After a long descent, the elevator doors finally opened again with a loud ding and everyone scrambled out into a massive fog-filled cave. Glowing green runes were etched along every surface and the ground was covered in a thin layer of an unidentifiable liquid that seemed to shimmer orange and purple.
"I… don't think that I want to know what this place is," Daisy muttered as a chill ran up her spine.
"Yeah, even by my standards this place is creepy." Samus began tapping a button on the side of her helmet, switching between different visor settings as she scanned the area.
"This cave is basically just a step away from the afterlife," Roger the Potted Ghost explained, as his dry bone servants carried him off to the side. "I'm sure none of you have been this close to death before, and hopefully you never will again until your time comes. Now, get ready because he should be somewhere around-"
"WHO DARES!"
Everyone's attention turned to a crown set with a large purple gemstone, which lifted up from the ground on the other side of the cave. Once the crown finished its ascent and hovered in the air for a moment, a pair of purple eyes flashed beneath it and a ghostly visage slowly faded into view. King Boo, true to his name, looked much like the other boos that most of the team had faced before, though much, much larger. A dark shadow seemed to be permanently cast over his face, and the normally white spectral body had a darker tint to it that almost seemed to ooze with malevolence.
"AH, IT IS YOU!" King Boo looked down at the group, his gaze letting on one person in particular. "LUIGI! COME TO MEDDLE IN MY AFFAIRS AGAIN, HAVE YOU? THEN I AM AFRAID THAT YOU WILL BE MOST DISAPPOINTED, FOR I HAVE NO INTENTION OF BEING STOPPED THIS TIME!"
"Wait, you've met this guy before?" Ridley asked.
"U-unfortunately." Luigi tried to stop his legs from shaking, to little success. "We… we've-a fought a few times, but… um… he-a seems a lot b-b-bigger than before."
"Well, if you've beat him before, then we can do it again!" Daisy slapped Luigi on the shoulder. "Heck, I'm sure that guy in the armor could do this even just on his own."
"Guy?" Samus turned to Daisy. "I'm not a-"
"ROGER!" King Boo ignored the mortals and turned to his fellow ghost. "I SEE YOU HAVE TURNED TRAITOR AND JOINED WITH THESE MORTAL FOOLS!"
"Of course not," Roger replied, causing everyone else a moment of panic before he continued. "I would have had to have been on your side at some point to be considered a traitor. I was quite clear from the start that I wasn't going to let your scheming get in the way of our restful peace."
"THEN YOU HAVE MADE A GRAVE MISTAKE!" King Boo declared angrily. "NONE OF YOU ARE LEAVING HERE ALIVE! FOR TOO LONG I HAVE BEEN CONTENT WITH MERELY TRAPPING PEOPLE IN PAINTINGS IN MANSIONS AND HOTELS! THIS TIME, I SHALL PLUNGE YOUR ENTIRE WORLD INTO DARKNESS AND TRULY CLAIM MY RIGHTFUL PLACE AS SUPREME RULER OF REALITY! IT REALLY IS GAME OVER FOR YOU AND YOUR PUNY FRIENDS, LUIGI, FOR THIS TIME I-"
Whatever King Boo was going to say, it was interrupted as he suddenly found himself being bombarded by Ice Missiles.
"Did-did you just cut off the bad guy mid-monologue?" Daisy asked, stunned. "Is that even legal?"
"Well, excuse me for not being in the habit of talking with the monsters I fight before I take 'em out," Samus said sarcastically as she began strafing the ghost. "And for the record, Princess, I am a woman!"
King Boo yelled as he was continuously bombarded with freezing explosives, before spinning around and dropping through the floor.
"ENOUGH!" King Boo's voice echoed through the haunted chamber. "YOU INSOLENT FOOLS! YOU DARE THINK THAT YOU COULD CHALLENGE ME! FOR THAT, I WILL UNLEASH MY ULTIMATE POWER!"
"That doesn't sound good," Ridley remarked.
"Don't tell me…" Roger said. "He couldn't mean to…"
"COME TO ME! SPIRITS OF THE DEAD! SACRIFICE YOURSELVES TO THY KING! BECOME MY POWER!"
