when Charlie Brown suddenly flew in from the side and tackled the beast, forcing it into the wall and proceeding to land several rapid fire punches to it's head. For a moment the monster could do nothing but take the blows, but eventually it kicked Charlie Brown. While Charlie Brown recoiled from the attack the heartless swatted him away, roaring before suddenly becoming invisible.

Charlie Brown regrouped with Mario and Sparky, the former having most of his overalls torn off. Luckily he was wearing red jeans underneath, which also helped to hide some of the blood.

"What the heck is that thing?" Mario asked, clutching a wound on his stomach.

"A Dark Thorn, an elite heartless. More the kind of foe I'd expect my sister to set us up against. Very dangerous creature, even more so when they turn invisible. Usually they evolve from another form of heartless known as a Shadow Stalker. It's going to take a lot more effort to defeat this one. Listen carefully, it may not be visible but these heartless are still heavy footed" Sparky explained. Mario looked over to his brother, still lying in pain. From the looks of it that last attack might have broken his back, or at least injured it too much to keep him moving. Peeling his eyes and listening carefully, Mario got into a crouching position.

"I'm-a going to go check on Luigi, watch my back" Mario instructed to Charlie Brown, who nodded while lighting up his fists.

Mario charged forward, still listening carefully. Hearing a set of footsteps, Mario sidestepped just in time to avoid a killing blow from the Dark Thorn. Charlie Brown noticed this and fired a light beam. A pained growl could be heard as the Dark Thorn became visible once more, clutching it's eyes where the beam had apparently struck. Mario just kept running as Charlie Brown began forming light spheres in his hands to bombard the monster with.

"You alright bro?" Mario asked as he kneeled over Luigi, who looked weakly up at him.

"Worse than I look, actually" Luigi spluttered back.

"Can you chew?" Mario asked urgently.

"I t-think" Luigi replied. Mario sighed and pulled out the bag of power ups, which luckily Snoopy had left behind in the restaurant. Scurrying through the reduced number of items, Mario eventually pulled out two red mushrooms with white spots and black beady eyes. Luigi opened his mouth wide so Mario could stuff one of them inside for him to chew, while Mario gobbled down the second. A loud sound effect echoed, Luigi's and Mario's injuries began to fade, and even their clothes seemed to repair themselves as the mushrooms effects took place. Luigi got to his feet, stretching his legs and cracking his back to make sure everything was in order.

"Phew. Thank God for magic mushrooms" Luigi said cheerfully. A few seconds later he frowned awkwardly "You know, the non-drug kind, those are bad"

"I know what you meant" Mario said plainly, checking in on Charlie Brown. The Light Guardian was still hurling light spheres at the Dark Thorn. The colossal heartless staggered backwards, trying to cover itself with it's arms. When it had finally had enough of Charlie Brown's attacks ran forward and spun around, sending Charlie Brown flying into a wall, then prepared to run at him again and skewer him with it's claws. Seeing this, Mario ran in front of Charlie Brown, as the Dark Thorn approached he leapt up, put all his strength into his right foot, and kicked the monster in the jaw. It didn't go flying, but the heartless still staggered backwards from the force of the attack, giving Mario a chance to strike at the beasts kneecaps, which seemed to annoy the Dark Thorn more than anything. The heartless tried slicing at Mario, but the plumber out maneuverer each strike and delivered several punches to the beast's face in between. With an enraged roar the Dark Thorn jumped backwards pounded the floor, creating a shock wave that knocked Mario off his feet. Sensing it's opportunity, the Dark Thorn raised it's claws and struck downwards, only to be knocked right back by a light beam Charlie Brown had spent the last minute charging up for.

The Dark Thorn growled and turned invisible once more, leading Mario and Charlie Brown to listen out for it. Luigi meanwhile was now approaching Sparky.

"So, what sort of weaknesses does this thing got?" Luigi asked.

"Light. That's just what all heartless are weak against, but the Dark Thorn doesn't have any other particular weak spots. Defeating it is pretty straight forward, just keep hitting it with everything you've got until it dies" Sparky replied.

"And how long before that happens?" Luigi asked, earning him a shrug from Sparky.

"Depends on how strong this one is. It's right behind you, by the way" Sparky warned. Luigi jumped out of the way to avoid the invisible monsters first attack, but was then backhanded and sent crashing into a charging Mario, knocking them both over. Charlie Brown floated over them and began looking around for the Dark Thorn, listening carefully. The sound of it's footsteps grew close, Charlie Brown prepared to fire, but the beast grabbed both of it's hands and held him up. Making itself visible again, the Dark Thorn roared in Charlie Brown's face and slammed him against the ground. It then continued to slam Charlie Brown against the floor repeatedly until Charlie Brown finally let loose a blast that hit the beasts eyes, blinding it long enough to make it let go, dropping Charlie Brown down next to Mario.

