So this is my first and maybe only ever fanfic, there was a moment in Paper Mario: The Origami King where Bowser yells at the developers to patch in the rest of the castle in World 6, I knew I had to create something that went off of that room now that the world was no longer run by Olly and contains nothing made of Origami. Obviously none of these are my characters.
This story takes place after Origami King
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It had only been a week since that girl left his life, how she made an impact on himself. At least now, he was with the princess once again, in a place devoid of all evil.
Paper Mario rolled out of bed and his 2D self and fell flat on the floor. He jumped back up with no hesitation and wiped off the dust that he picked up while adjusting to the morning daylight. He was sure to have a good day except the thought of that origami girl vanishing from his life made him sick to his stomach.
The flat plumber decided to check his mailbox to put his mind on to something other than her. He was still adjusting to daylight but he could tell that someone was already at the mailbox, and as he stepped closer, it was none other than his bro, Luigi.
"Hey Mario, you-a got two envelopes with a giant M on it, I got-a one! Mine's-a from someone named Mimi. I'm-a almost certain I have heard of that name before...
Luigi put his envelope in his kart before realizing who he had just spoken too.
"Hey Bro, do you know who Mimi is?"
The red plumber opened his mouth to tell Luigi that he does, from his adventure where Luigi was the final boss
"o-oh, thanks? Anyway, I'm off to-a see her, here's your letters.
By now his pupils has fully adjusted to the morning light and his mind wandered off to something other than Olivia. He grabbed both letters and opened the first one...somehow. The first one was from Peach. It read:
"Dear Mario, please come to the castl--"
He didn't feel like reading the rest. The second letter intrigued him a little more; it was from Goombella. This one read:
"Hey Mario, It's been a while since I've last seen you, I'm currently in Rogueport reading my logs. I have always wanted to see you since our last adventure so I have decided to visit you. See you in 3 days!" --Goombella
This letter intrigued him, He had not seen her in about a decade and only now is she wanting to visit him, and the letter written to Luigi from a previous adventure sparked the feeling that something mischievous is happening.
Whatever it was, the plumber decided it would be best to visit Peach at the castle, so he closed the mailbox and trekked through Toad Town towards Peach's Castle
"Good Morning, Mario. The bridge is safe to walk across! No more having to go through the pipes anymore!" Bridge Toad had been working on fixing the bridge ever since the origami disaster had been fixed and this made Mario remember Olivia once again
Mario walked gloomily over the bridge towards the entrance of the royal castle with the thoughts of the origami girl implanted in the back of his mind. He opened the doors to the castle and while Peach could tell by the looks of him that he was affected by Olivia's farewell, she told him the news to him with a large grin.
"Mario, I see you have read my letter, what did you think of the surprise!"
The confused plumber looked down for a moment and then whipped out of his pocket faster than a Goomba could be walloped by a lousy hammer swing the letter that Peach had given to him and read the whole thing this time.
"Dear Mario, please come to the castle as soon as you have read this; the room on the right side of the castle has something inside of it now, but it will not unlock until three certain people stand on these buttons. I stood on it along with two other toads matching the colors of the buttons but nothing happened. The colors are red, yellow and pink. I wonder if you are the red, and I'm not sure who the other two colors are and what they mean." --Peach
Suddenly his eyes darted towards the room, he was excited that the room contained something in it that it flipped his frown to a determined grin. He ran over to the door and violently opened it. He could hear Peach's delicate footsteps heading toward his direction out of curiosity and she was two steps behind as Mario walked through the door. The room was about the same size as the other room that they found Luigi in, only instead of having a bench and a hole in it that took up 50% of the room, it had three colored buttons that were tiles on the floor all in a row. As the flat plumber peered at each button, he noticed that these buttons had outlines of shoes on each tile. First, Mario looked at the red tile, and then looked at his shoes. It looked like a perfect fit. Then he tilted his head over towards the pink tile, where the outline of shoes were still present, but much smaller than a Toad. Lastly, he looked over at the yellow tile, where the outline was clearly the same size as a Toad, but contained a separate outline in front of where the shoes were on the tile. This outline looked almost identical to a... shovel? Mario then directed Peach to look at these peculiar outlines.
The princess examined them before forming a conclusion in her head, "so that's why those buttons did nothing" she concluded, "Hey, Mario, those shoe outlines on the red panel look like they could belong to yours. Why don't you go step on it."
Mario's stood on top the tile and shifted his feet to match the outline. The panel instantly grew a bright red.
"Sweet!" The princess replied, "Now that pink panel, those are definitely not heels," she loomed over towards the yellow panel, "but that! that has got to be a toad... and a... shovel?, she questioned before turning over to Mario, who was staring intently at the bright red light. "Mario. What yellow toad do you know that carries a shovel?"
It hit him! He knew where to find the walking mushroom. The plumber immediately dashed out of the room and the castle walked over the bridge and headed towards Musée Champignon.
