We're back! Sorry this took as long as it did, between writing chapters for Paper Mario Reboot, my senior year in high school, accidentally digging myself a grave in the OFF fandom that I have yet to fully escape from, and compiling an actual list for all the Flipside-Flopside citizen swaps, writing this chapter has been slow.
Special thanks to AmberAngelle and MagicQuill42 for their nice comments, and a thank you to all 24 of you folks following super-paper-swap on Tumblr, everyone's interest in this silly little fic means a lot to me.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Super Paper Mario or any other game of the Mario series, they all belong to Nintendo. Please support their initial releases.
Princess Peach gradually awoke to the sound of distant mumbling. She didn't dare open her eyes due to the terrible ache in her head that felt like a pebble violently shoved into her cranium. She wasn't lying on the floor or floating in mid-air, she was standing on solid ground. She wanted to rub her head, but she was already holding something in both hands.
"Ooooh" She moaned from the pain of her migraine, "Where am I?"
There was a sweet and sinister sound of muffled laughter, "Mhmhmm, rise and shine your highness." The voice was familiar, too familiar.
Peach strained to open her eyes, but when she finally did, she desperately wished she hadn't. Before her was an alter with Bowser, somehow wearing a white tux, on the opposite side of it and floating behind the alter was Mistress Tempo with a suspicious looking book floating beside her. She looked down to find herself wearing not her usual dress, but instead a white wedding gown. In her hands was a bouquet of matching flowers, their fragrance seemed to lessen the pain flooding her head.
A great cheer erupted from behind Bowser, the sound of a thousand koopas and goombas in celebration. The sound made her feel ill, these creatures had no right to be happy, they were a nuisance and a threat to her people.
"Wh-what's going on?" The princess asked, her question came out as a mumble from the splitting headache.
A small pulse of energy dispersed next to Tempo, and from its source appeared a most peculiar being. He was roughly Mario's height, maybe taller, wearing some sort of yellow robe so long that it looked like it would fold upon itself if its wearer were on the ground and a shawl over his shoulders that hid his hands from visibility. His seemingly distraught face appeared to be a mask, white on right side, black on the other; he had a yellow hat with tiny ears poking from the top and three purple stems from what might have been a jester's hat jutting out from underneath the first hat and being weighed down by golden bells. Around his neck was a blue collar with another bell underneath the chin that seemed to hold up the shawl.
"Ah, Dimentio, what news do you have?" Tempo spoke to the strange jester-creature, apparently called 'Dimentio'.
"Preparations are complete Mistress! You are free to begin the ceremony as you please." Dimentio exclaimed, his voice seemed to flutter as he spoke. One of the stems twitched, as if alerted by something, and turned his head in the direction of the twitch, towards Princess Peach. The assistant cowered a bit at her sight.
"Chao my friend, you must be Princess Peach. It is pleasure to meet you." Dimentio bowed to the princess and then turned back towards Tempo, his voice becoming timid when he spoke to Peach, almost like he was scared of an unfamiliar face.
'At least he was polite.' Thought Peach.
"Yes, this is our lucky lady!" Tempo said with a childlike grin. "Now how about we begin?"
The sound of bells replaced the chattering of the audience below, Tempo faced the alter, still grinning like an idiot. She cleared her throat before speaking in a more proper and serious tone.
"Bowser, fearsome King of the Koopas, do you take Peach to be your lawfully wedded wife 'till your games be over?"
Peach looked towards Bowser, his expression showed hesitation as he stared back at her.
"Y-yes?" He stuttered, looking back at the monotone dressed woman.
Tempo broke her composure as cracked another grin and began to giggle to herself. She was quick to readjust and continued with the ceremony.
"Peach, noble and pure-hearted princess, do you take Bowser to be your lawfully wedded husband 'till your games be over?"
"HOLD ON THERE LADY!" Peach wasn't having any more nonsense; she was going to get answers. "Under royal decree, I DEMAND that you tell me what's going on this instant!"
"Heeheehee, isn't it obvious your highness? This is your wedding!" Tempo was absolutely giddy with childlike amusement towards the nonsensical events that were unfolding. This behavior had begun to tick off Peach, especially since the Mistress had acted so formal and benevolent before. It was like the change in scenarios had made her into a different woman.
"Ok," the princess grumbled, "but why, in the name of whatever divine being you believe in, am I marrying THAT goody-goody, bumbling, buffoon?!"