An intense wind swept through the ghastly cavern, as if the area was suddenly swallowed up by a tornado. Ridley dug his claws into the ground while Rosalina cast a spell to keep their other allies from being swept away. King Boo emerged from the ground again, opening his mouth wide as every boo in the mansion above was dragged into the room and sucked straight into his mouth. Even Roger and his dry bones were sucked up by King Boo, and Roger's pot shattered as it fell to the ground. The spectral monarch began to swell in size, growing larger and larger while his ghostly form darkened and warped. By the time the wind settled down, King Boo had grown to a truly colossal size, too big for the cave they were in so that he passed through the ceiling and floor, and his body had turned a deep purple. The undead monstrosity stared down at them through golden eyes, musky blue smoke drifting from his mouth.
"KING BOO IS NO MORE!" He announced. "I HAVE TRANSCENDED TO MY ULTIMATE FORM! BEHOLD! THE CHTHONIC EMPEROR, DARK ATOMIC BOOLOSSUS!"
"I'd say that this is getting ridiculous, but I think we passed that milestone a long time ago." Samus aimed her arm cannon, charging up a shot before firing at the self-styled Chthonic Emperor. The attack did nothing.
"Sometimes I hate this planet," Ridley said. "Only on SMB-985 could something like this happen."
"Oh, you'd be surprised." Rosalina held up her ruby-tipped golden wand. "But this isn't exactly normal here, either."
With a swish of the stolen wand, Rosalina sent out a blast of magic which looked like a scattered arrangement of various brightly-colored geometric shapes. This proved just as ineffective as Samus' attack, however. Ridley was the next one to act, attempting to pelt the Dark Atomic Boolossus with his plasma breath. Unfortunately, all this did was solidly prove that he could no longer perform his breath attacks at all without the assistance of a power up, something he had assumed for a while but hadn't gotten around to testing.
"TREMBLE, MORTALS! SOON YOUR LIVES WILL END AND YOUR SOULS SHALL FUEL MY POWER AS I SHAPE THE WORLD INTO MY MAGNUM OPUS!"
Dark Atomic Boolossus exhaled deeply and the blue smoke emitting from his mouth filled the cave. Everyone but Samus fell to the ground, unable to breathe properly in the ghostly miasma. Rosalina's wand tumbled out of her hand while Daisy's crown clattered off to the side.
"Poison," Samus announced. "Not like anything on record, according to my scans. We need to get rid of this stuff, ASAP."
"Kind of figured that out already," Ridley slowly lifted himself up onto all fours, splashing around in the unidentified liquid still spread across the floor. "Got any ideas on how?"
"Wand," Rosalina choked out. "Now."
Ridley stumbled over to where the magic rod in question had fallen and picked it up off the strange block it was resting on. He paused for a moment, staring at the strange cubic object that he could have sworn wasn't there a moment ago, before crawling over the Rosalina and handing her the wand.
Rosalina looked up at him and faintly reached her arm out but collapsed before she could grab it. Ridley looked around to see that Luigi and Daisy had both passed out already as well. Or at least that's what Ridley assumed, as the blurry shapes he identified as his friends weren't moving.
"Not good." Samus walked over to him. "If this keeps up it'll cause permanent damage, at least. And even my suit's filters are about to give out."
Ridley started to screech but it turned into a hacking cough almost as soon as he opened his mouth. Whatever death magic Dark Atomic Boolossus was using was even bypassing his own natural poison immunities. Desperate, Ridley did the only thing he could think of, passing Rosalina's wand to his tail and grabbing the strange block it had been on with both hands. The cool gray cube began to flash through a cycle of overly-bright colors the moment he picked it up but he hadn't even had time to process that before he chucked it at the Dark Atomic Boolossus with all the strength he could muster. The attack hit its mark and, to Ridley and Samus' surprise, the giant boo was thrown back by the attack, shouting angrily before blinking out of view. The miasma cleared almost as quickly as it had spread despite the cave's lack of proper ventilation. Rosalina, Luigi and Daisy soon roused back into consciousness as well.
"Success!" Ridley pumped his fists into the air despite having no idea what just happened.
"Don't count your shnooks before they hatch." Samus pointed her cannon where the Dark Atomic Boolossus had been. "He's still there, just invisible."
"Of course, why would it be that easy?"