"Have a good day!" yelled Bridge Toad
The toad he was searching for was none other than the Professor. Now why the professor was needed for the room was beyond him, but he dashed towards the museum and headed into the pipe and picked the tube that led to the Scorching Sandpaper Desert. After Mario had found the other end of the pipe, he was greeted by none other than the professor himself who was glad to see him.
"Hey Mario, it's been over a week, where in the world have you been? I have actually been studying these holes in the ground. I gotta say, they do not make a lot of sense, but I'll discover their secret soon. It's dangerous work too, there used to be these origami ghost guys that used to sneak up on me, and taking them out isn't as easy unlike when you and Olivia--"
Mario's grin flipped upside-down almost immediately.
"--were there to help me take care of them, but lately, they have disappeared, and I can't solve that mystery eithe--" He notices Mario gloomily staring at the sand, "What's wrong, Mario?...and where's Olivia?"
Mario needed a multi-minute break before he spoke again. It wasn't going to be easy breaking the news to the professor, but in order to get him to join him, he knew he had to. It was slow but he eventually broke the news to him about Olivia's plea.
"Oh, I see." Professor Toad said, "That's terribly sad to hear. Is there another reason you wanted to speak to me?"
Mario explained to him the odd situation with the peculiar room in the castle telling him all about the strange shape of the tile on the floor that matches both the professor's shoes and shovel.
"Another secret to discover, huh? It sounds interesting, but I'm afraid I cannot leave until every mystery here in the desert is solved; I can show you the many different hiccups that I've discovered during your lengthy disappearance. Though I wish there was some sort of transportation to travel this vast place."
Mario, without hesitation, flung out the boot whistle and blew as hard as he could.
"Oh, my apologies. The boot car!" the professor exclaimed, "Now the first of my problems reside in the Desert's far east and far west, there are these holes in the wall that I cannot understand their appearance"
The plumber drove off towards Scorching Sandpaper Far East to examine these "holes" in the wall.
As he was driving, the professor had mentioned to him that he felt lonelier without Olivia, which didn't help his case to not feel unmotivated, but he still kept his foot on the gas and soon they reached their destination.
After observing them and realizing that these are non-bottomless holes that he had come across on his adventure. He grabbed his confetti bag and filled them, then drove over to the Far West to do the same there. He explained to the lonely professor about these holes they encountered on his journey.
"Thanks for solving this mystery, Mario, I don't know what exactly to give you for it, but here take this."
He handed "this" to Mario. It looked like a box with something in it and had an interesting design on it, but no way of opening it.
"I was digging and found this in the middle of nowhere. It looks like another mystery that I can't solve, so I hope you figure it out."
Even after solving a mystery for him, it seemed the stubborn professor wasn't going anywhere...unless the plumber could solve his mystery while also bringing him along so that professor could solve his mystery. Now that sounded like a deal. Mario explained the deal to him to which the professor thought about it.
"I'm all for mysteries but I just don't find any apparent reason to ever depart from this desert. I guess leaving may be the only reason I will ever find out what the contents are in this box." the professor explained, "Whatever, I'll join you. Where are we going now?"
Mario quickly drove back to the pipe taking every shortcut and weaved through obstacles as close as he could with much precision.
"Geez, Mario. Do you have any experience with driving. You're pretty good at this," the professor mentioned.
They soon reached the destination, the yellow tube. Mario told him to enter the pipe and the other end would be reached in a matter of seconds. He demonstrated by snatching the shovel from the Toad's hands and dropping it in the pipe.
The professor lifted himself up onto the circular rim of the pipe and slowly shimmied his feet towards the entrance and pushed off to go into the great unknown. The plumber jumped in without hesitation after a few seconds, and reached the other end only to push the professor off the edge of the pipe he came out of to which he stepped on his shovel making him trip. He got up, wiping the dirt off him and said. "Well that surely was an experience! Now what is this room and which of these pipes do we go down?" he stated while picking up the shovel he tripped over.
Mario signaled the direction to the pipe that he wanted the professor to go down, only this time, he went first. Diving into the tube and coming out hearing the calming music of the museum, he could feel something below him, and jumped off the pipe as quick as he could. It was the shovel but his reflexes weren't enough to halt the piece of metal bonking him in the head causing him to fall on the ground. Seconds later, the professor came out the other end the pipe as Mario was wiping the dust off of himself.
"Well that surely was a better experience." The professor claimed as he retrieved his trusty shovel from a furious Mario."
The professor followed the plumber out of the museum doors and he caught a glimpse of the name of the place, "Toad Town" he instantly felt more comfortable in this area.
Mario directed him towards the castle and located the Princess, who was not difficult to find.
"Hey, Mario. Did you identify where that Toad may be?" She smiled.