"Um, yeah, and what's with the 'fearsome king' thing you said earlier? I hope you meant to say 'friendly king', that sounds a bit more fitting." Bowser interjected, albeit nervously.
"Stay out of this Koopa!"
It was at this point that the two decided to bicker, ironically enough, like an old married couple while Tempo proceeded to laugh at the insanity before her and the audience members murmured amongst themselves.
"Please princess, I'm just as lost on the details as you are, but this lady seems to have gone to a lot of trouble to plan this event and something tells me she's not going to take 'no' as an answer. Let's just go with it, maybe this marriage will be good for us."
"No! Absolutely not! And who picked out this RAG of a wedding dress?! It's awful!" The princess, in a fit of rage, threw the bouquet in her hands at the hysterical Mistress Tempo. Her anger seemed to skew her angle, causing the flowers to instead hit the Mistress's unfortunate assistant square in the face. Tempo's laughter was halted by the sudden assault towards Dimentio, her expression switched to that of confusion as she eyeballed Peach.
"I demand to be returned to my castle this instant!" Peach proclaimed with her arms crossed.
She heard a single snap of fingers, and suddenly her headache became unbearable, it felt like something was both worming itself into her thoughts and clawing its way out of her skull. Numbness and a strange, controlling force spread through her body; she stood up strait, stiff as a plank, staring directly at the opposite side of the alter. Dimentio, who had been flailing about seconds prior, was upright again and holding his right hand in preparation for a snapping motion. The distraught on his face looked more like worry.
"I apologize Princess, but your sudden lashing out is somewhat unnecessary. Please don't make this any harder than it has to be and answer Mistress Tempo's question.
"Do you, Princess Peach, take Bowser to be your wedded husband 'till your games be over?"
"No." Peach refused, the pain was making her dizzy.
"I was going to be gentle, but you leave me no choice." Dimentio snapped his fingers, the pain increased exponentially. Something in her mind took hold, her thoughts overrun with ideas that weren't her own.
"Now Peach," Tempo glared at the princess with a deadpan look, "do you take Bowser to be your husband?"
"...yes...I...d-do..." As soon as she finished speaking, Princess Peach collapsed to the ground; a small green sprout was faintly noticeable on her head, having been previously hidden by her crown.
The entire room shook like an earthquake, the crowd erupted with screams of panic and fear. Near the very back of the crowd, a certain red plumber was startled awake from unconsciousness by the commotion.
"What the-? Where am I?!" Mario managed to pick himself up and get his bearings. He quickly recognized three of the figures at the top of the staircase.
"HEY! What's going on here?!" He began to push and shove his way to the top.
A blinding black light emitted from the alter with a large, shadowy, and ominous heart-shaped object at its center, seeming to leak with destructive power. The heart rose up to Mistress Tempo, who began to laugh, this time with a more maniacal tone.
"HAhahaha! Finally, we have unleashed the Chaos Heart, as was written in the Dark Prognosticus!"
"Marvelous work my mistress!" Dimentio chipped in, the whimsical flutter in his voice reappearing.
"HALT FIENDS!" Mario stepped in, finally reaching the alter.
"Oh? Who might you be?" Tempo asked, her curiosity peaked by the small man. "I don't believe we've been formally introduced."
"Mario. Plumber and older brother. I'm here to stop you before cause any more trouble then you already have!" He pulled out his hammer and prepared for a powerful attack. Dimentio flew between Mario and the Chaos Heart in a defensive stance.
"Please wait a moment sir! There's no telling what might happen if you're not care-" He was caught off-guard by the plumber actually throwing his hammer at him. The impact forced the assistant to collide with the Chaos Heart. Neither Dimentio nor the Chaos Heart were damaged, but the small jester still clutched his head after the attack.
"Beat it freak-face! I'm here to take down your grayscale boss! Huh?" Mario noticed a sudden reaction with the Chaos Heart.
The physical contact with Dimentio seemed to cause the heart activate its power; the entire room rumbled and the already blinding light grew so bright that all vision was completely obscured.
Sometime later, the light cleared, revealing an empty room. Tempo, Dimentio, and the ominous book, known as the Dark Prognosticus, reappeared unharmed.
"Are you alright Mistress?"
"Perfectly fine my friend. I'm not sure what I can say for the other though, but I'm assuming they're still in one piece." She turned to him. "The Chaos Heart is secure and ready for use, please try to round up the members of our wedding crash, they might be of help to us."
"Yes Mistress!" He paused. "So I suppose you are prepared to turn to a new page of dark prophesies?"