Spitting out a bit of blood, a battered Charlie Brown got up, the effects of his healing ability having visibly slowed down. He exchanged glances with the Mario brothers and grimaced.

'Please tell me this doesn't go on for too much longer'

The Dark Thorn roared and ran forward. Mario and Luigi responded by running in the opposite directions around the heartless, while Charlie Brown floated above it. While the creature focused it's attentions of Charlie Brown, the Mario brothers leapt up from either side of the heartless and simultaneously punched the sides of it's face. This must have done it a great deal of pain, judging by the shriek the beast let out. It responded by swatting Mario away. Luigi jumped on the creatures back and began climbing up it's mane. The Dark Thorn felt Luigi and began shaking around, Luigi held on tight, quickly starting to feel sick as the heartless shook him around. Noticing how well distracted the heartless was, Charlie Brown formed a hammer shaped veil around himself and dove down, striking the Dark Thorn straight in the back, carefully avoiding Luigi while also pinning the monster down. Relieved at the lack of motion, Luigi made for the Dark Thorn's head and punched the creature in back eyes. The Dark Thorn yelped in pain.

Charlie Brown tried hard to hold the Dark Thorn down, but the heartless proved too strong, getting to it's feet, pulling Charlie Brown off it's back and throwing him away. Letting out another roar, the Dark Thorn began running around in circles. The heroes wondered for a moment why it was doing this, but it's reasons became clear when the spots of ground where the creature touched began to glow purple, before rising up as what looked like purple ghosts. the first of the ghosts flew straight for Luigi, head-butting him and sending him flying back a few feet, dissipating as it did so. Noticing this, Charlie Brown set up a sphere of light to guard himself from the purple spirits attacking him while Mario simply avoided the rest of them until they disappeared on their own.

Seeing that it's new strategy was yielding little success, the Dark Thorn skidded to a sudden stop and made another run for the heroes. Charlie Brown lowered his light bubble and fired another light beam at the heartless, the Dark Thorn jumped over this attack and pinned Charlie Brown to the ground. Roaring in Charlie Brown's face, the creature would have bitten his head off if Mario and Luigi hadn't both ran underneath the beast, jumped and punched it in the chest. The Dark Thorn growled in pain, it's momentarily lapse in concentration allowed Charlie Brown to slip free. Tired of being attacked, Charlie Brown summoned a set of light chains, which wrapped around the Dark Thorn, even linking up with it's own chains, and pinning it down to the ground.

The heartless struggled against these new restraints, it took all of Charlie Brown's mental strength to keep the chains tangible. Mario and Luigi saw this as their cue to begin mercilessly beating the monster. Luigi went for punching the Dark Thorn over and over again in the face, while Mario kicked it in the stomach. After about a minute of their pounding, the Dark Thorn's struggles to break free lessened, and Charlie Brown took this to mean that the heartless was weakening. So it took him a little off guard when the Dark Thorn suddenly channelled all of it's strength into standing up and tearing out of the light chains, sending Mario and Luigi sliding away and Charlie Brown floating back a few feet in the process.

"ROOOOOAAAARRRR!" The Dark Thorn let out another roar.

Charlie Brown's head began pounding from all the noise the heartless had been making during the fight. It was this frustration that led to him lifting his hand and firing a light blast at the Dark Thorn while yelling "Be quiet!" The beam tore a small hole right through the Dark Thorn's forehead. The heartless stood motionless for a moment before it's bright yellow eyes dimmed. The Dark Thorn fell on the floor, open mouthed and sprawled out, it's body slowly fading into black smoke. Mario, Luigi, Sparky and Charlie Brown all watched on in amazement as the alpha heartless died before them.

Mario blinked a few times before sending a most impressed look at Charlie Brown, who was himself marvelling over his handiwork.

"Well, glad that's over" Luigi sighed. He then looked worried and asked Sparky "It is over this time, right?"

"Wait a moment" Sparky said. The heroes waited for a minute, but nothing else happened, so Sparky declared "Ok, it's over"

"But what do we do now, the exits are still blocked" Mario pointed out. Not a moment later the dark barriers surrounding the doors throughout the room faded away "... Oh, never mind. Still, what should we do now, keep going?"

"I'm worried about Sally and the others. If we were just attacked, they might have been too" Charlie Brown voiced his concern.

"Oh, good point. Quick, let's go check on them" Mario insisted, and everyone made for the door they had originally entered through.

