"Mario! MARIO!" cried a demonic male sounding voice as Mario came to. Everything seemed to be grey, just so very, very grey. What was this? What was happening. His head hurt. He had a migraine or something. There was an incessant banging on the door. Mario stumbled off the carpeted floor to see Daisy, his Daisy, leaning against a wall looking lifelessly at Mario. They were in his office… in Brooklyn.

"Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt," Daisy said. Then she repeated it, over and over and over again. What was this?

"Are you in there, Mario?" asked the voice outside the door, slightly calmer.

"Huh? What do you want with her?" asked Mario.

"We had a deal, Mario!" the voice roared.

"Tell me what you want with her!" yelled Mario.

"Open this door, right now!"

"Are you going to hurt her?"

Then there was silence. Like the question had scared off the voice. Yet the question had also brought her into his mind. Peach. He walked for the door as if she would be outside of it, He pushed on it gently and let the white flash in. "Peach? Peach!"

The white faded away and he saw Daisy, pushing on his chest repeatedly as if to resuscitate him. Silly girl, he was Super Mario. He could breathe underwater… right? She looked at him with an almost innocent concern. This black-haired girl was not the same as the brown-haired girl who had been kidnapped by Iggy and Spike, who watched Mario battle a giant dinosaur in Dinohattan. This was not the same girl who defeated King K. Rool. It was Daisy but at the same time, it wasn't. She smiled at him, and for a second, the past returned as all became white. "Peach," he breathed. "Peach!"

"No. It's me, Luvbi," she said as he came to once more. "Are you, all right?"

"Luvbi?"

"You called me Daisy."

"Right… where am I?"

"Back in the land of the living," she said and grabbed his hand with both of hers. "Here, let me."

"I'll be fine," said Mario and he tried to pull his hand free, but he wasn't strong enough to do so.

"You almost drowned," she said, "you need to –." He yanked his hand free.

"I said I'll be fine," he gruffly repeated. "Just… just give me a minute." She gave him a look, she didn't believe that. His senses began to equalize and a merry… a beautiful tune began to play in the back. Clearly, she heard it as well, her head swung towards it like a hawk to its prey.

"Do you hear that?" she asked him. "It's music!"

"Go on," Mario told her. "I just… I need to…" Get Peach out of his head?

"Okay. I won't be long," she said. "I won't be long, Mario." With that, he voluntarily let everything fade to white.

It didn't seem like everything was white for very long. Maybe a few minutes. Mario had time for self reflection, remembering the road that brought him here. Remembering Peach, Eddie, Pauline and Luigi… yet he couldn't sleep forever and turned to his side. He let himself take in the light, the first thing he saw were two seagulls, looking at him. Birds?

The sky was still a bright blue, but it was getting darker and some purple had started to seep into it. Pushing himself up, Mario turned around to see people all lying down, relaxing on the beach and enjoying their day. He was still on Delfino Isle, he just knew it. The clouds in the distance covering islands further off just confirmed it.

He was at like a beach-pool-party place it seemed like. There was was a two-story building surrounding the beach, like a mix between a motel and a dressing room. It had the sign emblazoned above it: Hotel Delfino East. What use did this place have for hotels? How did people even visit it? He came here by an inter-dimensional rocket.

Where was Daisy? No. Luvbi. She introduced herself as Luvbi and perhaps that was what he needed to think of her as to dissociate her in his mind from the Daisy he knew. That must have been what Bowser meant that she wasn't Daisy.

Moving slowly and sluggishly over the beach, Mario breathed heavily as he walked past kids making sand castles, teenagers enjoying themselves and parents relaxing. Maybe… maybe this place had some redeeming qualities. Just they didn't share them.

Going to a random beach-goer, Mario asked, "Hey! You see a young girl?"

"Is this some kind of sales pitch? Because I am not interested," the man shooed Mario away, so he went to another one.

"You see a young girl? Uh, blue skirt...no?" Mario asked a woman this time.

"No, but I'm without an escort if you're looking to pass the time," she said with a sultry voice. Mario backed off.

"Hey, I'm looking for a young girl," he asked the next one.

"Who isn't, brother?" the man laughed and walked past. Then, out of the corner of his eye Mario saw it and walked to it. It was a poster of an airship… an airship powered by a Shine Sprite?

"A Shine Sprite...that could be our ticket outta here," he realized. Walking through a small corridor of Hotel Delfino East, Mario had no time to admire the exquisiteness of everything and walked over to the next side of the beach. Music he remembered, she'd be at the music. It was faint, but he could here it, he thought.

At the edge of the pier boardwalk built onto the second part of the beach, people were dancing. He spotted Luvbi there, dancing playfully with blissful ignorance. He knew then in his heart that this was not Daisy. Somehow, this was somebody else. Maybe she was some sort of clone or maybe she had been plucked out of the timeline and was now marooned in this era by Bowser. Someone who hadn't run into Luigi at the diner, someone who hadn't grown to love and lose him. This was a Daisy who had lived without the pain.

'Dancing at Dusk' said the sign before the pier. Mario couldn't remember the last time he went dancing, actually dancing, not trying to in a nightclub with a koopa cop. It was with Pauline, shortly after they'd gotten together. It was a warm memory. Why didn't they go dancing more often? Walking up the pier, Mario watched as she danced happily, without a care in the world, changing partners every now and then.