"Yes, we shall put them to good use." She held her arms high up into the air, "Darkness, open wide your mouth! Consume all worlds as is foretold in the prophecy, and give us your power to use as we desire!"
"Hey!"
There was a voice.
"Wake up!"
There it was again.
"Luigi! Wake up!"
It was calling to him, loud and clear. His eyes opened very slowly, it took a while for him to see the creature, but it was there. Right before him, on the ground he lay upon, was a sort of fusion between a pixie and a bat.
The bat-shaped creature was completely blue and seemed to be made out of polygonal shapes. The "wings" were like an outline for a right triangle but with the 90 degree point facing upwards and the line itself having the thickness of being drawn with a large highlighter. There were three much smaller triangles that were positioned like ears and a tail. This bat was just the right size to fit inside a hollowed-out watermelon of normal size, which was surprising tiny compared to bats Luigi was familiar with that were typically man-sized. The pixie-like part came from the way the body seemed to glisten and shine in the light. He could almost make out a pair of eyes and a fanged mouth that glowed an orange tint, but only when he squinted, almost like it was an invisible face of sorts.
"Are you awake yet?" The bat asked in a surprisingly creepy tone.
Luigi instinctually grabbed his hammer from his side to swing at the creature. As soon as he stood upright, the pain from earlier rushed back to him. The damage inflicted from just one attack was overwhelming, how could one person be so strong? He used the hammer as a crutch.
"Hey now! Don't freak out!" The bat flew up to Luigi's eye level, "This is just the way I talk." I's voice, although not as creepy as initially thought, was still a bit unnerving, but the squeaking sound it made things a little more humorous.
"You wouldn't happen to be Luigi would you?"
"Who's asking?"
"I'm asking!"
"And you would be?"
"Blecky! Bleh heh heh!" The bat introduced himself with pride in his voice. "I'm a pixl, a special type of fairy." Well, Luigi was almost right with assuming he was a pixie.
"Hey, you wouldn't happen to have met a lady called Mistress Tempo would you? And with a princess and monstrous king as her captives?" Blecky asked Luigi with concern.
"Well," Luigi scanned the room, "judging on the lack of people in this room, I'd say yes and double yes."
The pixl briefly flinched, "Oh geez, so she's already beginning to form the void..." There was a hint of anger as he spoke. "We don't have much time, come with me!"
"What?!" Luigi wasn't given much time to react as the bat latched onto his chest and he began to feel a spinning sensation. For a second, he neither felt nor saw anything; even the pain from before seemed nonexistent.
When the spinning ceased, Luigi was no longer in Bowser's Castle. Instead, he was on a plateau made of some sort of white brick or other building material. The ground he stood upon had a design completely alien to him and the sky was an odd khaki color. Blecky let go of Luigi and flew about a foot away from him while a figure approached them. Luigi slowly stood up to observe them.
The figure in question was female wearing a red, flowing gown with a yellow, and somehow segmented, sash over her shoulders. She wore a yellow, pointed turban similar to one worn by a fortune teller with a four-point star hanging at the end. Her face was obscured by a large pair of red glasses and a white cloth with a faintly visible star patter covering her mouth. Her yellow-orange hair was held around the back by the turban to appear incredibly short and curly. She seemed young, but something told Luigi that she may have been ancient and simply didn't act her age.
"Blecky my dear," asked the mystery woman "who is this you've brought here?" She examined Luigi from afar, "Shirt of blue, trousers green, and a mustache cut crisp and clean! A lucky find my little Blecky!"
"He must be one of the four mentioned in the Light Prognosticus, there's no doubting it! Oh, and his name's Luigi."
"Can someone explain what's happening right now?" Luigi asked, clearly confused by the whole situation.
"Of course my friend, let me come to your end." She moved next to Blecky. "Welcome to Flipside, a town between dimensions. It's quite far from the Mushroom Kingdom, and that's no pretension.
"My name is Merlee, descended from the crafters of the town you see. I study ancient texts to stop the end of all worlds from the vortex above us that swirls." She directed her attention to something directly above them. Surely enough, there was a small, black and purple vortex up in the sky, occasionally lightning seemed to spark inside of it and a purple mist would appear and disappear at random.
"What is that?" Luigi asked, he felt like he was going to be asking many questions in the near future.
"That is The Void my dear, a hole in the fabric of space. It's location we cannot quite trace, it will, in time, grow large enough to consume all and leave nothing in its place. It was created by Mistress Tempo, the woman who has given you woe. She wields the Dark Prognosticus, a most sinister tome; its dark prophesies foretell our doom." Merlee spoke with a solemn tone.
