If Rosalina was still a normal human being, she wasn't sure if she would be able to tolerate the heat of standing over an open lava flow. But as it happened, it had been a very long time since she was something that could be considered 'human', and the heat barely bothered her as she looked down from the stone bridge.

"So, this is where it happened." Rosalina muttered to herself. "It's still hard to believe that he's gone."

The Mother of Lumas pulled out a book, protected by magic so that it wouldn't burst into flames or anything, and opened to the page she wanted. She may not have been able to find a suitable resurrection spell, but if this worked then she wouldn't need one. With a swish of her wand through the air, she recited the ancient incantation that would, with luck, return Mario to the realm of the living.

A trail of sparkles emerged from the tip of her wand and began to swirl around the air, forming into a clock face. After ticking forward a couple of seconds, the magical clock stopped and reversed its direction, gaining speed as it went. Rosalina struggled to continue the incantation as she could feel an excessive amount of magical energy drained from her body. Attempting to reverse time in a localized area wasn't exactly an easy task and it had been at least a few centuries since she had tried casting a spell this powerful. Rosalina was no longer used to this kind of strain, but she held on.

After several minutes, the spell finally did its task. The portly hero of the Mushroom Kingdom emerged from the lava and seemed to fall up back to the bridge. Rosalina let out a sigh of relief as she watched.

"Nope."

An unexpected blast of magical energy struck Rosalina square in the back, throwing off her concentration. The disruption to her flow of magic caused the time-reversal spell to explode in her face, sending her flying back and de-aging her several years. Not that it made a noticeable difference to an ageless being like herself. With the spell broken, time resumed as normal for Mario, who let out a yell as he suddenly found himself falling to his death a second time.

"Mario!" Rosalina rushed back to the edge and tried to use her magic to levitate him back up to safety. A second blast of magical energy struck her hand, knocking her wand out of her grasp. She watched as both the plumber and her wand fell sunk into the molten rock before turning to see who dared attack her.

"I had a feeling that someone would come along and try something." A crotchety old Magikoopa in purple robes flew down into view on her broom, pointing a golden scepter at Rosalina. "I guess it's a good thing I decided to keep guard after all."

"Do you have any idea what you've just done." Rosalina practically growled the words out as she clenched her fists so tight that her nails were starting to dig into her palms.

"I've stopped you from bringing back the biggest thorn in His Viciousness' side." The old Magikoopa happily replied. "Now why don't you run along, and I'll forget this little incident ever happened, kiddo?"

"Kiddo?" Rosalina let herself smirk. "You have no idea who I am, do you?"

"Some little girl who fancies herself a witch?" The Magikoopa guessed. "Of course, you can't even call yourself that, now that you've lost that pathetic little wand of yours."

"Wrong." Rosalina couldn't stop herself from laughing, as she lifted herself up a few inches off the ground. "I am Rosalina, Guardian of the Comet Observatory and Mother of Lumas. I am older than the universe itself and have more power at my command than you could possibly imagine. And I am far from helpless without my wand. While it will certainly be harder to focus my magic without it, I should have an easy enough time painting the walls with you."

"So, the little girl thinks that she can take on the magnificent Kammy Koopa, does she? Well, I'm afraid that it will take more than a few made-up titles to avoid a wallop from the strongest magician in King Bowser's army! Unless you can back up those claims of yours, then I'm going to make you wish you had taken my offer to leave."


Ridley wasn't sure how long he had been unconscious, but he woke up lying on the ground. He did know one thing, though. He was lying on dirt. Soft dirt covered in grass. That meant that wherever he was, was not the same place where he and the others had found themselves thoroughly trounced by a bunch of colorful idiots controlling giant robots. The purple space-dragon opened his eyes and stood up cautiously, looking around. His wrists and ankles were shackled, and he had been placed in a line up with Luigi, Roshi and a human woman that Ridley didn't recognize.

"How good of you to finally join us." An older looking Koopa with a black shell paced back and forth in front of them. Ridley thought for a moment that the Koopa was blind in his left eye, before realizing the slight discoloration was caused by glass lens propped up against his eye rather than a cataract.

"Where are we?" The unfamiliar-looking woman asked demandingly, and Ridley was shocked to recognize her voice. He knew it had been a long time since he had seen the Hunter out of her armor, but she didn't look like how he remembered.

"You are in Darkland Prison Camp XIII-B." The monocle-wearing Koopa replied. "Or as we here like to call it, Camp Shell. I am the commanding officer here, Colonel Klang, though you may just refer to me as your warden."

"Yeah, I don't think so." An orange glow began to radiate around Samus as she tried to rematerialize her armor. The glow was short-lived, however, as a painful electrical jolt was released from a metal collar that had been placed around her neck. As Samus dropped to her knees, Ridley realized that all four of them had been fitted with these shock collars.

Colonel Klang laughed. "I'm afraid that you'll find that none of you will be able to use your powers, natural or otherwise, while you are here. You have all been equipped with the latest in anti-power-up technology, which means that as long as you wear those collars, you will not be able to use powers of any kind without, well… you've seen what happens. And before any of you get any bright ideas about how to try and get them off, you should know that they are each fitted with an explosive mechanism designed so that if they are removed…" Klang slid a finger across his throat to illustrate what would happen.