"How did you-a fight him?" Luigi asked, walking up to them.
"I threw a rock at him," Ridley summarized.
"What kind of rock can hit a ghost?" Daisy wondered aloud.
"I don't know, it just a big block I found when I grabbed the space witch's wand." Ridley swung his tail around to show off the wand, but the motion caused it to fire off a spell of geometric shapes which hit the liquid on the cave floor and another block identical to the first one appeared.
"Of course!" Rosalina rushed over. "I took this wand from a magikoopa, who are known to specialize in spells that turn blocks into other things and vice versa. Unchanneled magic fired from it must default to that spell, turning this liquid into blocks of whatever netherworld material it's composed of, which in turn must have the ability to affect spirits."
"Ah ha!" Ridley began swinging the wand wildly, making magic blocks pop up all over the place. "I am a space pirate dragon wizard!"
"No," Rosalina stated matter-of-factly and snatched the wand from him. "Mine."
"YOU FOOLS MAY THINK THAT YOU HAVE FOUND A WAY TO HARM ME, BUT I ASSURE YOU THAT-"
The Dark Atomic Boolossus didn't even have time to finish his sentence before Ridley threw one of the blocks into his mouth, causing the re-manifested ghost to vanish again. But not before a group of boos were able to fly out of its mouth.
"DON'T DO THAT!" The Chthonic Emperor appeared again after moving to the other side of the room, noticeably smaller than before.
"Everyone, throw rocks at him 'til he dies!" Ridley shouted, hurling another block at the ghost.
And thus the cycle of hurt began for the being formerly known as King Boo. Everytime the tyrannical tyrant appeared, the group would pelt him with more magic blocks, Rosalina using her wand's inherent magic to keep their supply from running out, and everytime one managed to land in his mouth more boos would be freed from the forced conglomerate. Eventually, they were left facing one smaller-than-average boo, identifiable as King Boo only because of his shadowed purple eyes and the now-oversized crown atop his head.
"Well, I guess we win this round," Ridley cackled, absently tossing a block up and down with one hand. "Got any last words, 'Chthonic Emperor'?"
"you, no! how dare you?" the diminished king squeaked out. "i was supposed to win! me!
"You-a know, he's a lot less scary like-a this." Luigi crouched down beside King Boo and started poking the tiny gray ball. King Boo bit his finger in response, causing Luigi to jump back and almost fall over before Daisy caught him.
"Let's just finish this creep off before he causes any more trouble." Samus picked up a block and was about to throw it at King Boo, but it slipped from her fingers as her power suit dematerialized, falling to the floor and dissolving in the purple-orange liquid.
Fear. Primordial and instinctual fear overwhelmed every being in the cave, living or otherwise, as the doors to the elevator opened once again. Ridley had to fight his every instinct to turn around as the sound of rattling chains drew louder. What he saw was a skeletal figure draped in tattered blue robes slowly floating through the air towards them. Ridley had never seen this figure before and yet he instantly knew who, or rather what, this being was. Death had arrived.
"n-no. no, it can't be!" King Boo whimpered as Death drew closer.
A skeletal hand lifted up, pointing a single bony finger toward the cowering boo. "Reginald Boosford, son of Samuel Boosford and Carol McBoo, self-proclaimed King of the Boos. Your time has come."
King Boo could do nothing but shiver as Death raised his scythe. If he had a bladder, King Boo would have wet himself before the mighty curved blade swung low. The jeweled crown splashed against the wet ground, the only remaining evidence that he had ever existed. His task complete, Death turned to face the others. It may have lacked eyes inside the hollows of its skull yet its gaze seemed to pierce the very souls of those it looked upon. All was silent save for the rattling of the chains wrapped loosely around Death's arms and spine, the entity lacking anything below what would be its waist. After a few seconds that lasted an eternity, Samus began reaching for the stun pistol holstered on her thigh.
"Samus Aran, daughter of Rodney Aran and Virginia Wayne. You know better than to start a fight you can't win, and I will not bring harm to any of you. My job is to collect the souls of the dead, not to take those of the living." Death reached under its robes and procured an old lantern with ghostly flame burning within. "Luigi Mario, son of Mario Mario Senior and Daniella Verducci, hero of the Mushroom Kingdom. Rosalina, daughter of a dead timeline, mother of lumas. Daisy Karma, daughter of Murphy Karma and Deanna Matthis, princess of another kingdom. Ridley, first of your line, writer of your own story. You have all come here for a purpose. To find the soul of Mario Mario Junior, son of Mario Mario Senior and Daniella Verducci, and return him to the mortal realm. I cannot allow this."