---

Returning to just outside the castle, the battle between Yoshi, Sally and Kamek was still going on, though the old Magikoopa was getting tired. So far he'd tried almost every trick up his sleeve to crush the dinosaur. He'd fired dozens of magic bolts, used all the elemental spells he could think of, levitated rocks to fly at Yoshi, creating duplicated of himself to hound him in all directions, and even summoning a goomba and growing it to giant size. But, as was usual, Yoshi somehow managed to beat him at every turn. And he hated that. Kamek hated the fact that he always lost to Yoshi. Hated it as much as Bowser hated losing to Mario, because that's what the dinosaur was. He was Kamek's Mario. But no more, Kamek refused to lose this time.

Yoshi watched carefully as Kamek floated above him, waiting for the magikoopas next move. With just a quick look down Kamek teleported behind Yoshi, charging up a magic bolt. Yoshi jumped over the blast and onto Kamek's head, stomping the magikoopa into the ground and jumping off him. Kamek groaned indignantly as Sally just laughed.

"Wow, some wizard you are, can't even handle a cute little dinosaur. We got this in the bag Yoshi, this guy's a pushover" Sally said smugly. Steam threatened to escape from Kamek's ears as he got up and began shooting magic bolts around wildly. Yoshi had to duck, jump, turn and dodge in all directions to avoid the rapid fire blasts, which just kept coming and coming until one of them finally hit Sally and sent her flying off Yoshi's back, landing with a shriek and a thud a yard away.

"Yoshi!" Yoshi screamed in worry. Kamek grinned widely, delighted with his luck. As Yoshi ran to go help Sally, Kamek teleported in front of the dinosaur and struck him in the face with another magic blast, knocking Yoshi over.

Coughing slightly, Yoshi looked up to see Kamek floating over him in sinister fashion, brandishing his wand and looking darkly satisfied.

"I've waited countless years for this moment, and now finally it's hear. Goodbye, Yoshi" Kamek raised his wand and aimed for the spot directly between Yoshi's eyes...

At the same time all this had been happening, Snoopy was still being dragged through the air by the four Toadies, who showed no more interest in letting him go than Snoopy had in remaining their captive. Woodstock looked up in concern and wondered what he could do to help. He tried flying up to reach Snoopy, but after about eight feet off the ground he fell down again, suffering from a beak bleed. Woodstock tried climbing on some Ivy growing on the walls of the castle, but the vines snapped as he climbed them and he landed on his head.

Shaking off the impact, Woodstock looked up once more to his struggling companion, feeling ashamed that he couldn't help Snoopy. What could he do anyway? He was a small yellow bird, he didn't even weigh a whole pound. He couldn't play tennis, let alone fight a quartet of otherworldly creatures. He was useless, he was utterly useless. Or at least that's what he felt.

With a sigh and a few tears, Woodstock looked downwards, his gaze wandering down the hillside, where something caught his eye. Not too far down the hill there was a floating block that was still yellow with question marks. If Woodstock had learned anything about this world, it was that as well as coins those blocks had power ups, like the ones he'd used back at the restaurant. Chirping hopefully, Woodstock ran down the hillside and underneath the block. Flying in his typical upside down manner, Woodstock bumped into the underside of the block, even his slight weight was enough to release what was inside. He was in luck: A fire flower!. Woodstock grabbed the plant in between his wings, the classical sound effect echoed and Woodstock's body turned a mix of red and white.

Fire Woodstock ran back up the hill to the castle, climbing up some of the less brittle ivy to get a better shot at the Toady. Aiming carefully, Woodstock pointed a wing in the direction of the four Toadies and let loose a ball of fire... which flew right under them. Disappointed but not discouraged, Woodstock shot another fireball at them. This one flew over the flying quartet instead. The Toadies for their part took no notice, just hovering aimlessly while keeping a grip on Snoopy. Seeing he needed a better strategy, Woodstock began shooting as many fireballs as he could in their general area. Most of the fireballs just narrowly missed the Toadies, but one of them finally made contact. The Toady that had been hit let out a scream of pain, released it's grip on Snoopy and fell to the ground. The other Toadies were in such shock and disarray at this occurrence that they ended up dropping Snoopy, who plummeted to the earth.

Woodstock's beady eyes widened in shock, he jumped on down from the ivy and ran to the spot where it looked like Snoopy would land, stretching his wings out to catch him. Then he realised that this would probably only result in him being crushed, and so he braced for impact...

But it didn't come. Curious, Woodstock looked up to see that Snoopy was hovering above him, his ears spinning together like a helicopter, granting him flight. Woodstock smiled at his buddy, who smiled back.

"Forgot I could do this, didn't you" Snoopy said cheerfully.

"II IIII III!" Woodstock tweeted nervously, pointing upwards. Snoopy looked up to see the three uninjured Toadies flying down to grab him again. Motioning for Woodstock to hop onto his lap, which he did, Snoopy flew out of the way, the three Toadies beginning to chase him.