If they were anywhere else. If Bowser's forces weren't against them… he would've loved to just let her enjoy. If Luigi were with them… no, they had to go. They had to leave this place. "Hey, Daisy… Luv… Luvbi!" said Mario, trying to get her attention and when he finally succeeded, she turned around with a glowing smile on her face.

"Hello!" she greeted him. "Oh, this is wonderful! Come dance with me, Mario!"

"I don't dance. C'mon, let's go."

"Why?" she asked. "What could possibly be better than this?"

"Well…," he paused, "how about dancing in Paris?"

"Paris?" she asked, grasping his hands. Her touch was warm and childlike. This Luvbi was a little younger than Daisy was when Mario had first met her, but he was twelve years older. "I don't understand, how could we get there?" Luckily at that moment, an airship flew past them in the background.

"Well that airship can take us there," said Mario. "But if you want to stay and dance, we could..." He let his words trail off.

"No, let's go! C'mon, let's go! C'mon, let's go right now!" she said excitedly, grabbing his arm and pulling him off the pier with her. She ran down the beach, holding Mario's hand in hers like he was her guardian angel, a big brother sent to save her every time she got in trouble. "I'm out. It's hard to believe but it's true, isn't it? Oh, can you smell that? I've never smelled anything like that before, have you?"

"Beaches I know don't smell much like that," said Mario. "You probably don't remember the Hudson much. If that was even you." She didn't comment on that, she probably didn't even hear him. They just continue don through turnstiles into the Hotel Delfino East gift shop, where Luvbi was immediately drawn by the images of Bowser.

"Mario… Bowser," she said, looking at a poster of the tyrant, a close up on his aged face. Mario saw the resemblance between the two of them at that moment and wondered, if they were twins, why didn't they notice their look before? "I've read about him. They say when he becomes a dinosaur he can see the future."

"Give a man a little power, he falls in all kinds of love with himself," explained Mario. Bowser couldn't really predict the future. He had a tenuous at best connection with a demon named Kamek. The only magical thing he did was cheat death.

"I don't like his look," declared Luvbi, perhaps a little too loud.

"Do you dislike the look of the prophet? Or his gaze?" asked the shop owner, who had a disgusted look on her face after that statement by Luvbi. Huh, the shop owner looked like Birdo…

"Can we go now?" asked Luvbi, rather abruptly and Mario nodded. Hopefully she was understanding why this place wasn't… wasn't right. Heading up the staircase out, they exited Hotel Delfino East and emerged on the upper boardwalk of the city. Yet before they could make it very far, from behind two stalls emerged Iggy and Wendy, both carrying a plate with a piece of jewellery in it. Mario felt like grabbing them again and demanding answers, but they seemed off.

"Bird?" asked Iggy.

"Or the cage?" offered Wendy.

Iggy persisted, "Or perhaps the bird?"

"Nothing beats the cage," Wendy insisted.

"These two again," Mario sighed, exasperated. He wondered for a second, how most of the Koopalings were. Ludwig was dead, Larry and Lemmy were with the Toads and these two were? "How do...," Mario thought, trying to rationalize these two. "Never mind." Luvbi looked at the brooches that they were offering her. One had a bird encrusted into it, the other had a cage. What kind of options were these?

"Look at these, they're amazing!" said Luvbi. "Which one do you like more? This one...or this? The bird is beautiful, and the cage is somber, but there's really something special about it. I just can't decide." She showed them off to Mario, hoping to have his opinion on it. Mario just wanted to go, so he pointed to the bird.

"The one on the right," he told her. "I'm sure."

"I love it!" Luvbi claimed. With that, Iggy and Wendy walked over to the side and got out of their way.

"Surprising," Mario heard Iggy say. "I expected the cage."

"Now that's just sophistry," came his sister's response.

Walking past the boardwalk, Mario looked past it and to where Kamek Tower was. The smoke had finally cleared around it and a frightened crowd, watched the ruins begin to fall apart. "My God... look," Luvbi indicated him to it. Mario thought he saw that dragon flying around it, but it was probably just a trick of his mind. A crowd had gathered around it and were all making remarks about it, talking about how it was history, how the Shy Guys were probably responsible. Few seemed to be truly concerned for the safety of the girl who had lived inside of it. "It was my home all the time I've been here... let's go."

They entered the closest building, which was another ticketing station, this time with an arcade built in. The police were frisking bystanders, preventing them from entering if they did not have photographic identification ready for presentation. "Well, we aren't getting through there, but I have just the thing!" She led Mario to a door away from the police's periphery and pulled Fire Crystal out, placing it by the door, it clicked open.

No. That was impossible. The Fire Crystal didn't… exist anymore. Mario's mother, the Water Crystal that she had, he merged it into the Fire Crystal. He created the Quartz Charm with the other crystals. Who was this girl? She had Daisy's face, her mannerisms and the innocence when he had first met her. She was Daisy, but was she really? Without all the pain that Daisy had suffered, could Luvbi even be considered the same person?

They made their way to a dual manager office which thankfully was empty had a door that led to a backroom. There a Kremling was working, they ignored him just as he ignored them and moved on. Entering the bustling arcade, they saw a clear path straight to the gondola station. They would be homeward bound soon.