"If we must fight you, then we will-" Rosalina was cut off as Death raised a finger to silence her.
"I wasn't finished. I cannot allow you to bring Mario back to the realm of the living. But I have brought his soul here so that you may speak to him." Death jiggled the lantern in his hand. "I'm afraid that your time will be limited, however. Even in this place, a soul cannot stay for long. Make the most of what you have."
With that, Death opened the old lantern and the spectral flame poured out from within, growing and changing shape until Mario stood before them. Or rather, the ghostly image of Mario hovered in the air a few inches above the ground.
"It's-a me, Mario!"
"M-Mario!" Tears streaked down Luigi's cheeks as stepped forward to hug his brother. Surprising most of the group, Mario's ghost was corporeal enough in form to return the embrace. "I thought you were gone."
"I am gone, Luigi." Mario reminded him and pulled away. "I-a don't know how-a much time I have left, but I'm-a glad to finally have-a this chance to say goodbye. I-a wish the others were here, but… this-a will have to do. I miss you, more than-a you could know. But I-a hope you don't mind if I-a say that I hope I won't be seeing you again anytime soon."
"I don't understand why we aren't allowed to bring you back," Rosalina spoke up. "Plenty of other spirits return as ghosts and I know resurrections should be possible. You've only been gone a few days, which should be enough time to-"
"That's-a the thing." Mario cut her off. "I haven't been dead for a few days. It's been years."
"What?" Everyone seemed to ask at once.
"But that's not possible!" Ridley stated. "I killed you myself and even with this strange planet's weirdness, there's no way that-"
"You didn't kill me." Mario replied.
"Yes I did!" Ridley argued. "I pushed you off a bridge into a pool of lava!"
"That-a wasn't me. I did-a fall to my death but that was a long time ago. It was back when… I-a died when… Ah! AHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHRGH!"
Mario's ghostly form burst back into flames again as the dead plumber screamed in agony, prompting Death to fumble around with his lantern.
"Drat! Nononononoooooooooooo!" Death quickly scooped up the flames and pushed them back into the empty vessel as quickly as he could. "I'm so sorry, you were supposed to have more time than that! Reginald must have destabilized this place more than I thought. It isn't safe for spirits to dwell here anymore. I'm terribly sorry about that but I'm afraid that's all the time you have. It will take a long time resting in the afterlife before Mario's recovered enough for another visit like this, not to mention you'd need to find a new place to meet and I'm always super busy."
"W-what was Mario talking about?" Luigi asked, clearly shaken up over the whole ordeal. "He was already dead? What happened to him? How long has he been gone?"
"Oh, that's simple. You see, it happened back when Bowser-" Death stopped and reached for an hourglass. "Really, now? Come on, Ganondorf, you always have the worst timing with… Sorry but I have to go now. Repeat customer. Causes a lot of problems when I don't collect him right away. Be seeing you again soon, Luigi!"
Death stuffed the lantern and hourglass back into his robes and picked up the scythe he had set down before rushing to the elevator.
"Hey, what about Mario!" Daisy called after Death, but it was too late as the doors shut behind him.
"Well, that didn't go according to plan," Samus said.
"Who knew Death would be so amiable?" Ridley replied. "Or exist as an intelligent entity in any form, for that matter? I always thought that death was just the nothingness that comes when a life ends, but now suddenly I'm burdened with the knowledge that souls are real, there's some sort of afterlife system in place meaning that we all likely have to 'live' with the consequences of our actions for eternity and perpetuity, and the grim reaper really feels like someone I could go for a drink with."
"Same."
"Now is not the time!" Rosalina screamed at them both.
"Mario's gone?" Luigi fell to his knees. "He's been dead for years? But-a then, who have I… who-a was it that's-a been pretending to-a be Mario all this time? And why didn't I-a notice? I-a should have realized… I-a should have known…"
"That was certainly unexpected." Roger made a movement that resembled a shrug.
