He had not been a good person when he was a teenager. It was a surprise he turned out as good as he did. He, Eddie, Pauline and Peach - all pretending like they were from the Goodfellas or another Joe Pesci movie or something. He was a mean kid, and he had a mean streak about him. Eddie and Pauline were cousins being groomed to be the next generation of the mafia, although it was one that the former embraced while the latter rejected it to this day. Eddie wanted Mario to be his capo… yet Mario just couldn't kill. Sammy Rai died that day on the beach. The night Eddie became Big Eddie. It just hadn't been Mario who killed him.
It wasn't like right now at all, that had been a stormy morning. The water was cold, so cold and there was a fog emanating so far into the sea. There were barely any cars on the road but the smell. The salty sea… why did Mario smell that all the way up here in the elevator to the Astral Hall? Why did it smell so familiar to him? Then he turned and saw why, Luvbi had opened up a portal. A portal to the beach. "Whoa, shit!"
She was never this powerful before. Yeah, she could walk between universes with the Fire Crystal and later the Quartz Charm. This was a whole new level of power. Then he reminded himself. This wasn't his Daisy, he reminded himself. This was somebody who seemed like she'd never even been to Brooklyn. "It's a portal!" she said. It was that beach. It almost looked like it was a portal to that morning. "I used to open them all the time in my tower. It's like a window to another world!"
"I know," whispered Mario. He almost felt like he should just walk through to that year and change everything.
"Most of the time they're dull as dishwater," she said. "Sometimes, I see something amazing and I pull it through." She reached down to the sand and picked up a red shell, gave it to Mario and closed the portal. The elevator door opened, and they entered the Astral Hall. It was a giant chamber filled with wrecked statues and full of terrible lighting. No wonder this place had been sealed off, it was completely wrecked. Everything was ghostly.
They passed through the entrance chamber of the Astral Hall and came out into the open sky once more. It was practically dark blue now, night was upon them. "And when we strike, we will teach Morton Koopa Jr a lesson!" Mario heard in the distance, prompting him to stop Luvbi right away. The two got on their knees and slid behind a crate. In the middle of the platform directly ahead of them, of which to the right was a ticketing station, stood a group of armed men. "Now, I know some of you have come to respect Morton Koopa Jr for being the son of the Prophet who bears his name! Let me be abundantly clear, Morton Jr is no hero!" Ahead of the men, past the platform was another series of cables. If they weren't all clogged up with shipments, Mario figured that he could've used them to practically zip on out of this place. "He's been living in Twilight Town so long that the man has gone native! If Morton Jr had his way, the damn Kremlings and Toads would be up in Bowser's Castle – or copulating with your wives!"
That didn't sound like the Morton Jr that Mario knew. That didn't sound like the… the nephew he knew. God, it was weird. Morton Jr was his nephew. Morton Jr was the largest of the Koopalings and the strongest. He was practically a Koopa version of Andre the Giant. The first time Mario had seen him, Morton Jr had rescued Roy from being devolved. The last time Mario saw him was the last time he saw the rest of the Koopalings, during his battle with Bowser.
"Now he has himself holed up in the Astral Hall… and it is our job to get him out! Dead or alive! Once our gunships arrive, we're going to storm the Hall! Clear him out and you'll be home in time for supper!"
Sure, Mario thought, home in time for supper. They had to get the amps before the gunships arrived or they'd be caught between these soldiers and Morton Jr. He could probably take them, but one stray bullet from them would end him. Nodding to Luvbi, they passed over to the left of the platform. Strange, they always seemed to be going left. There was an open door, leading to what seemed to be an abandoned holiday inn. Well, abandoned because there seemed to be dead men perched around a radio. The frequency on the radio was playing the voice of a woman.
"Bowser will hear our voice!" she said. "Bowser's Castle will burn and his idols of Kamek will melt and run in rivulets through the streets of Delfino Isle! When I first saw Delfino Isle, the sky was the brightest, blue sky that ever was. Then your eyes adjusted to the light and you saw that sea of Koopas looking hard back at you!" Who was this? "The days at Bowser's Castle were simple... hard work sure, but simple. Hmph, Roy Koopa... his touch was almost sweet. Almost enough to make me think I had a place in his life. Did the Kaptain make me foolish so Roy could have me to play with?" Kaptain? "The one thing the Kaptain knew was that the antidote to fear is fear. I don't want to be a part of the Piantas' world. I don't want to be a part of the Koopas' culture, their politics, their people. The sun is setting on their people and soon they shall see it is dark."
"Ugh," groaned Luvbi when she regarded all the dead men around the radio.
"One day...," continued the girl on the radio. "One day nobody noticed me and then the next they thought I done offed Roy. I head to Twilight Town and I hide. I hide deep. The more they look, the deeper I hide. Only thing a Kremling child can count on is invisibility. I wish I was able to speak to the Plumber who stirred up so much fool for Bowser and the Kaptain. There were enough troubles before he destroyed the Kremlings' authority and left Bowser to fill in the hole. We are the Shy Guys. I hope he comes here... I hope he is amiable... but immediate concerns. When forced deep underground you can see things from the bottom up. Down at the bottom of the city, I saw a fire burning. A fire has got heat aplenty, but no mouth. The Shy Guys of Rogueport had a strange power... our Shy Squad will a mouth big enough for all Delfino Isle."
