Chapter Seventeen:

Inside the Lost Guardian Pod of SMG4


The VPN exited the portal, and the Cyber Tunnel faded, allowing Mario, SMG4 and Axol to take in a clear sky above. However, given they were in the Dark Web, the sky had a slight shade of orange with a hint of darkness, and clouds seemed be gathering. And then, they saw their surroundings as the ship came in for landing.

The trio, with Melony in Chonk form again and riding Axol's back, were in a rocky terrain with jagged peaks. The Dark Web was one heck of a place, and this area seemed to be the edge of the land, perhaps the edge of the Mushroom Kingdom itself.

And then, as they stepped off the VPN, all eyes settled upon a large USB-shaped spaceship with a blue arrow symbol on it. Mario didn't remember if he'd seen it before, due to being dim-witted, but he recognized it from the story that SMG4 had told him. While he didn't think much of it, SMG4 did, especially as a look of recognition crossed his face.

"This is it." He said, "My USB. After all these years. Wow, can you believe it was sitting here this whole time, just waiting for us?"

Mario ran towards the USB, eager to see what secrets awaited inside that thing. However, SMG4, who was acting cautiously, begged for Mario to wait. His concern was understandable due to the fact Mario going near the USB was how he became a dim-witted, spaghetti-obsessed Italian in the first place.

And this time, even with all of the knowledge of what happened on the day of his arrival in the Mushroom Kingdom, SMG4 didn't know what was going to happen. Hopefully, it wouldn't shoot out some meme energy that would suddenly hit Axol and make him a crazy dim-witted weirdo.

The manga artist had been through enough craziness as it was, he'd gone mad in the Internet Graveyard, and Mario probably did not want to see their friend go cuckoo crazy again.

Even as SMG4 warned his best friend, Mario approached the USB and a light emitted from the ship. It shone down upon the fat Italian, moving up and down, scanning Mario as if out of curiosity. Just then, the light flashed red and a buzz sounded. Mario furiously banged on the USB, trying to get it to open up.

A hatch on the front of the ship opened up, revealing an entity resembling the Angry Video Game Nerd, who fired off a blaster that stunned Mario.

"Oof!" Mario groaned, "Son of a b****!"

"Let me try." SMG4 offered.

The meme man approached the USB, and the dazed Mario stood aside to let SMG4 have his go. SMG4 stood in front of the ship that brought him to this world, and let the light scan him. A moment later, the light blinked and a voice buzzed; "Guardian Detected."

As everyone watched, the ship slowly opened and SMG4 once again remembered the flashback shown to him and SMG3 by the Ancient Protectors of the Internet Graveyard, he'd emerged from that door. The ramp lowered and Mario looked at SMG4 with surprise. "What did you just do?" The fat Italian asked.

"I don't know, but that seemed to be easy." SMG4 remarked, "Now lets see what's inside."

He and the others walked up the ramp, and they were greeted by a massive surprise as SMG4, Mario and Axol entered the USB. While they expected to see a control room of sorts, what awaited them as they went inside was a room full of shelves with books everywhere. SMG4 didn't remember being in a library before he exited the pod, but this one was amazing.

Right now, he was getting serious Doctor Who vibes. The USB was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Either SMG4 was having a trippy dream or this ship had been crafted from the same technology as the TARDIS by the Time Lords.

Was he from Gallifrey this whole time?

"There's an entire library inside the USB?" Axol asked, taking it all in, "That's something you don't see every day, especially when you're looking at an alien spaceship that looks like a USB."

"Lets take a look around." SMG4 suggested.

The meme man, Mario and their axolotl associate began to look around the library. They scanned the shelves for a hint that could point them to where they needed to go, SMG4 was certain a clue to where SMG1 and SMG2's USB was located had to be around here somewhere, and those secrets were not going to uncover themselves.

Eventually, SMG4 found an interactive Internet Explorer book and tapped it out of curiosity. A second later, a light flashed, and a holographic Slowpoke-type Pokémon made its appearance.

SMG4 hadn't seen a Slowpoke in a while, nor did Mario, who was too busy fighting with a Windows XP book that was offering an update the fat Italian didn't seem to want.

