Chapter Five:
What's Wrong With One and Two?
A gloved hand grasped the knob, gently and cautiously. Mario breathed slowly; all it took was a leap of faith. The fat Italian had to get to the bottom of it, before it was too late. His hand moved and the knob turned slowly, then he opened the door and walked into a light blue hallway.
Mario walked over the threshold and the door shut behind him, then it vanished into thin air. He approached a nearby door, seeing the words 'SMG4 studio' on it. The plumber noticed a screen on the wall, showing a blue-sky background cropping up, then the icon of a bearded SMG4 appeared with Boopkins cropping up as well.
Catchy music played and then, the red and blue logo appeared, reading "Hobo Bros".
"Wa-hey!" He heard voices exclaim.
Now, he had two choices, go through the door in front of him to find a clue behind SMG4's madness, or let the video play and risk allowing SMG4's insanity to worsen. Mario made his choice and he opened the door, walking into the SMG4 Studio.
He spotted SMG4 sitting on a couch with Boopkins. Right behind them, a fake Meggy picture stood between two shelves. Mario noticed the people behind the camera, they were all SMG4, representations of him anyway. In the real world, SMG4 worked alone on his videos and memes, while often letting other people assist him.
And here, in this illusion within the meme man's mind, SMG4 had a team of other SMG4s. Thinking about it, you could say that it pretty much represented how SMG4 worked.
Mario watched as SMG4 and Boopkins played a sports-related video game with a game of golf being one of the sports events they were playing. SMG4 tapped the controller's buttons and his video game avatar swung the cricket, sending the ball across a green field towards a hole.
The ball landed in the hole and a word appeared in a large font with a yellow color; "Ass".
"YES!" SMG4 cried, "ASS!"
"Alright!" Boopkins said, "Nice one, SMG4!"
Mario heard chatter and turned to see SMG4's... identical assistants... working away on computers, the plumber caught a glimpse of a spinning fish meme and he heard "Super Sonic Racing" from Sonic R playing over a speaker. He turned back to SMG4 and Boopkins, who were still playing that sports game, while chatting amongst themselves.
'Well, so far, so good.' Mario thought, 'There doesn't seem to be anything fishy... and that scares Mario. I didn't knock him out too hard, did I? Whatever is behind his madness has got to be hiding somewhere around here, SMG4 must be trying really hard to keep something hidden from me...'
"Mario?!"
SMG4 and Boopkins spotted the fat Italian close by. The SMG4s behind the cameras turned in his direction, the others at the computers turned. Before Mario had anything to say, all eyes were on him. In fact, the cameras were on him now.
"Mario, do something funny!" SMG4 cried.
'Okay.' Mario shrugged, 'Lets give 'im their views' worth.'
He started to waddle around like a penguin, giving him an idea of what he was doing, and then, Mario started doing the Club Penguin dance, spinning around while waddling. The SMG4 crew whooped excitedly, even Boopkins was thrilled by this scene. The cameras focused on him and the SMG4 clones began producing memes like no tomorrow.
"Yeah, Mario!"
"Alright!"
"Nice movies!"
"Far out, Mario!"
"Mario, say something!" An SMG4 clone cried.
'Okay.' Mario twirled around in a sort of victory dance and flashed a thumbs up, then he said in his most chipper tone yet, "Mario number one."
Big mistake! All the SMG4s in the room looked at Mario with shock and the fat plumber quickly realized that it probably was not a good idea, given the current situation that he and the meme man, meme men, were dealing with, especially with SMG4's mental state. Both SMG4s' eyes were wide with total surprise.
"Did you just say...?" SMG4 stammered, "Number one."
"What's wrong with number one?" Boopkins asked, "Its better than being number two?"
Chaos ensued. SMG4 and his crew began shouting and scrambling, working frantically at the computers while yelling various things to each other as Mario watched, seeing the dominos fall.
"Oh boy, here we go!" He remarked.
"WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!" An SMG4 shouted.
"HOW'S MARIO AN AVATAR?!" Another yelled, "JUST WHAT DOES THIS POSSIBLY MEAN?!"
"DO THE GUARDIAN PODS MEAN ANYTHING SIGNIFICANT?"
"WHERE IS ZERO FROM, WHY DOES HE WANT TO DESTROY THE UNIVERSE, AND WHAT THE HECK DOES HE WANT WITH MARIO?!"
"SMGs... WHAT ARE SMGS... SMG1 AND SMG2 DON'T EVEN LOOK LIKE MARIO! I THOUGHT SMG STOOD FOR 'SUPER MARIO GLITCHY', WHAT ELSE DOES IT STAND FOR IF THERE ARE OTHER SMGs OUT THERE AND THEY DON'T LOOK LIKE MARIO!"
Cameras fell over, computers sparked, and an eerie green light flashed near a computer screen. One of the SMG4s put up a chart filled with drawings related to Zero, the Guardian Pods and SMG1 & SMG2, which also came with the questions written on it. Mario turned to see Boopkins, the couch, the TV and the game console vanish.
And then, the other SMG4s faded, and the whole studio disappeared all around Mario. The fat Italian felt the floor give out beneath his feet and he fell into darkness, falling and falling through the unknown void to who knew where while he heard SMG4 screaming the questions again.
For a brief moment, green mist appeared, with 1 and 2 symbols emerging from a bright green light. And then, Mario felt himself hit solid ground, then he looked up and saw SMG4 standing upon a stage...