"How didn't I see it?" Rosalina rested her hand against her face. "And for who knows how long?"
Daisy knelt down beside Luigi and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. "I know that was a lot to take in, but… you know I'm here for you, right?"
"Yeah," Luigi forced a smile as he grabbed her hand. "I know."
"We all are," Samus said with a shaky voice. "I know I pretty much just met you all, but I like you guys and… I know what it's like to lose someone you care about. If there's anything I can do to help, just let me know."
"Hey, guys, I know this is kind of a big moment and all, but…" Ridley raised his hands, "are we all just going to ignore the fact that Roger's back now?"
"Oh, hey, that's right." Daisy turned to the ghost with a bouquet of flowers on his head. "I thought you got eaten. When did you get back?"
"I was released from King Boo's clutches along with the other ghosts you rescued," Roger explained. "But alas, unlike the others my essence requires inhabiting a vessel of some sort, and my pot appears to have been destroyed in the battle, meaning that I was forced to improvise with what was available on-hand."
Roger looked forlornly down the trail of his ghostly form towards the item he was now bound to. The others followed his gaze.
"Hey, that's my crown!" Daisy yelled.
"And now it is also my anchor to reality," Roger the unpotted ghost replied sadly. "Without it, I am quite literally nothing."
"I think it looks good on you, boss man." Daryl the dry bones picked the small golden crown off the ground and walked over to Daisy. "Here yah go, miss."
"Um, thank you." Daisy took the crown and placed it on her head as normal. To her relief it wasn't any heavier than before. Roger then retracted into the jeweled headwear so that only the flowers sticking out of his head were still sticking out. "Well, I guess this will do for now."
"Well, this experience has only left us with more questions than answers." Rosalina sighed and straightened her dress. "We will need to follow up on this at some point to get to the bottom of what happened. But for now, I believe we've kept Princess Peach waiting for far too long. It is time that we take the fight to Bowser!"
Rosalina made her way back to the elevator and everyone else followed. As they were about to step in, however, Luigi hesitated and stopped.
"What's wrong?" Daisy asked him.
Luigi trembled and stared down at his feet. He had gone through a lot in the last few minutes. So much, in fact, that he had almost completely missed a detail which now seemed the most important revelation of all to him.
'Be seeing you again soon, Luigi!'
He had been so focused on what had happened to his older twin brother Mario that Luigi hadn't even considered his own mortality. And yet now he knew that his life would be ending before long. He didn't know how much time he had left but he still had so much he wanted to do, and someone special that he wanted to do that with.
"D-Daisy, er, princess?" Luigi clenched and unclenched his fists, fidgeting around before finally taking his hat off and wringing it tightly in his hands.
"Yeah?" Daisy tilted her head to the side, confused.
"I, uh, I-a have a question I need to ask you."
"Shoot." Daisy nodded, still not sure where this was going.
"Well, I-uh… I don't think this is-a really my place to ask, but… but I just going to go ahead and ask!" Luigi clutched his hat so tightly that his knuckles turned white, not that they were visible under his gloves, and dropped down to one knee. All three women widened their eyes, finally realizing what was about to happen, unlike Ridley who just glanced around at everyone with a confused look. "Princess Daisy, will you marry me?"
"yes." Daisy's response was so faint that she didn't even realize that she had said anything, as she stood there in shock. Then tears began to roll down her face and she nearly pounced on Luigi. "YES! Of course I will, yes! I've been waiting forever for you to ask!"
"You know, she has two different gold statues of them dancing together at her palace," Rosalina whispered to Samus and Ridley. "One of them has them as babies for some reason, even though they didn't meet until they were adults. It's weird."
"I didn't commission that one, that sculptor just had issues!" Daisy snapped at her defensively before turning her attention back to her fiance. Oh, how she loved that she could finally call him that. Her fiance, and future prince of Sarasaland. Unlike Luigi, Daisy hadn't caught Death's parting words. "Oh, I can already picture the wedding! It's going to amazing and perfect and we're going to have so many kids and-"
"Hey, I'm sorry to interrupt the moment," Rosalina spoke up before Daisy could continue ranting about their theoretical future, "but we really do need to go. I doubt staying in this place could be good for our health. You can celebrate on the way."
