Chapter 6: Captured

Mario walked through the dense fog. Graves and tombstones leaned out towards him, their forms coming into the view as he got close, then quickly being swallowed back up by the fog. He held a lamp in his hand this time, the faint yellow glow illuminating the area just enough that he could see the ground he was walking on, as he placed one foot in front of the other.

The light from the lamp also cast shine on the tombstones he passed, and he could just make out their writings if he looked. He did not look. It was better if he didn't know this time, he told himself. That way he could focus on what needed to be done.

But what did he mean, this time, anyway? Had he been here before, or something? And more than that, what exactly was the task that needed to be done? His head was fuzzy and muddled with confusion. He felt an odd sense of familiarity, and for some reason his mind yelled at him that there was something he must do at the end of the fog, but those thoughts were so buried within his hazy mind that he could not make sense of them.

He continued walking, his confusion almost immediately forgotten, scattered by the sense of determination to get to the other side of the fog. One foot in front of the other, along the deadened, uneven ground that lay before him, guided only by the faint light of his lamp. After what felt like hours, he reached the other side.

As the fog began to clear, he found himself standing at the edge of a large graveyard. From what he could tell, it was practically indistinguishable from all of the rest of the graveyard that came before it. He stood back in disappointment, but as he started to turn to leave (where? Where was he, even now?) his peripheral vision caught a shape move at the end of the cemetery. His head snapped back up as a dark figure stalked through the graveyard towards him.

The figure appeared in front of him, within the lamps light, and he found himself staring at a shadow of himself. The figure perched on a large, elegant looking tombstone in the centre of the field.

But this had already happened, hadn't it? Mario racked his brain trying to remember, and slowly the images began flooding back. They had been in a fight; He, Luigi, and Peach against those minions. He had given chase to a shadow of himself, and had been knocked out. Yes, and even the Graveyard had appeared in his dreams the previous night. He had seen all of this before.

"I'm surprised you took so long to remember" a deep, echoing voice rumbled.

Mario's eyes shot to the shadow, who had turned towards him.

"I expected more from the great Mario, hero of the lands" The shadows continued.

The very voice mad Mario's skin crawl, made his mind scream at him to turn and run. A normal person might have, but this was Mario; he wasn't going to run from a fight. Besides, the voice sounded… strangely familiar?

"What do you want" Mario demanded.

"Look around you" the shadow said. "This graveyard, this suffering; this is what I want." The shadow sighed. "I have been away for far too long, scattered like dust into the sky, broken, somehow, so badly that they hoped I would never return again. But you can't stop something like me. You can't stop something like us."

"I've dealt with creatures like you before" Mario said, ignoring the growing fear that he felt. "I won't let you get far, whatever your plans are!"

The shadow smiled coldly. "Don't worry, star child, we'll get our chance to face soon." He patted the elegant tombstone he sat perched upon. "And this, I'll make sure to save this stone for you."

Suddenly, inexplicably, Mario felt himself falling, somehow tipping backwards into the ground as the sky closed in around him…


Mario came awake with a start. After lying where he was for a few seconds to calm his breathing, he began to realize that what he was lying on felt very uncomfortable. He opened his eyes, only to be met with darkness. He blinked rapidly, trying to make his eyes adjust, and a few seconds later, he began to make out his surroundings.

He was in a large metal cage, with bars on all four of the sides. The floor was made out of solid metal, and, if he looked out of the side of the cage, he could see that it was suspended a few feet off the ground. The room outside of his cage was dark, but he could just make out two cages past his own.

"Luigi, Princess, are you there?" He called out.

Some groaning sounded from the cage next to his. A few moments later, Princess Peach stood up.

"Mario, where are we" She asked, still trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness.

Suddenly, Luigi stood up as well. "M-M-Mario" he shakily called.

"I'm over here, Luigi" Mario said.

"Where are we, though?" Peach asked again.

"I suppose the layer of those people we fought" Mario said. "Who knows how far this place is from where we were."

There were a few moments of silence.

"Is everyone doing alright" Peach asked.

Mario nodded. "I'm fine."

"F-Fine" Luigi said.