"The Shy Guys here are organized?" asked Luvbi.
"Into the militant Shy Squad, it seems," said Mario.
"They argued something fierce at night, Roy and the Avatar," continued the girl. "I could never make out what it was about from my bunk, though. After the worst, I saw he hadn't left for his daily meditation, so I crept upstairs to check on him. And like a fool, I lingered. Ms. Mowz is what they called me when I walked into Bowser's Castle. Murderer was what they shouted when I ran out. You ever see a forest at the beginning of a fire? Before the first flame you see them possums and squirrels running through the trees. They know what's coming. But the fat bears with their bellies full of honey? Well, you can't wake them up from hibernation. We're going to Sirena Beach to see what it takes to wake them up from their slumber." The broadcast clicked off and switched to music.
Mario didn't know what to make of all of that, but they needed to move on. He staggered forth, leading the way as Luvbi followed back before him. Roy… his nephew Roy… was dead? He was dead and this Ms. Mowz blamed for the murder. What… no. Mario and Luigi had almost devolved Roy into primordial ooze last time they had met. He had almost killed his nephew. Now that nephew was dead anyways.
"We've… we've got to avoid this Shy Squad," said Mario. "The Shy Guys were just a bunch of tricksters who wore masks in Rogueport. These guys, they sound bad."
They passed through the hotel back into a kind of town square center for this whole Astral Hall plaza. Passing over to the cables, Mario saw that there weren't actually that many shipments hooked up to the cables. Moving below them and jumping, he punched up below them and shattered them. So many gold coins fell to the floor below and some to the world below that. Huh, probably not wise to keep that much money in containers like those, figured Mario.
He nodded at Luvbi, she grabbed onto him as he jumped, heated his hands and grabbed onto the cable. In seconds, the cables took them to a higher level of the Astral Plane but when their feet hit the stone below, all they could smell was death. On the walls were Wanted posters, with Morton Jr's mug on the cover. In an abandoned gondola squeezed between shipments lay a sole voxophone. Mario wondered if it was another message of Bowser, but no. This time, it was Morton Jr.
"I served my father for so many years. And every heathen land I've known is less peopled for my passing. I hated no special enemy, not even Mario. Until now. Father. He made a tragedy of my battles and cast himself as the Prophet. I tried to call him out over it and stripped my rank! That man has never seen my savage face in war, but he will. Veterans! Shed their blood for Delfino Isle, lost limb for Kamek! Father did nothing! Yet, look up and while mine is surely there for my past, it is his that towers above all! At every angle an insult! If father would make a painted whore of our past, what rape does he hold for the future? Let us make our stand, fill the Astral Hall with real heroes! They'll call us assassins when our work is done. Morton Koopa Jr, the swift left hook of the Shy Squad. I will trade my father's lie for a new one. So be it. Mowz and I are comrades of necessity. I doubt all the kremlings who reddened Ludwig's coat would be seen breaking bread together in peacetime. With father gone, my past deed's will be sacred, and the Shy squad will claim the spoils due of them. I need not live to see it."
So, that was why Morton Jr had turned against his father. He hated all of Delfino Isle. Regardless of whether or not it finally led to the completion of the plan Bowser had tried to launch all those years ago when he kidnapped Luvbi the first time, this whole place was a mockery. It was a mockery of their work in Dinohattan and it was a mockery of how they survived afterwards. Mario respected that. He had to. He felt the same way whenever he watched a movie that glorified the mafia. He may have loved Pacino's acting, but the Godfather was too personal for him to ever enjoy.
The actual Astral Hall was several flights of stairs ahead of them and seemed to be a gigantic building. Practically a palace or a castle on its own. So, if this was gigantic, how big was Bowser's Castle? "Let's just find that amp and get the hell out of here, all right?" said Mario, nodding to Luvbi. She nodded back and they made for the Astral Hall's entrance. They passed through the gold plated white marble doors and entered the Astral Hall.
The Astral Hall was just like its welcome center entrance they had passed through earlier. For lack of a better word, it was completely dilapidated. Statues crumbled, sparks flying and people all dead around them. It was rotting and disgusting. The kind of blood that stayed in the floorboards even after it had been washed out of the surface. They ran through the snaking hallways before entering a large chamber in the center of which was a statue of Bowser with the head shot off.
"Mario Segale proved his worth that day," boomed a voice through the intercom. This wasn't a radio. This was a live message. This was… Morton Jr. "You've always been different, haven't you Plumber? You crave now glory. My own father wants me dead. I won't die at his hands! All I have left is a choice… die at the hands of father's tin soldiers or a real one! You've always been a killer Segale, whether you like it or not! If you want the Amp, you'll give my men the death they deserve!"