The Delay

Mr. Zep fell out of the portal and into Mr. Smiley's study on his knees and gasping for breath.

"Goodness! You look like hell" said Mr. Smiley while snickering. Mr. Zep, still panting and sweating, glared at Mr. Smiley. "Oh sorry, hehehe, I forgot that you've been through a lot, pbbt BWAHAHAHA" said Mr. Smiley, but this time laughing his ass off.

"You… have… no… idea…*wheeze* *cough*" muttered the annoyed Mr. Zep. It was true after freeing Dimentio from the dungeon, Mr. Zep ran into many unexpected obstacles, of which, he decided to keep secret, or else he'd be laughed and mocked at by Mr. Smiley.

"Ahh well" said Mr. Smiley in relief. "Anyway, since you're here, I should assume that you've completed your mission. However, there has been a small change of plans…"

"HOW small?" asked Mr. Zep, expecting another tedious job.

"Oh well, the Shadow Queen still couldn't come to terms with her kidnapping, probably because I just shot her ear off, but of course, I decided to get her out of the competition."

"So what happened to her?"

"When she tried to assault me, I hit her in the head with my cane, which accidentally crushed her skull, seeing as I forgotten that she is in human form, so now I'm leaving her in my own personal cell, where I can use her as an obstacle for one of the events, that is of course, if she wakes up from her coma."

"Sir, why can't you just let her go back to her original form, so that she can recover faster?"

"I wouldn't want to risk causing another scene. Really now Mr. Zep, you should really think about these things before you ask such silly questions."

"Sometimes, I wonder if you thought these things out for yourself…" thought Mr. Zep. "Oh sir, now that Shadow Queen is out of the competition, where are going to get another competitor to fill in for her?" asked Mr. Zep.

"Who knows? Maybe we'll leave it at 13 people, or MAYBE we'll have a surprise competitor during the show…" said Mr. Smiley with a menacing smile.

"Oh Grambi, please don't let it be me" thought Mr. Zep anxiously.

"Speaking of the competitors, read that list back to me Mr. Zep."

Mr. Zep pulls out his list. "Um, let's see… we have Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Bleck, Timpani, Dimentio, Grodus, Mimi, Doopliss, Nastasia, O' Chunks, and Krump"

"Excellent, now all that's left is the preparations, here" Mr. Smiley tosses a huge book at Mr. Zep. "I want you to buy everything on that list and hire some workers to help repair the Crimson Circus"

"This is a LIST?" thought Mr. Zep. "*clears throat* um, very well sir, and you will be busy doing?"

"I'll just watch over Dimentio from the sidelines, you know just to see what new tricks he has up that dirty sleeve of his." Mr. Smiley looks into the crystal ball showing Dimentio plotting with a strange girl from the Tribe of the Ancients. "Well, this is new…" said Mr. Smiley with interest.

"Eavesdropper…" muttered Mr. Zep. "Man, this is going to be a long decade."

I know this chapter seems short, but it is the end of the prequel to "D for Demented." From here you guys should start reading "D for Demented" then "Chaos Wings", both by Luigifan607. That way you'll get to know the OC, who's making the special appearance.