The Toadies chased the now airborn Snoopy and Woodstock all through the air, going over the castle and around the plains. Eventually Snoopy turned around, somehow flying backwards, giving Fire Woodstock a clear view of the oncoming Toadies.

"Let 'er rip!" Snoopy commanded. Woodstock shot a fireball, taking out the lead Toady. He shot another two fireballs, the two Toadies managed to avoid them, but the one on the right fell victim to the third fireball Woodstock shot his way. The final Toady managed to avoid a steady stream of fireballs Woodstock shot at him, but eventually it too was shot down. Seeing that they were now out of danger, Snoopy hovered closer to the ground, and the friends cheered for their victory, until Woodstock tugged at Snoopy's stomach to get his attention and pointed downwards.

Snoopy looked where Woodstock was pointing and saw that both Sally and Yoshi were down, and Kamek was hovering above Yoshi and pointing his wand at his face. With a nervous yelp, Snoopy flew down quickly, right before Kamek could fire a fatal magic blast Woodstock shot out a fireball that struck Kamek directly in the backside. Kamek's glasses bulged slightly as his eyes widened and he let out a yelp, hopping around in circles as his bottom burned. Yoshi blinked momentarily before spotting Snoopy and Woodstock, the former of whom gave him a wink and a salute. Yoshi smiled and saluted back.

After a dozen seconds of bouncing about Kamek finally came to a stop, putting out the fire on his butt with a splash of water from his wand and turning around angrily.

"Ok, who's the wiseguy!?" Kamek demanded. Yoshi's tongue suddenly shot out and wrapped around him, dragging Kamek into Yoshi's mouth. Yoshi ran over to where a boulder was and spat Kamek at it, causing him great pain as he hit it.

Kamek slunk to the floor, birds circling his head as he was left dazed from the impact. After a moment he regained his senses, looking up to see Yoshi, Snoopy and Woodstock standing over him in a threatening manner. Sally walked up and picked up the chief magikoopa's fallen wand, pointing it at Kamek's face. Kamek sighed in humiliation.

"Oh how I hate cute animals" Kamek muttered. His attention was caught by the sound of the castle doors opening in the distance, and everyone looked up to see Charlie Brown, Mario, Luigi and Sparky running down the hill to check on them. Kamek's jaw dropped at the sight of them, he jumped up and yanked his wand out of Sally's hand and teleported away, earning an indignant "Hey!" from Sally.

Kamek reappeared before Charlie Brown and the Mario brothers, looking over them like they were unreal.

"How-how did you survive that trap!?" Kamek asked.

"You mean those-a heartless? They were tough, but we're-a the Mario Brothers and Charlie Brown's the guardian of light. It was a no contest" Mario said confidently. Kamek blinked a few times and facepalmed.

"It would appear our new benefactor overestimated the minions he provided us, Bowser will not be happy about this" Kamek said to himself.

"And who would this new benefactor be, Kamek? A thirteen year old boy with a green hat and dark powers, an egg shaped mad scientist? Or perhaps a short, incredibly sexist teen with an unusual, slightly archaic name?" Sparky asked. Kamek eyes the dog spirit.

"All three actually, they showed up in our Doomship last night and night and offered us an alliance to conquer the universe and defeat you" Kamek explained. A few seconds later he face palmed and grumbled "WHY did I just tell them that?"

"So then this wasn't just a coincidence, my sister's forces have indeed formed a alliance with Bowser" Sparky said gravely. Kamek glared at him and the other, then looked back to find Yoshi and the others heading up to him. He sighed.

"I'd love to stay and discuss the koopa troops recent magor developments with you, but, I really wouldn't because that would get me fired or demoted. So if you need me I'll be heading back to Darkland, ta-ta" That was all Kamek said before he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Sally and the others approached the group, all eyes on the smoke Kamek had conjured up. Charlie Brown looked down at his sister and ran up to check oh her.

"Are you alright Sally?" Charlie Brown asked, hugging her.

"I'm fine, big brother. A little shook up, and you're going to have to buy me a clean dress before we go home, but otherwise I'm good" Sally replied "So, what did old sorcerer coo-coo brains want?"

"Well Sally, it would appear that my sister's forces have aligned themselves with the koopas, we were all just attacked by heartless in that castle" Sparky told her. Sally, Snoopy and Woodstock all gasped, while Yoshi just looked perplexed, wondering what heartless meant.

"Yeah, it looks like we're in trouble alright" Charlie Brown nodded.

"So, quick question, how big a threat are these heartless anyway?" Luigi asked.