"Hey, we're looking for USBs." SMG4 said to the Slowpoke, "Do you know where we can find them?"

A loading symbol hologram appeared over the Slowpoke as the Pokémon processed SMG4's question. The meme man smiled and told it to take its time. At that moment, Axol came across a Twitter book and opened it, prompting a Twitter bird to emerge.

"Awww, how cute." Axol said happily.

The bird yelled angrily at the manga artist, causing Axol to freak out. Mario kept fighting the Windows XP update until a holographic XP symbol with a gun appeared, asking the fat Italian in a threatening manner if it had stuttered. In a panic, Mario kicked the hologram, causing it to crash right into the Slowpoke hologram.

The XP hologram vanished and so did the loading symbol. The Slowpoke raised a paw, pointing to the right, where SMG4, Mario, and Axol saw a white-colored hallway. The ship was certainly more bigger on the inside than they knew it was.

"I guess where going that way." SMG4 remarked, "Thanks, little guy."

He fetched Mario and Axol, then they headed out of the library, and the Slowpoke morphed into an Internet Explorer error report before shutting down. The trio strolled down the hall, and walked through a lobby with comfy brown chairs. However, now was not the time to be sitting down to relax.

The group took a left turn, walking through a doorway that finally led Axol, Mario, and SMG4 into the control room of the USB. That was where SMG4 had more Doctor Who vibes as looking at the ship's control console, which looked just like the controls for the TARDIS during the show's classic era.

'I swear, I am getting an odd feeling that these Guardian Pods are some sort of TARDIS.' The meme man thought, 'If the inside of SMG1 and SMG2's ship is similar to the TARDIS just like mine as well as SMG3's, I dunno what I am going to think or tell everyone...'

"This is it." SMG4 said, "The answers are in here. Hopefully, we'll be able to find out where One and Two's USB is."

"Nice keyboard you got there." Mario said, "Looks like its-a big brain time, eh?"

He walked up to the console with curiosity. And then, before Axol or SMG4 could even stop him, the dim-witted plumber jumped on top of the controls and started doing a dance while pressing buttons randomly. Just then, machinery started to whir and an electric shock coursed through Mario, causing him to fall off as he yelped in pain.

A screen lowered from above and an automated voice blared; "Beginning Memory Playback."

'Oh boy, Mario, what did you just do?' SMG4 thought with wide-eyed panic as he looked upon the control console, he was dreading that the USB was about to experience all sorts of malfunctions. And then, a blast of energy struck him and the light also struck Mario, showing the two fat Italians a glimpse of the distant past;

Long ago, a trio of spaceships resembling USBs flew over the Mushroom Kingdom. One was black with a purple triangle symbol, the other was white with a blue triangle, and the third was another white USB with a black triangle symbol.

The first carried a mustached man in dark-blue and black overalls, the second carried an identical man but in blue and white overalls, and the third carried two alien beings. No, not two, three. One was a creature with a green body and a red circular head, the other was a blue creature with a box head, and they all faced the menacing arm of an evil virus.

As the ships flew across the sky, with two emitting orange rocket flames, and one emitted a red flame trail, they began to separate. One went into a portal, one went straight to the ground, and the other flew away from the Mushroom Kingdom.

However, the ship began to shudder as the fight between the aliens inside intensified, green lights emitted from the ship and an orb of green light with holo-numbers shot through an open portal, the same portal where one of the ships had gone through. And then, the portal closed, once the light vanished.

In a realm called the Internet Graveyard, a dark USB with a purple symbol appeared over a forest and streaked towards the ground. Just then, an orb of green light with holographic 1s and 2s flew near it, and then, the USB vanished, sent through the void, to another destination far different from the one that was intended.

Meanwhile, the USB with the blue symbol crash-landed in the Mushroom Kingdom, attracting the attention of a plumber and a princess. At the same time, the third USB crash-landed overseas, impacting the base of a mountain upon which the statue of the Great Redeemer stood.

As the years passed, even after its occupants disembarked, the ship would remain where it crashed...