"Oh, right, of course." Luigi blushed and everyone crammed into the elevator once again. As they made their way back up to the ghost house, he turned to Ridley. "Hey, I-a know we haven't known each other for-a very long and this is-a kind of early to ask, but… well, since I don't have my-a real brother around anymore, I-a was wondering… if you could be the best man at the wedding?"
"Yeah, of course," Ridley nodded assuringly, then leaned over to Samus and whispered, "What's a wedding?"
Samus responded with a sigh and slapped her forehead, inadvertently reminding herself that she hadn't put her power suit back on yet.
Roshi sat on a boulder, fidgeting uncomfortably. He knew that not all of his friends were going to be making it out of the ghost house alive. For all he knew, they had all already met their untimely deaths in there. He had spotted Death fleeing the area in a hurry, muttering something about a 'darn high rule warlock', whatever that meant. The anxiety and terror was growing so overwhelming that he thought he was going to throw up. Not helping matters was that he could see ADAM flying towards him, the ship's chipped orange paint job visible from miles away in the clear blue sky. Samus' friends must have finished their repairs after ADAM was shot down a few days ago and now Roshi just knew that he was going to have to be the one to break the news of her death to him. All of them were dead. Ridley, his new best friend, was dead. Luigi, that heroic green plumber, was dead. The feisty princess and the strange magic lady, both dead. He was all alone now. He couldn't return home after just letting everyone die like this. He had nowhere to go. No one would be able to accept him. He was just a big failure and… and…
"Hey."
…and all his friends were dead and he was alone and he was just a fat, stupid failure and no one liked him and…
"Hey!"
…and it was like he could still hear their voices but they were gone and they were never coming back and…
"I said hey!"
Roshi felt a tap on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Whoah, are you alright? I'd say you look like you just saw a ghost, but we're the ones who just had that experience."
Ridley looked down at Roshi, who was now lying on the ground, feet suspended in the air.
"Y-you-you're alive!" Roshi shouted excitedly before hurriedly standing back up and brushing himself off.
"Of course we are," Ridley tilted his head, then realized what was going on. "Oh, you saw him, didn't you? Don't worry, he wasn't here for us. Well, I guess he kind of was but not that way."
"Oh, hey, my ship!" Samus said excitedly as she ran up beside them, back in her armor.
"That will make things much easier." Rosalina said, just behind her. "I trust, of course, that you'll be willing to lend us a ride straight to Bowser's Castle."
"Darn tootin'. Frak, we're goin' in gun's blazin'!" Samus replied, then coughed. "Um, I mean sure."
"Ah, yes, the mighty Hunter. Just a foul-mouthed asteroid girl from a backwater colony at her core," Ridley joked, earning a glare from Samus.
"What, I have an accent. Sue me."
"And now I feel like I need to apologize to you again." Ridley sighed. "Nothing I could ever do could ever make up for everything I took from you that day."
"I'm still not used to you being so…" Samus gestured towards him, "...this. Man, our lives are weird."
"Good afternoon, Lady." ADAM's synthetic voice sounded in Samus' receiver before she switched it to an external speaker so that the others could listen. "We have finished the repairs and I am within operational capacity again. I trust you haven't gotten into too much trouble."
"Define too much," Samus quipped.
"We were in a prison camp!" Ridley yelled angrily. "And then we fought a ghost!"
"That is unlikely," ADAM replied. "We are landing now."
Everyone stood back as the gunship set down on the grassy field near them and its occupants exited to greet them.
"Hey, Samus!" Armstrong Houston waved as he walked up to them, clad in his bulky blue replica of Samus' old armor. "Hope we didn't keep you waiting too long. That laser really did a number on the old ship."
"I am not old." ADAM objected. "I am still a top of the line model. Mostly."
"Did I hear you fought a ghost!" Joey shouted excitedly, running up to Samus. "You've got to tell me about it! Come on, please?"
Diesel hovered up next to him, the hamster-like alien mumbling something about rushed workmanship while wiping the brow of his cybernetic eye with a tentacle.
"Come on, I'll tell you on the way." Samus told Joey as she walked over to ADAM. "Everything's working now, right? Because we're taking on that Bowser guy now and I want to make sure that we're prepared."