"It varies depending on which species of heartless you're facing, there are countless species of them, and many far worse than that Dark Thorn you just thought. But luckily they there's a limit to how many of them can enter into the realm of light within a day, they're not naturally born into this realm, so the universal barriers between worlds don't normally allow them to pass without permission from the Light Guardian. My sister can send a few through, but not all of them, that's all that's stopping an enormous invasion of Heartless across all worlds. But it's not the heartless I'm currently worried about, I'm more concerned with Joe Agate. If he's recover then that means, as well as Bowser and his minions, we'll have to fight Joe as well as Eggman possibly, if he's recovered any of his machines he could pose a threat. Indeed, we're on for a lot worse than we'd imagined" Sparky's words left everyone feeling a bit discouraged. Charlie Brown and Sally had seen first hand how powerful Joe was, and a villainous alliance did not sound good for them, especially when they barely made it out of this last confrontation alive.

Though everyone else was reluctant, Mario was quick to get over his concerns "Oh well, we knew it was-a coming sooner or later. It's better to know what we're-a up against, that way when we face it head on we'll be better prepared"

"Hmm, he has a point you know" Snoopy said to Yoshi, who nodded and said his name.

"So, if we're all fine, what should we do now" Sally asked the group.

"Kamek said he was heading back to Darkland. Usually he always reports directly to-a Bowser after a mission, so that means he's probably there already. And that means the princess and Peppermint Patty are-a probably there with him now" Luigi reasoned.

"Ok. So, how far is Darkland?" Charlie Brown asked.

"Well, considering we're at this castle now, we've-a got another six different landscapes to traverse and six more castles to go through before getting to Darkland and then Bowser's-a castle" Mario replied.

"And every new land we go to is bigger and more dangerous than the last" Luigi supplied.

Charlie Brown and Sally facefaulted, Snoopy and Woodstock's eyes widened to enormous size and the latter even fainted.

"What?" Luigi asked innocently.

"Isn't there a quicker way to get there?!" Sally asked indignantly. Mario and Luigi exchanged imploring looks and shrugged at her.

"None that we know of" Mario said honestly. The Brown siblings' faces fell, though Luigi had a light bulb light up above his head.

"Wait, what about that-a unexplored pipe garden?" Luigi asked his brother, earning curious looks from his teammates.

"A what?" Charlie Brown asked.

"A pipe garden is basically an area where a large amount of-a warp pipes are collected. The pipes there lead to all sorts of-a places, the underground, the various castles, even the other side of the world in some cases. They're a great way to-a get around, commonly used for transport. And as Luigi just reminded me, there's-a one just a ten minute walk from here that we haven't really explored before" Mario explained, igniting hope in his friends.

"So, do you think one of those pipes might lead straight to Darkland?" Charlie Brown asked. Again, Mario shrugged.

"It's-a possible. I dunno. But it's worth a try, at the very least one of the pipes might-a get us somewhere closer to where we're going" Mario suggested.

"Good enough for me, where is it?" Sally asked.

"Just follow us" Luigi said.

After Sally had hopped back onto Yoshi, the heroes took off on a stroll. Going around the castle instead of through it, just in case there were any more nasty surprises inside for them, the heroes wandered down the other side of the hill and into a valley. Mario and Luigi led the group off the main path towards a forest, eventually leading them to a forest clearing where dozens and dozens of warp pipes of various colours stood.

"Wow, this is a loooot of pipes. You guys must get a lot of business as plumbers" Sally said, surprised when Mario and Luigi burst out laughing.

"We don't do plumbing as a career anymore, we-a never have the time between fighting evil. Now, let's get looking. Everyone jump down a pipe and report back what you see" Mario instructed. The heroes split up to explore the pipes. Charlie Brown jumped down a yellow pipe, when he came out he found himself in what looked like a bar filled with oddly muscular and vicious looking koopas. Said koopas all shot him warning looks, Charlie Brown smiled meekly.

"Um, is this Darkland?" Charlie Brown asked meekly.

"No, Muscleland" Replied one of the hulking koopas.

"Oh. Well, is Darkland nearby?" Charlie Brown asked.

"Not even close" Replied the same koopa.

"Oh. Ok then, never mind" Charlie Brown replied cautiously, carefully walking backwards towards the pipe while all the muscle-bound koopas watched him dangerously.

"Well, where'd it lead?" Sparky asked as Charlie Brown returned.

"No where I want to go again" Charlie Brown asked, jumping down a normal green pipe.

Sally and Yoshi meanwhile had jumped down a red pipe, coming out in a medieval style town, where all the residents seemed to have elf-like ears.

"Doesn't look too dark, I'm guessing it's not where we're supposed to go" Sally said, her and Yoshi stopped by a shop where a man was selling a lot of strange looking masks "Hey, is Darkland anywhere near here?"

"Hmm? No, it isn't. In fact, it's almost a world away from here. Why do you ask?" The Mask salesman asked.

