Whew! Back from the hospital! Obviously, I took too long to update, but being hospitalized for a week does that too you. Anyway, the plot starts to move here, so hopefully this one won't be as sleep-inducing as the last one.

I own nothing (no, I'm the CEO of Nintendo!)

Puzzle Pieces

The morgue at the Smash Detective Agency wasn't just a morgue. It also functioned as a surgical room, a storage room, and sometimes even a recreation room. While Kirby, Mario, and Mr. Game and Watch were creeped out at the very though of playing chess while surrounded by dead people, Samus didn't seem to mind at all. R.O.B., being a robot, didn't mind either.

Mario looked down at Wario's massacred body. The crushed head would be the obvious answer to Wario's death, but Mario wasn't going to take the easy way out. He didn't get in the agency by twiddling his thumbs all day, that's for sure. Mario slipped on his surgical mask, and then picked up a nearby scalpel. Calm and emotionless, he flicked on a nearby tape recorder.

"Autopsy: Wario Wario. Age 34-a years old. Time of-a death: 0700 hours," As the Italian recorded the preliminary log, he had already begun a thin incision across Wario's chest. The fat man had tons of chest hair, not to mention acne and tons of belly fat. Mario was thoroughly disgusted. When he finally made a full line across the skin, Mario opened the little flap that he made.

Let's just say that anyone even remotely squeamish would've scream, vomit, soil themselves, and start smacking the nearest teddy bear with a chainsaw at the sight of what Mario witnessed.

Every single one of Wario's vital organs had burst. The lungs, deflated, were red with blood from the half-imploded heart. The stomach was torn in half, the liver flattened by the intestines. But Mario wasn't looking at any of that.

Wario's heart was pulsing a purple aura. The waves of purple calmly moved back and forth. It was quite stimulating for the Italian. Focusing, he put down his scalpel and picked up a pair of tweezers. He carefully poked the tweezers through the tear in the left atrium, carefully taking out a small, pulsing purple ball. Overcome with curiosity, Mario dropped the tweezers and touched it with his hand.

Mario and his green-hatted brother Luigi were merrily running along in the fields of Mushroom Kingdom. They had no care in the world; Bowser wasn't attacking, Peach was safe, and the Smash tournament had already passed. Mario had performed rather terribly, losing to Peach in the first round. Peach had gotten lucky and plucked a Bob-omb, before sending Mario sky-high. Luigi performed much better, but only made it to the 6th round out of ten. Luigi took this as a sign that he was moving out of Mario's shadow. Mario had laughed then. He believed that Luigi never was in his shadow.

Suddenly, there was a deafening crack. Mario fell to the ground, paralyzed. He heard Luigi yelling and some odd noises, before hearing the sounds of a scuffle. And then, after three minutes, there was silence. His paralysis losing its grip, Mario sat up and looked around. Luigi was gone.

"Luigi? What-a happened? Where-a did you go?" the red-hatted brother asked. There was no answer, no sign. Only silence. "LUIGI! WHERE ARE-A YOU?!" the plumber began running around searching the other plumber, but to no avail. Luigi was gone.

Mario shook his head. He remembered that; it was five years ago, before the natural disasters started. It was the last time Mario had ever seen his brother. Mario's head drooped a bit, before snapping back up in realization of his lack of focus. Mario still couldn't help but wonder why the memory had surfaced, but he managed to put off those desires.

Mario began studying the orb a bit more closely, before his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. "No...this-a can't be... it's a-" Before he could finish, he felt a solid blow to the back of his head, and he stooped unconscious.

Meanwhile, in the plain, gray meeting room, Lucas witnessed the other members discuss Wario's death. Captain Kirby stood up, still wearing sunglasses, and looked around.

"So, physical capabilities aside, who would have something against Wario?" the puffball inquired. Samus, now in her blue Zero Suit, raised an eyebrow.

"Just about everybody. Can you be a bit more specific?" the officer replied. Everyone, even R.O.B., had to nod at this. Kirby frowned, which looked like a cute pout.

"Okay, fine then. Who would want to kill Wario?" Again, Samus raised an eyebrow.

"More specific than that, Chief." Kirby sighed in defeat, before spying the headlines of Game and Watch's newspaper. It read "King of Dreamland Killed". Kirby's eyes widened.

"G...Game and Watch...may I see that paper?" The puffball asked. The 2-D man handed him the paper.

"If I may, sir, a worker at WarioWare said that Wario had withdrawn an item from his private stores," Game and Watch said while Kirby looked over the paper. Kirby's eyes grew even bigger than they should be proportionally allowed. This was the article he read:

"King Dedede of Dreamland was found dead at 4:07 AM yesterday with a blade wound to the brain. His killer is not known, and the police assure us that "they are on the case." Oddly, the number of citizen casualties dealt by police has increased drastically. All else known is that Sir Meta Knight was found dead near Port Town this morning at 6:08 AM."

Kirby sighed, while Samus seemed concerned.

"Chief?" she asked. "Do you have something to tell us?"

Kirby sat down. "As a matter of fact, I do. On one of my adventures, I found this machine called the Dragoon. It could destroy anything the user desired, and I just barely managed to keep it from King Dedede. After a long, tiring battle, we split it into three pieces, one for me, one for Dedede, and one for Meta Knight. Now, I remember Wario asking for an idea for a new microgame, so I gave him the piece I had." Lucas understood.

"So Dedede and Meta Knight were killed, and so was Wario...the killer is after the Dragoon!"

"Multiple killers. The narrow timeframe and vast distance between the crime scenes point to no other explanation," Samus spoke.

"But Wario made that withdrawal. Could it have been an attempt to hide the Dragoon piece? Perhaps he was tipped off?" Game and Watch inquired.

"BEFORE WE CAN ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS, IT WOULD BE LOGICAL TO KNOW THE AUTOPSY RESULTS. SHALL WE CHECK ON MARIO?" R.O.B. Said, interrupting all discussion. Kirby nodded his head...body...whatever... and activated the intercom.

"Hey, Mario? How's that autopsy coming along?" the captain asked. There was no answer on the other line. "Mario! Do you copy?" Still, no answer. Samus frowned.

"Let's go check up on him. He might've passed out from what he saw or something." the female bounty hunter remarked.

Kirby moved from the table. "This meeting is adjourned." he said. Everyone got up from their gray seats and followed Kirby.

Marth calmly walked across the green plains. Wario had given him a bunch of colored feathers to deliver to Princess Zelda of Hyrule. While Wario had never said his purpose in this, the Altean prince was never the one to turn down adventure. So here he was, walking to Hyrule Castle.

He obviously didn't expect any surprise visitors.

Especially not one to come up right behind him.

Especially not someone that Marth-and everyone else- thought was dead.

"Hello, Princey." A gruff, familiar voice growled. "Would you mind handing over those feathers?"

Woo, updated! Sorry I took awhile. Anyways, read and review.

Also, vote on who you would like to die next!

You can NOT vote:

Marth, Lucas, Kirby, Samus, R.O.B., Link, Zelda, Captain Falcon, Fox, or Sonic. I'm really debating about Mario and GaW, so help there would be appreciated.

I hope this chap was much better!