"'A fair and lovely princess...a furious monster king...the union of these two will call forth the Chaos Heart, the consumer of worlds...and the Chaos Heart will ravage the sky, and so bring forth The Void'" The bat's words sounded prophetic and bold.
"This quote is from the Light Prognosticus of my ancestors long ago, another passage in it goes as so: 'The Void will swallow all...naught can stop it...unless the one protected by the dark power is destroyed. The hero with the power of eight Pure Hearts will rise to this task.' Now hero, this I ask..."
She then pulled out a large heart-shaped object that glowed many brilliant shades of red; the gentle touch of its shining rays on Luigi's skin seemed to heal him of all his wounds as the pain that was bothering him before immediately disappeared when the heart appeared. It floated just above the mystic woman's head.
"Will you take this Pure Heart whose light upon which you bask?" Merlee asked, her voice trembled, as if the possibility of him saying 'no' absolutely haunted her.
"I can't say no to such a desperate request," Said Luigi, "especially if the universe is in danger. Merlee, I accept my destined task, and with it, the Pure Heart with which you beseech upon me!" The spark of his inner heroism shined in his eyes as he spoke. Despite her face being obscured, Merlee was obviously smiling when she was given his response.
"Excellent Luigi, with that I bestow the Pure Heart onto thee!" The heart floated to Luigi, descending from above him into his arms, surprising him with how light it was for its size.
"Blecky," Merlee looked back to the bat, "please lead Luigi to the heart pillar of this town, I'm sure he could use you to get around."
"Righto!" The bat flew in front of Luigi's face, "Follow me!"
The green plumber did as the bat asked; they went down an elevator in the left-hand area of the plateau. As they went down, it turned out the plateau was actually the top of a giant white tower in the dead center of Flipside; there were at least two visible floors below the top of the tower, but Blecky insisted there were three floors and a basement, he mumbled something about a second basement as they exited the main lift connecting the second floor and the tower.
There was a fence a number of feet away from their side that seemed to block out some outskirts of town complimented by another fence behind the tower. There were two large buildings on each side of the tower and an elevator between each building.
The buildings seemed small at first glance, but the distance between them made the rest of their structures visible, showing them to be a bit more spacious then initially thought. To the left of Flipside Tower was a house of warm, sunny colors and three noticeable star-shaped windows above the door; to its left was an elevator button to the third floor and a cream colored shop with a red roof. The right side of town had an inn with the same coloration as the shop, a currently inactive elevator button for the first floor, and a cream colored building with a green roof, housing the town fortune teller, as opposed to Merlee who only looked like a fortune teller. The town was scattered with different people that all appeared as if they were made of geometric shapes, they were friendly, but Luigi was a little unnerved by them.
Blecky led Luigi to the left side of town to the third floor elevator which magically materialized around the two when the button was pressed and quickly took them up. The third floor wasn't much to look at, two fences on either side and a view of the outskirts, but on the opposite side of the floor was a white pillar with a tiny of amount red barely visible at the bottom and a heart shaped opening facing the outskirts. Looking up, Luigi could once again see the sky, and in addition to that was a view of Flipside Tower in its entirety; it had to have been about a hundred feet tall based on how Luigi was standing.
"Come on Luigi! Over here to the Heart Pillar!" Called out Blecky, the bat had already flow over to the other side of the floor, bursting with excitement. Luigi passed by two townsfolk, one of them a young girl that was fascinated by the void's mysterious nature; he decided to not tell her about the true nature of the vortex and simply let her admire it.
As he approached the Heart Pillar, he felt a resonance from the Pure Heart that grew strong the closer he got to it. When he finally reached the pillar, the Pure Heart seemed ready to launch itself out of his arms.
"Set it free Luigi!"
Luigi did as Blecky said, the Heart Pillar sent out a pulse of energy that pushed him back ever so slightly; the Pure Heart flew ever so gracefully into the hole on the pillar, glowing ever brighter. The light made clockwork patterns around the heart for several seconds before finally dissipating.
He felt something gently sit itself upon his head. Two tiny, familiar ears peaked from above into his field of vision.
"Hi there." Blecky chirped in a bat-like fashion. "I'm tired; you know your way back to the tower right?"
Luigi nodded as the bat nestled for a nap. Before Luigi could walk to the elevator, he was approached by the little girl from before. "Hey Mister, have you seen that hole in the sky?" She hopped about in anticipation.