"Long story, thanks anyway" Sally replied, exiting the store. Her and Yoshi were attracting a lot of attention from the locals, but she seemed not to notice this. Right before the duo hopped down the pipe they passed by a boy wearing some sort of green tunic and hat. Sally took one look at his get up and said "Um, no to be rude, but green is out of fashion this year. I'd recommend wearing blue. Nice sword, by the way" And then Sally and Yoshi hopped down the pipe. The green clad boy watched them leave silently, looking oddly at the creature floating beside him which resembled a glowing blue ball with wings.

Back at the pipe garden, Snoopy dropped down a blue pipe. The screams of several girls echoed through the pipe before Snoopy came popping back out, face red.

"He he, girls locker room" Snoopy told Woodstock, who blushed and giggled.

Luigi dropped down an ordinary green pipe, finding himself back at the site of the Mushroom Castle, which was already nearing reconstruction by the looks of it. Toad, who was standing on a ladder and laying cement on a row of bricks, looked down and spotted Luigi, waving to him.

"Hey Luigi, save the princess yet?!" Toad Asked.

"Not yet!" Luigi called back, climbing back onto the pipe.

"Ok then, see ya later!" Toad called, going back to cementing the wall as Luigi returned to the pipe garden.

The heroes spent the next six minutes testing out the pipes, to little success. Locals they had ended up in included grassland, the Bean Kingdom, and the village they had visited earlier in the day, where Mario got handed an updated bill of one million and a half coins, earning a resounding sigh once he told everyone.

Mario passed by a row of pipes, sticking his head down them as he went along.

"Rose garden" Mario said after looking down a red pipe. He walked over to a blue pipe and looked down it "Desert ruins" He looked down a brown pipe "Sarasaland" He looked down a yellow pipe "An entire valley made out of deserts. I'll have to remember to visit that world later" Mario commented to himself before looking down a green pipe "Ah-ha, Darkland!"

"You found it?" Sally asked as everyone abandoned what they were doing to look at Mario.

"Yep, and it's right outside Bowser's-a castle too" Mario replied.

"Wow, talk about a lucky deus ex machina" Sally said cheerfully.

"So that pipe leads to Bowser's castle huh?" Charlie Brown asked, Mario nodded "Great, let's go rescue our friends!"

"Hold it" Mario said, holding back an overly enthusiastic Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown gave him a curious look as he seriously explained "We're about to walk right into an enemy base. Now Luigi and I have done this loads of times, but this'll be the first time you've ever done something like this, and we're going up against both our enemies together. It's going to be extremely dangerous. Now I can't ask you to not go, that would be stupid, but I can tell you to be on your guard, give it your all, and be very careful. This is where it really counts, don't lose your cool. Be brave, this is going to be a tough fight. Understood?"

"I... yeah, I understand" Charlie Brown nodded. Mario nodded with him.

"Good"

Charlie Brown turned to his sister "Sally, I'm going to send you back to the light palace now. Take Snoopy and Woodstock and Yoshi and-"

"No way!" Sally said defiantly. Charlie Brown and the other authority figures gave her annoyed but worried looks.

"Sally, I'm only looking out for your own good" Charlie Brown insisted.

"Well then who's going to look out for your own good!" Sally said fiercely "Hey, Peppermint Patty's my friend too, I want to help save her. And you're my brother, you think I'm just going to let you charge into a bad guys evil base with only a couple of plumbers to protect you?! Nu-uh, I'm coming too. Even if I can't help much I'm going to face this with you, and you can't stop me from protecting you. And if you do, I'll nag you until you have no other choice but to let me stay! Understand?"

Charlie Brown was momentarily taken aback by Sally's words. He looked to Sparky and the Mario brother, who just motioned for him to deal with it himself. He looked back at Sally's determined face and sighed "At the first sign that things get too dangerous, I'm sending you back no matter what you say. And you have to stay by Yoshi at all times, don't try to fight anyone that's too tough for you alone"

"Fair enough" Sally said with a victorious smile. Charlie Brown was already regretting his decision, but what could he do? He was still too meek to argue with her, especially when she actually put up a mildly good argument.

Charlie Brown looked at Snoopy and Woodstock, who were both staring straight at him. "I suppose you're coming too?"

Snoopy put on his flying ace hat as Woodstock also put on an army private helmet.

"The World War I Flying Ace and his buddy in the infantry are ready to engage the enemy, General Pershing! Er-I mean, general Brown? It is Brown right, I didn't mix it up this time?" Snoopy's thoughts went from serious to bemused. Charlie Brown almost chuckled, but the seriousness of the matter at hand kept him silent.

"Ok, so, without further ado..." Sparky began, gesturing to the warp pipe. Luigi was the first to jump down the pipe, followed by Sally and Yoshi. Snoopy picked up Woodstock and the duo went in together, while Charlie Brown, Mario and Sparky stayed behind for a moment.