An ominous feeling passed over the four captives and both Samus and Ridley quickly began trying to think their way out of the situation. Ridley had survived death countless times, usually either at the hands of the Hunter or due to Science Teams' sheer incompetence. Under normal circumstances, he would just tear the collar off and if the explosion was strong enough to hurt him, then he would just wait until he could regrow a new head. However, he wasn't sure what his limitations were now. He had felt weaker ever since he had become human-sized and wasn't sure he wanted to risk the possibility that his regenerative capabilities were no longer working properly.

"Now that we've gotten that out of the way, it's time that you four got to work." Klang continued. "Sergeant Gutz!"

The second-largest Goomba that Ridley had ever seen waddled up to them, wearing a bucket on his head like a helmet.

"Yes, Commander?" They heavyset Goomba stood at attention.

"Escort the new prisoners to the barracks and let Commander Cedar show them the ropes."

"Yes, Commander!" Gutz turned to Ridley and the others. "Follow me."

Ridley and the others followed the oversized Goomba across the camp, giving them a good look at the place. The area was mostly barren save for a few small buildings scattered about that seemed to serve various purposes, although outside of the main area were several large fields where captive Toads seemed to be gardening. What they were growing, however, Ridley couldn't quite tell. Eventually, Sergeant Gutz led them to a cluster of small buildings, where a lone Toad was maintaining a bonfire.

"Hello there, Colonel Cedar." Gutz said pleasantly to the brown-spotted mushroom man.

"Hello, Sergeant Gutz." The Toad replied bitterly. "These the newbs?"

"Yep. I thought it best that you show them the ropes around here." Gutz nodded.

"And by that, you mean that you don't feel like doing it yourself." Cedar sighed. "Fine then."

Gutz turned around and began to march away, prompting the Toad to look up at the others.

"It truly is a sad day for the Mushroom Kingdom." He muttered upon realizing who he was with. "I never thought that I'd see the day when the Mario Brothers ended up here. My name is Cedar T., Colonel in the Mushroom Kingdom Army and the senior prisoner here at Camp Shell."

"I'm-a Luigi." The green-capped plumber introduced himself. "But I take it you already knew that."

"I'm Roshi and this, well, isn't exactly how I thought my first adventure would go." Roshi waved nervously.

"Name's Samus Aran, bounty hunter." Samus said while fidgeting with her collar.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Cedar T. warned her. "We've lost countless good men that way."

Samus stopped and lowered her arms slowly, realizing what he meant. Ridley noticed that her arms seemed to shake for a moment and could smell fear coming from the Hunter. It was not something he was used to.

"And of course, you know that I am the Mario." Ridley paused. "Okay, you know what, the Gronkat's out of the bag anyway and I'm sure the space witch is probably on her way to kill me or something, I might as well introduce myself for real. My name is Ridley. I am a formally-giant, purple dragon alien from the Space Pirate Alliance."

"Okay, the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom has completely lost it." Cedar T. commented, poking a stick into the flames to adjust the burning logs. "The news just keeps getting worse."

"Why does everyone keep thinking that you're this Mario person, anyway?" Samus asked Ridley. "If looked anything like his brother here, then there's absolutely no resemblance. You'd think the wings, tail purple skin and, well, everything about you would be a dead giveaway."

"I don't know." Ridley shrugged. "But it's been happening ever since I put on the hat, which I have no idea why I'm still wearing at this point."

"Wait, are you serious?" Cedar T. asked.

"I'm afraid-a so." Luigi shook his head. "My actual brother is-a gone."

"Just what I needed, more bad news." The Toad groaned.


Rosalina dodged another of Kammy's attacks. The magical energy sped through the air and blasted a hole in the wall behind her. Before the old Magikoopa could strike again, Rosalina retaliated with an attack of her own. Her magic may not have been as refined or elegant without her wand to channel it through, but she didn't need it for this. A ball of burning plasma, like a miniature sun, manifested in front of her open hand before being launched at her opponent. Kammy wasn't as swift as the Mother of Lumas and the attack ended up lighting her broom on fire.

"What, no!" Kammy quickly dispelled the flames with a wave of her wand. "This was custom made, you witch!"
"I'm getting tired of people calling me that." In a flash, Rosalina warped directly in front of Kammy and pulled the old Magikoopa's wand out of her grasp. "Since you took away mine, I think that it's only fair that I take yours."

"Hey, you can't do that!" Kammy protested.

"I'm not exactly in the mood to be argued with right now."

With a flick of her newly 'acquired' wand, Rosalina sent Kammy Koopa crashing straight through the wall and flying through the sky into the far-off distance.

"Hm, not bad." Rosalina examined the ruby-encrusted gold wand. It was thicker and heavier than her old wand but still quite comfortable to grasp. She could actually see herself getting used to using it without much trouble. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as powerful of her old wand and wouldn't allow her to use her strongest magic. A bit of modification could fix that problem easily but that would take time. Time that she didn't have.

She had already been reaching the end of her window of opportunity for using the time-reversal spell to save Mario. By the time she would be able to cast the spell again, it would be too late to reverse time far enough back to pull him out of the lava. In fact, by the time she got this wand ready to perform such a spell, it would probably be too late to even get her old wand back. Her last chance of restoring the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom was gone. As far as she was aware, the only two options left were to storm her way into the afterlife and bring him back the hard way or she could reboot the universe again. The former was out of her power and she knew from personal experience that doing the latter option again so soon after the last time would have disastrous consequences. There was nothing more she could do.