"Yes, I have. It's pretty scary looking isn't it? Hopefully it won't hurt anyone." He rubbed the back of his neck as he answered, nervous that the child would ask about the intimidating vortex. Instead he was surprise when the child looked at him with confusion, was it something he said?
"Scary? You're a really weird mister, assuming something is gonna hurt someone because it's scary. Maybe it only looks scary and is actually very nice." She giggled, her innocence keeping her blissfully unaware of how dangerous the Void truly was. "My name's Ellie, what's yours?"
"Luigi." The plumber answered and cracked a grin when little Ellie danced around him, repeating him name between fits of laughter as if she had heard the funniest name in existence, her pigtails bopping up and down with every movement. An older man walked towards the two, drawing Ellie's attention. She ran towards him excitedly, the conversation they had was unintelligible to Luigi. He headed in their direction, towards the elevator, Ellie waving goodbye as he passed by her and who he assumed was her father.
Back on the second floor, Luigi decided to examine some of the buildings before making his way to the top of Flipside Tower. Through the glass door of the shop, there was a taller woman setting up items for her future customers, her golden hair was held up in a messy bun. The sun-colored house had a note on the door, "Merlee is out, please wait for her to be about." was written on it in the fanciest cursive he'd ever laid eye on, this was obviously Merlee's house. On the other side of town he could see a cloaked head peaked out of the door of the fortune teller's house, briefly glancing in Luigi's direction near Merlee's house and the tower elevator before cowering back inside and locking the door.
Walking to the space between the rhyming shaman's house and the tower, Luigi felt the need to jump, as if there was an invisible object of importance there that somehow saved him from a nonexistent problem; this was a normal feeling for him that usually only appeared in places of importance. He jokingly referred to these particular spots of personal security as 'save points' and never bothered to question why they existed, they just did, and that was perfectly fine.
By the time he had made it back to the top of the tower, he was surprise to see a red door next to the elevator, engraved in a number of clockwork patterns. Merlee stood in front of the door, admiring it like it was work of art. Blecky woke from from his slumber and flew to the mesmerized shaman woman, when she did not say anything, the bat instead nudged her for attention, startling her out of her trance.
"Look my dear, a door does appear! This dimensional door will do its part to lead you to the next Pure Heart. Blecky," she then turned to the pixl, "use your powers to guide our friend through the new space. When the Pure Heart is found, please return to this place."
"But of course!" He replied with no complaint.
Merlee handed a small, red-and-white striped object that looked similar to the warp pipes of the Mushroom Kingdom to the green plumber.
"So long as a signal to this return pipe is near, its power will return you here. Use it when you must my dear." So explained Merlee about the so-called 'return pipe' she had given him.
"A friend mine lives here, Bestovius is his name. The Light Prognosticus foretells he will grant one the power to flip through the dimensional plane. Go forth hero; let your destiny be claimed!" With those last words, the shaman woman allowed Luigi entrance through the door.
Our hero's adventure was beginning!
Elsewhere, in a dark, sinister, and rather large room, Mistress Tempo was having a meeting with Dimentio and two of her three other high-ranked followers. Dimentio stood to the Mistress' left, silently and slightly behind her, while the other minions were several feet in front of her, enthralled even by the sight of their emotionally unstable leader.
"Good news everyone, our beautiful Void has successfully ripped itself into the dimensional fabric of space itself, just as foretold in the Dark Prognosticus. It's only a matter of time until it consumes all these sad and sorrowful worlds." Tempo spoke out in an overly enthusiastic manner.
"That sounds absolutely superb my Mistress. You'll erase all those troublesome worlds and rebuild without war or fear, just as you promised, correct?"
"Of course Mimi, I have not backed down from my word in the slightest; our perfect worlds will arrive in due time." Tempo replied to Mimi, a young woman roughly Dimentio's height, if shorter, with green skin and matching green hair held up in a sporty-looking ponytail. Her yellow tube dress, sporting a red collar and belt, fell to the knees of her thin, black, mechanical legs. Her fuller exposed arms were just like her legs, and her eyes were empty and constantly stern-looking.
"If I might ask Mistress, where is our other co-worker? He is late to our meeting." The woman next to Mimi commented.