"Nervous?" Mario asked his young pal.

"A little" Charlie Brown said, before noticing his hands were shaking "Ok, maybe a lot. But I'm ready, my friend's life is on the line, and I'm not going to let her down!"

"That's the spirit" Sparky said confidently, floating down over the pipe "Just keep that in mind. Think positive, and things will turn out better" He added before floating down the pipe. Mario prepared to climb in after him, but looked back at Charlie Brown to give him some last words of wisdom.

"By the way, it's-a ok to be scared sometimes. It shows you're not stupid. A man who fears nothing is-a more likely to rush into things and not think everything through than a man who is afraid, but marches on anyway. The people who are brave but still know fear are-a the smart ones" Mario said, sliding into the pipe. Charlie Brown thought about that for a moment. He wasn't completely sure he believed that one, but he'd keep it in mind anyway.

Charlie Brown got up onto the pipe and slid down. He was momentarily blinded by the darkness, and when he came out he still couldn't see much at first.

When Charlie Brown's eyes finally adjusted to the light, he realised just how Darkland got it's name. The skies were pitch black, and while there seemed to be some slight source of light allowing Charlie Brown to see in front of himself, he still couldn't see very far. The ground here was brown and barren, he could see a tree nearby that was rotting and decrepit, with a leave-less bush at it's side.

Spotting his friends and noticing the direction they were all looking, he turned to see Bowser's castle. And man, what a castle it was. The koopas castle was at least a hundred feet tall. The wall was very high, but there were still several towers in view above it, but none compared to the one at the centre, which was an enormous replica of Bowser's upper body and head, with glowing red eyes and mouth for effect. How they were glowing was a mystery, but the effect was suitably menacing. The doors at the front of the castle were enormous, an unfitting light brown shade mostly, but the metal parts were painted black, and the door handles were shaped like Bowser's head. Yeah, it was a pretty impressive castle. And by that I mean impressively terrifying. It took Charlie Brown a moment to get a hold of himself. When he did he felt sort of embarrassed for being scared, but this placed just screamed super creepy.

Sally and the animals felt the same way, they were all looking up at the castle with great apprehension, only the Mario brothers and Sparky looked unfazed, though for good reason.

"... Yikes. Suddenly I'm wondering whether I should have gone back" Sally said in a small voice.

"I could send you back right now if you want" Charlie Brown said, silently hoping she would agree. She immediately changed her mind.

"Nope, I'm going in" Sally said determinedly. Charlie Brown sighed. For a moment he wondered if he had just kept quiet she might have asked to be sent back, but she just didn't want to agree with his suggestion to stay out of things.

"Ok gang, this is it. The big one, once we step inside it's a one way ticket to-a carnage. No turning back. So, answer me now... does anybody need to go to-a the bathroom?" Mario asked, receiving no answer "... Ok then, let's-a go"

---

Tiger Lover 16: Ok, and that's that. Whew. This one was a pain in the neck. And I mean a HUGE pain in the neck. I'll be honest, I didn't know what the heck I was doing for most of this, I had most of the magor plot points (If you can argue this chapter has a plot) Planned out, but I didn't know how I was going to go about writing this chapter, and I was completely lost during most of it. The whole thing is basically filler, I couldn't skip ahead to the conclusion too soon because that would have been rushing it, but I still don't like this chapter much. It just seems sloppy. It's not all that bad to be fair, but it's not as good as it should be anyway. I'm glad it's done. So, now that I'm done complaining about that, here's the authors notes and trivia for this chapter:

-To the guest reviewer that keeps leaving suggestions for series to be used in these stories, hope you're still reading this. I hate to disappoint people, but I'm afraid I can't go with any of your suggestions. The Hobbit I have never read the book or seen the movies. I haven't watched Adventure Time or Regular Show, so I can't use any of those series in the story. I do like Calvin and Hobbes, but aside from that one joke last chapter I really couldn't feature the characters in a larger role because, well, they wouldn't fit in very well with the larger story, and I want to try and avoid stuffing in too many characters just for the heck of it. As for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I love the films, but I would never do a marvel story set within that universe. Why? Well, it's just so... limited. Apart from only starring Avengers and Shield characters so far, and none of the other characters including the best ones (Spidey, F4, X-men), the universe is too grounded, I prefer fantastical. I will be adapting a Marvel universe, but not the Cinematic one, just not right for the story. I'm sorry about all that. I would love it if I could make a comic version of this story, that would be awesome, but unfortunately I don't know anyone who has a deviantart account or can draw very good, so that's out of the question. Sorry.