Mario nodded and looked to his right, to see that no one was there standing beside him. Quickly and frustrated, he frantically dashed out of the castle to see Bridge Toad and the professor exchanging a few words about the tools they carried.
"Oh so that's what they used to dig for buried treasure," stated Bridge Toad, "My wrench and hammer built this very bridge you stand on."
"How did this bridge fall to begin with?" said the professor.
"I'm not entirely sure to be honest." said the perplexed green Toad
"Another mystery, I see--"
Mario was already fed up with mysteries already and darted over towards the professor's direction to talk some sense into him about the real mystery.
Professor Toad grabbed his shovel and followed the plumber into the castle and greeted the princess of the mushroom kingdom.
"Hi, are you the toad that's needed for that room over there?" she pointed
"I'm sorry, who are you?"
"Excuse my impatience, I forgot to introduce myself, my apologies. I'm Princess Peach, the princess of the mushroom kingdom," She smiled, "and you are?"
"Ahem" the professor coughed, "I'm Professor Toad, the toad that carries a shovel and solves mysteries in the desert." an idea popped into his mind "OOH! Mario, maybe she knows what's in that box." The toad jumped up and down.
Mario's face did not show any amusement for being distracted and he desperately wanted to cut to the chase and visit the odd room, but he pulled out the mystery box and showed it to Peach.
After examining its design, she concluded, "ooo, I'm not so sure I know what to do...good luck solving it; maybe this room has the answer, let's find out." She led them to the room full of buttons.
Mario was giddy and took off for the door, not waiting to hold it open for the other two, and he shifted his feet on the red tile for it to glow a bright red. Though as he was shifting his feet, the royalty was holding the door open for the professor.
"Thank you!" the professor smiled
"You are welcome." she replied while glaring at the plumber. "...anyway there are these tiles on the floor and Mario believes you are the chosen one to stand on that yellow one over there." she pointed.
"Aha, so this is the mystery--"
Mario was so disappointed at that word almost just as much as hearing the word "Olivia" that he moved himself in disappointment and the tile stopped glowing.
"--that Mario...What's wrong, Mario?"
He quickly placed his feet back on the outlines of the shoes to activate the tile again.
"...that Mario was explaining to me about." he then hovered over the yellow tile, "Now, let me see here, these are toad shoes by the looks of it, and this," he observed his shovel before jumping to a conclusion, "looks exactly like my shovel." He placed his shovel on the outline and stood on the tile. It lit up as yellow as the sun.
"sweet! just one more tile to go!" the princess grinned. "Now, Professor Toad, could you possibly help us figure out who might be the one to stand on the pink tile."
"What I can't understand is why am I the one needed for this mystery? that may be unsolvable... so of course I will help you find out." The mushroom picked up his shovel and got off the button and examined the pink tile.
Mario walked off the tile and stood to the right of the professor and Peach stood to the professor's left as they all examined the outline of the shoes.
"This...looks like...the shoes of a... Goomba!" he claimed.
"All Goomba's I know our brown." Peach noted, "Is there one I don't know of?"
As they theorized, Mario slowly pulled out one of his letters and came to a realization that this may be a beginning to some adventure. It... was Goombella that was needed for whatever this mischief the room contained. He got both the princess' attention and the professor's and handed her the letter for them both to read. Mario didn't know how to act since this room needed Goombella who had sent him a letter that morning. This was no coincidence, someone somewhere was planning something unknown and this room may find the answer to that. It could lead to a tragic ending for him or it could be a new adventure. Mario was not all too sure, but what he did know is that he'd have to wait to find out. Goombella wasn't arriving in two seconds.
"3 Days?!" exclaimed Professor Toad.
"You sure that's the one?" said the princess.
Mario nodded
"I think we must wait until she arrives, but until then, there isn't much we can do except pass the time." the princess stated.
"Well, where do I stay" the toad mentioned. "I kind of like it here in... Toad Town, fits me. I mean... half of my name is in half the town's name, I love this place!"
"You could ask one of the toads around here and stay with them." Peach replied.
"That doesn't sound bad," the professor looked up towards the ceiling of the room, "AH! I know exactly who to ask."
Both Mario and Peach watched the professor bolt out the door while Mario made plans for the rest of his day and Peach stayed in the castle cleaning every corner of it; she was more relieved that the mysterious room in the castle had been solved though the actions had not been performed to reveal the secret of the buttons yet. The sun was starting to set and those two had their minds set only on Goombella's arrival while the professor shared his life story with Bridge Toad.
The moon had risen over the mushroom kingdom and Mario decided to take a stroll back to his house. Once he arrived, he put the block with the designs on it and placed the cube on his wooden table and got in his bunk. Something didn't seem right this time, and it wasn't the odd room, and it wasn't Olivia. Funny, first time he thought of her without becoming gloomy. But this time he was gloomy for a different reason, and he couldn't find out why. And then it hit him.
"LUIGI!!!"