The woman, known as Nastasia, was an older woman, although she showed no signs of being any specific age. Her skin was a dark blue color that aggressively clashed with her messy, hot pink hair with purple highlights; the bangs were, for the most part, brushed to her left side while the rest of her hair was held up in the sloppiest bun imaginable, the fact it stayed up seemed to defy all laws of physics. Two fanged peaked out of her red-lipped mouth and her eyes were completely obscured by her orange, oval-framed glasses. She dressed similar to a ringleader, but not quite. The 'tie' she wore was a white, circular gem with a orange metallic bat wing on either side, the jagged trim of a white shirt revealed itself from underneath a magenta colored suit with a single white button and the sleeves folded up slightly to reveal the inside of the suit as completely white. Her knee-length pants were grey, puffy, and had a decorative white gem on either leg; her legs were otherwise covered up by white knee-high socks and her black, one-inch-high-heels. Her most important feature was her cape, externally, white at the top, but slowly speckling down into a light pink in the middle, to a light blue at the bottom; the inside was, oddly enough, the same color of purple as The Void outside the giant windows on the left and right walls of the room.
"Do not fret Nastasia, our friend is merely building his strength, he is a man of war after all, and a man of war must train himself if he wishes to bring himself closer to the end of conflict." Tempo's reply was more annoyed to the pseudo-ringleader than it was to Mimi, as Nastasia was constantly trying to find an excuse to get her co-workers in trouble, and, if not that, to cause mayhem amongst said co-workers to coax them into, at the very least, arguing with one another.
"Quite ironic wouldn't you think? To bring a man of war into an effort to remove things such as war from the universe?" Nastasia back-sassed to her boss, knowing that Tempo was far too kind to ever fire her.
Tempo did not reply to this comment directly, instead she looked away, the annoyance now completely obvious, as she mumbled something about different stroke for different minions, she quickly returned to her enthusiastic demeanor, "Disregarding Nastasia's comment, let us discuss more important matters. The Dark Prognosticus is our recipe to ending these rotten worlds of old and making all of our dreams come true, and like every recipe, we must follow its instructions carefully, otherwise it will become a recipe for disaster instead. Dimentio," she directed to conversation to the immediately startled loyal assistant, "what are the whereabouts of our green friend from the Mushroom Kingdom? Does he live?"
"Miraculously enough, yes. Yes he does." The jester fidgeted as he spoke, seeming put off by something.
"Excellent, deliver him here to us then."
"About that..."
"Hm?"
"I'm afraid he's no longer in the castle or that dimension."
"...oh..." Tempo was silent. She clasped her hand over the necklace in a brief moment of concentration. She gave him a forgiving smile and release the necklace from her grasp, "That's ok then. Do we have a clue where he's at?"
"I can sense dimensional disturbances in a further off dimension, it's most likely the hero of prophesy." The purple stems attached to Dimentio's head shuddered, not from fear but rather from the disturbance.
"Really? Heroes will be heroes I suppose. Mimi, I know your power alone will be enough to halt his progress, but just in case he decides to put up a fight, do not under any circumstances end his game. Weaken him until he can no longer stand his ground and deliver him here. Keeping this man alive is vital to ensuring our success!" Mistress Tempo commanded her follower with delicacy and precision, making sure she understood every word.
"With pleasure my Mistress." Mimi turned to her feminine co-worker, "Nastasia, would you be interested in coming along? I know you have important vampire business to be attending to, but I think this would be worth your time, you know, female bonding time and such."
"Why not? I've not much better to do, and watching you fight brings shivers down my spine. As for that vampire comment, I'll let it slide for now. Just don't be surprised if there's a swarm of bats in your room somewhere down the line." Nastasia was quick to answer Mimi, never ceasing to contain her off-putting grin.
"Oh! And be sure to update our friend before you leave!" Tempo hastily requested to the two women before before they teleported away.
"So, you wish to stop me?" Mistress Tempo asked quietly. "Clearly you do not see error in the worlds we live in." She held her arms out wide, as if ready to preach to the heavens above, "No matter, I will be your guiding light, and show you to the path to eternal joy. Hurry if you must hero, for it will not be long before these worlds meet their end!"
The adventure now truly begins!
My plan for the in-game chapters, aka the "x-1, x-2, x-3, x-4" segments of the story, is that I'll be writing all four chapter segments together and then releasing them one week at a time. It'll still be a wait, but you'll be getting four chapters within the span of a single month when I finish them. So hopefully you guys like the waiting game.
If your impatient however, come stop by the previously mention Tumblr blog for this story, it's another reason I've been slow to update. You can ask questions to any and all members of the Swapped cast, including characters from swapped versions of other Mario games, and roleplay with them as well. You can even drop by for the occasional fun fact, its really cool.
And with that, Adios.