Toad opened his eyes and found himself on a hospital bed.
"Oh, thank goodness you're okay," one of the doctors in his room said. "You really took a nasty fall after that tornado threw you to the ground."
Then Toad started to remember. He never even finished the race, and Koopa and Paratroopa were now major-league racers.
Toad glanced to the right, and saw that the hospital bed next to him was empty. "Wait! Where's Bowser?" Toad asked, confused.
"He was in that empty bed next to you. But he got up before you and said, 'There's no way that I'm riding with that mediocre driver ever again!' Then, he left before we could tend to him."
So Bowser was gone. And so were Toad's hopes for getting a spot in the major-leagues.
"But what about my partner for next year?" Toad said.
"Looks like you're gonna need a new one, that's all," a nurse said to him. Suddenly, Mario stepped in.
"Hey Toad," he said timidly, with a frown on his face. "Uh... you know how you um... crashed, back there?" Mario shook nervously. "Well, uh... I think you're gonna need a new kart, too."
Mario started to explain how the blue Mushroom kart flew out of the tornado, hitting one of the stone pillars on the race track. "It's still there, if you wanna go see… but I don't think it can be fixed." Toad stared blankly, speechless. He felt a tear in his eye, and right then, he considered quitting the Mario Kart League all together. He didn't care about his medical condition, struggling to get up out of the bed. The doctors held him down, telling him he would have to stay at the hospital for the next week. Toad sulked back into the bed, and wept. He wept over the race, the trophy that could have been his, his failure at his chance of entering the major-leagues, and the speedy kart he had had for years, now reduced to junk.
"I… but… how am I… supposed to…"
"Well, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong were the runner-ups, so they got the 500,000 coins. But they felt really bad after seeing you fall. They wanted me to give you this." Mario held up a bag of 250,000 coins. Toad instantly jumped up.
"No way! They split it evenly? Wow, look at this, Bow-" but Toad stopped. Bowser was nowhere to be found. "Well, who needs him anyway. But Mario, how am I going to get a new partner if Bowser left? I didn't make it to the major-leagues.
"Well, Toad, if you lost your partner, you can always come to the minor-league draft next Thursday," Mario said. "It's an event where all the new minor-leaguers pick their partners, but I'm sure we can let you pick too."
Mario finished, and walked out. He seemed to be in higher spirits after giving Toad the coins. Toad, too, was in higher spirits. He had a chance to pick a new, helpful partner, and he could use the 250,000 coins to buy a brand new kart.
When Toad was finally let go from the hospital, he got home and checked his calendar.
"Well, today is Sunday, and the minor-league draft for next year is Thursday," he thought. "Maybe I can get a new partner then." And so he sat back down on his couch, once again with nothing to do but wait until Thursday.