"Oh, sure, just fly straight into the warzone as soon as possible. No time for a proper checkup or tuning." Diesel complained. "You do know I'm doubling my fee for this job, right? No, triple."
"Yeah, sure." Samus waved him off. "You know we're saving a princess, right? I'm sure we're getting paid handsomely for this."
"I can confirm that the Mushroom Kingdom does pay quite generously," Ridley added. "Bowser, too, actually. Managed to get both sides to pay me to help kidnap and rescue her. But, um, I don't do that kind of thing anymore, I guess. I'm staying here, by the way. I don't think I told you guys yet. Although now that I think about it, I might try and pay a visit to my old crew just to get some of my stuff back. I had a lot of stuff. Then again, maybe not. Not like any of it was that important now that I think about it."
"I forgot he talks now," Armstrong said as everyone got loaded up on the ship. "And doesn't attack everything on sight."
Once everyone was safely aboard the cramped spaceship, Samus fired up ADAM's engines and they took off towards Darkland. Ridley, tucked away in the back corner, raised his hand.
"Hey, can someone hand me a data pad?"
"Yeah, sure." Samus pulled hit a button on the controls and a digital tablet was ejected from one of the side consoles, which she held out and was handed along to Ridley. "Wait, what do you need that for?"
"Nothing dangerous." Ridley replied as he took the pad. "Just need to look something up. …nothing bad."
Ridley entered in his search and quickly began to look up everything ADAM's database had to say about the topic of 'weddings'. He had no idea what a best man was but he was now determined to be the best there ever was. After reading the first few paragraphs, he looked up to see two empty eye sockets staring at him.
"Hi, I'm Daryl."
"Yes, we've met." Ridley looked down at his research, then back up. "Wait, why are you here?"
Daryl shrugged in response. "Dunno, I was just following everyone else. The other dry bones decided to stay back at the mansion, though."
"Oh, quiznak, it's a zombie!" Armstrong yelled and pointed his arm cannon at Daryl.
"Don't be brash, he's an animated skeleton. There is a difference." Roger poked out from his place in Daisy's crown.
"Ghost!"
"This is going to be a long trip," Samus sighed and clenched her teeth as her grip tightened on ADAM's controls.
"I'm engaged!" Daisy suddenly yelled at the top of her lungs despite being in a small, enclosed space. "I'm going to be Mrs. Luigi!"
"Well, technically you'd-a be Mrs. Mario, because-a Luigi's my-a first name." Luigi pointed out. "Or should I-a be the one taking-a your name, since-a you're royalty and all?"
"Congratulations!" Daryl cheered.
"Wait, you're a Princess?" Joey looked up at Daisy in awe.
"I think I'm getting airsick." Roshi complained.
"Not in my ship!" Diesel shouted at him.
"Hm, maybe I should consider becoming Roger the Spaceship Ghost?" Roger mused.
"Good for you." Armstrong slapped Luigi on the back, knocking him into Rosalina who fell over into Ridley's lap.
"I am trying to read, here!" Ridley yelled.
It took every fiber of Samus' self control not to activate her ejector seat.
Author's Note: I seem to have a habit of accidentally escalating battles as I write them. This chapter was supposed to be just a straightforward boss battle against King Boo. Next thing I know, I'm trying to combine every boo variant I can think of into one and finding a way to actually use the word chthonic (an adjective that comes from Greek and describes something, usually gods, as being connected to the underworld).
Death's fun to write. While his physical description is inspired by Castlevania's take on the character, I took inspiration from Discworld for his more laidback and personable personality, which is also why I write his text in bold. I also decided fairly early on to have him address people by full name along with the names of their parents, which lead to me having to make up a lot of stuff for that scene which I'll try to break down here:
I was originally going to have King Boo referred to as "Boobaloobatoobasnooba, son of Oomfersnicket", completely random funny-sounding names I came up with on the spot, but then decided that was taking it too far and toned it down to comparatively normal-sounding names.
Samus' parents being named Rodney and Virginia Aran comes from the Metroid manga which details Samus' origins, which is actually referenced a lot in this story since I keep bringing up the events of Ridley's attack on K-2L which is specifically from the manga. Virginia doesn't have a canon maiden name so I had to make one up and decided that "Virginia Wayne" sounded nice, so I went with that. Whether or not that means this version of Samus is a distant descendant of Bruce "Batman" Wayne is anyone's guess.