-So, I'm sure some of you are wondering why Charlie Brown, after pummelling the high powered Joe Agate two chapters ago, had so much trouble fighting anything this chapter. Well, that goes with the explanations of how Charlie Brown's powers worked. The exact level of power Charlie Brown can use is linked in part to his emotional state, and considering everything that's happened in the last two chapters, he's feeling particularly down this chapter, so he's not at all at his best here. He needed a bit of a confidence boost before he could fight properly again, which was much the point of this chapter, to get him ready for the big battles next chapter. Considering Charlie Brown is famous for being both an optimist and a sadsac, it's going to be interesting to see how this affects things in later chapters.

-Like I've said, this chapter is a bit disappointing, but there are some things I liked. I got to explore the Mario world a little more in depth, bringing in a lot of new creatures that inhabit it, such as Monty Moles, Cheep Cheeps and Toadys, which for those that don't know are enemies from the Yoshi's Island series of games that show up to kidnap Baby Mario if Yoshi is separated from him for too long. As they work for Kamek I thought I should use them in this chapter. I don't think this is a perfectly accurate version of the Mario universe, but then again I'd need dozens of chapters to fully represent it, so consider this just a peek into what this world is like.

The fight scenes in this chapter may have seemed a little uneven and less than spectacular this chapter, sorry about that, but I really wasn't with it this chapter. Next chapter will be a lot more awesome. I did kinda like the fight against Bowser Jr though. I wanted to introduce Jr separately from the other villains next chapter, so I put him here. I'm not sure how well I did with him, but I basically tried to portray him as the royal brat who gets his kicks out of harassing others. It's not far off from his game personality, except his plots are usually much bigger. I imagine this is what he does in his spare time. As shown in the fight he can be pretty dangerous when he wants to be, but he's a pushover compared to his dad, whom he worships. I'll develop Jr more in later chapters, but he won't be a magor villain. He'll mostly be a recurring lower ranking antagonist and an annoyance to heroic characters, just some villain that shows up to cause trouble now and again.

-The scene in the Toad Village following the fight was written by my good pal Supah-Toon, it's probably the highlight of the chapter really. I had a little trouble making it flow with the previous scene, but who cares because it was a great one. Supah-toon's jokes are a lot better than mine. The "Yellow dragon of doom" Was my very favourite part of the chapter, I couldn't stop laughing when I read that. I had to edit a few things, but at least 90% of that scene was how he originally imagined it. Props to him.

-So, now Charlie Brown and friends know that the Dark Empire (What I'm calling the villainous organisation, if you hadn't noticed) is working with Bowser, or at least suspect it. I could have saved the reveal for next chapter, but frankly, since it was already revealed what was going to happen at the end of last chapter, I didn't see any point in hiding this from the heroes until next chapter, it wouldn't be much of a big reveal for you people reading this. I also think it kinda ups the stakes more to have the heroes actually know what they're up against and willingly go to confront it.

-I got to introduce two new heartless this chapter. I thought this was important, as I hadn't really used a lot of the heartless so far in this story and, since they are basically the main soldiers of the Dark Army, I figured I needed to highlight them a bit more. Invisibles were chosen as Charlie Brown's groups first opponents because they're one of my favourite heartless from the first game, while I went with the Dark Thorn from Kingdom Hearts II as the big boss mostly because of it's cool design. Yeah, that's all. And the fact that it seemed suitably menacing I guess. The fights at the end were too short and rushed in my opinion, but that's because I was sorta rushing these scenes because I just wanted this chapter over and done with. I promise I'll do better next time.

-Of the things I am proud of in this chapter, one of them would have to be Snoopy. Apart from the last chapter I haven't really got to use him and Woodstock much in this story, which is disappointing because I love writing for the two of them. My favourite parts with them, apart from the diner scene, would have to be Snoopy's alter egos. The Masked Marvel, for those that don't know, is an identity Snoopy assumes to arm wrestle Lucy in a storyline from the comics, and in the special "It was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown", as well as to compete in the decathlon in "You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown". Here I decided to have Snoopy use it as a sort of superhero identity, because Snoopy in a domino mask does sort of make me think superhero. I might do this again later. And I finally got to use Flying Ace Snoopy in this story, even if it was only for a throw away gag.

Well, I'm glad this is over. Hopefully the next chapter will come a bit quicker, I'm much more excited to write it and know what I'm doing. However, I'm going to have to wait to do that, right now I'm busy co-writing "It's Kingdom Hearts, Charlie Brown" With my good pal Watanuki-Kun, who just got back after taking a break from this site. I should have had the next chapter for that finished for now, but I've had computer problems making things difficult to write. The only reason I'm publishing this is because my problem is sorted now and I only had one short scene to finish up, so I wanted to get it out of the way. Well, enough rambling, have a nice day. Please review.