Luigi was not really doing fine. He did not like the dark at all, one of his many fears, and in this room he could barely make out the interior of his cage, let alone what was outside. He failed to even tell where the minuscule amount of light they had was coming from. He took a deep breath to try to calm himself. They had dealt with things like this before, they could do it again. Besides, he wasn't alone in this room; his brother and the Princess were with him… for now, at least. That last thought didn't do much to calm his mind.

Princess Peach was actually doing fairly well in her cage. This was not the first time she had been kidnapped; this was more like the, several hundredth, or something? She had honestly lost count a long, long time ago. But, either way, she was used to this kind of thing. Mind you, this situation was a bit different from Bowser's frequent kidnappings. Their captors were mysterious and withdrawn; the room was dark and shadowed, compared to Bowser's usual torchlit chambers; The cage was dirtier than most of Bowser's, and Bowser really only ever put her in the cage for the final leg of the adventure, when he was about to fight Mario(1). But, even still, she kept herself fairly calm.

Mario was not afraid like Luigi, but he certainly was not calm by any means. He tried to pace in his cell, to think, but he soon found that the lack of space resulted in him hitting his legs on the bars, and sat back down. Mario hated not being able to move. He wasn't claustrophobic, or anything like that. After all, he could not count the number of times he had been in mine shafts or caves on his adventures. No, it wasn't anything like that. He was however, a very active and adventurous man, and he hated being confined to one spot.

He tried to ignore this feeling of entrapment. After all, he was much more worried about his brother and the Princess. He knew Luigi was afraid of the dark, and though Luigi was outside of his line of sight, his cage positioned behind the princess's cage, he could hear the stutter in Luigi's voice when he had talked earlier. Princess Peach seemed to be doing alright actually, sitting calmly on the floor of her cage, he was still worried about her. It was just like, in his nature to want to make sure she was safe. Yet, he had examined his cage already, and it was a sturdy thing. He could not see anyway to break them out.

The three in the cages sat in silence, each rapped up in their own thoughts, as the morning wore on.


Elsewhere, on the cliffs of Rock Candy Mines, Yvan and Wolley ran down the path that came from the Thrilling Spine Coaster.

"You know what, that was not as fun as I thought it would be" Yvan panted.

"That was exhausting" Wolley moaned, flopping face first onto the the ground.

"Hey, at least it saved us a huge amount of time" Yvan pointed out.

He tried to hoist Wolley off the ground. When that didn't work, he opted to just grab his brother by the arm and drag him along.

"We're probably very far behind the others now" Yvan said, as he began walking away from Grinding-Stone Tower, dragging Wolley behind him.

"Yeah, what was up with those red blocks(2) today?" Wolley said, finally looking up. "I thought that the brothers would've kept that path open, with the way it speeds everything up?"

"Someone who lives up here probably just closed it by mistake" said Yvan. "Hey, at least where catching up now."

"Yeah, I guess, it's still weird though."

Yvan shrugged.

Wolley sighed, and finally pulled himself off the ground.

"There you go" Yvan grinned. "I thought you were going to make me carry you the whole way."

"You weren't carrying me, that was called dragging" Wolley playfully shot back. "Anyway, I just mean, don't you think it's weird that that path was close. Surely all the locals know how fast it makes things?"

Yvan thought on this for a second. "Well, maybe it was just a mixup. There are a lot of paths up here and all that. It would probably be easy to forget to hit the switch again, to set things back." He thought for a moment longer. "Or… maybe you're right. Maybe someone else came past that point, and didn't want anyone else to go down it."

"But why?"

"Maybe, somebody didn't want anybody else to follow the Bros. and the Princess."

Wolley gasped "Do you think it's those shadow things, do you think that they have something to do with this?"

"We'll find out when we catch up with the others. Let's go!"

Yvan took off in a sprint down the path, with Wolley close behind. The two continued on towards the town, unaware that the people they were following were already long gone.


(1): This is referencing the fact that in a lot of the New Super Mario Bros. Games Princess Peach is seen in a cage at the end. Considering the fact that Bowser is kind of sort of (completely) in love with Peach, I figured he wouldn't keep her up there the whole time.

(2):This is the same shortcut that was referenced in chapter 4.


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