Mario and Luigi's parents need a lot of explaining. My headcanon for a long time now is that Mario, Luigi and Pauline (yes, you read that right) are the children of the original 'Jumpman' and 'Lady' from the Donkey Kong arcade game, just like how modern Donkey Kong is the son (or grandson, depending on your source) of the original. Obviously this theory always stood on extremely shaky ground that gets progressively more contradicted with each new bit of official information that we get. But still, I like the idea and decided to throw a bit of that in here by having Mario and Luigi's father be Mario Sr. Their mother's name of Daniella Verducci is a reference to Mario's girlfriend from the classic Super Mario Bros. movie, which is a hot mess but I love it anyway and that character especially has always been one of my favorites. Her last name is never actually stated in the film, though, but apparently comes from an earlier draft of the script.
I considered naming Rosalina's parents here but realized that particular twist, based on an old fan theory that I seem to recall being popular back in the day and that I still like to headcanon, would be too distracting to include here as there's no way that everyone would just ignore it. So instead, I tried to come up with the best way of avoiding that for now. Rosalina's origins will be covered eventually but will have to wait until one of the sequels.
Daisy's parents were hard to come up with and I ultimately ended up with even more references to the SMB movie. Princess Daisy's parents were featured in the film but never named (which is still an improvement over the games, where they're lucky to get referenced at all). The King seems to have gone through several names throughout various drafts of the script, with the final version before his name was dropped settling on Bowser, which seems to be the preferred one for promotional material and the like. But obviously I couldn't go with that name since there's already a King Bowser running around as the big bad of the story. Karma and Murphy were apparently two earlier versions of the King's name, so I decided to use those here with Karma being the family name. Daisy's mother, Deanna Matthis, is a reference to Daisy's primary voice actress, Deanna Mustard, and her actress from the film, Samantha Matthis.
And then of course there's Ridley, who in this story is explicitly a genetically engineered bioweapon with no parents. Thus, he is described as the first of his line. The question is, though, will he be the last member of that line?
…and then of course after that we have the Pak E. Derm in the room, Mario's death. My original plan for this story was that Ridley killed Mario in the first chapter as it was presented. But the problem is, I never came up with a reason for why Mario's hat seemingly places a glamor on Ridley that causes almost everyone to literally see him as Mario until they see him without the hat. It's been nagging me for years that the entire premise of the story revolves around a detail that had no explanation and would never be resolved despite obviously being one of the biggest questions everyone would have about what's going on. But then a while ago, sometime between when I finished World 7-1 and finally started working on 7-2, I randomly remembered an old Mario fanfic idea I had years ago but never got around to writing, which also coincidentally involved Mario dying and someone being required to take his place without letting anyone know what happened. And then it occurred to me that I could take elements from that fic idea and reshape it to fit my needs in this one to finally fill up that plot hole. Sadly I can't go into more detail here about that because it would spoil too much, and I likely won't be picking this plot thread up for quite some time (in my current notes, this probably won't be relevant until Super Ridley Bros 3). So until then, I guess you're just going to have to speculate.
And lastly, Luigi's proposal. I have been planning that for years and it feels so good to finally reach it. And I'm sure that I'll be feeling that a lot moving forward as we'll be starting the final arc of this story in the next chapter. I've had the ending floating around in my head and story notes basically since I started this story and it's such a relief to be able to finally get there. Luigi asking Ridley to be his best man may seem a bit out of the blue, considering they actually barely know each other at this point despite having gone through a lot together on this adventure. However, it will actually be important moving forward, for reasons that I can't say yet. Oh, and Roger and Daryl have both joined the main cast. I honestly wasn't planning on that. I just added Roger into the previous chapter because he happened to fit and Daryl was just an improvised one-off joke. It's weird how these things happen.
…and there was something about Luigi possibly maybe dying soon? Huh, I wonder what that's about? I guess you'll just have to wait and see. (Spoiler Alert, he's not dying in this story but I do seem to recall having announced a Luigi-themed spinoff in the works. Coincidence?)
See you later, Space Pirate!