Chapter 7 Awful Awakening

Mario couldn't remember the last time he felt this uncomfortable in bed. His whole body screamed at him as if it had just gone through the most intense workout the day before. On top of that, a weight rested on his back. So heavy, so overwhelming. It wasn't just something he sensed with his mind's eye either; he actually felt a physical weight resting on his back. And waking up with such a difference turned out to be… odd. In those waking moments, Mario had no idea what was going on. Sure, he wasn't fully awake enough to enter a stage of panic, but he still couldn't help but wonder what the heck was happening to his body.

He managed to wake up fully within no time at all. Grunting, still feeling the enormous weight attached to his back, he swung his feet over the side of his bed. He rubbed his eyes, blinking and yawning. It was once he finished that he realized, to his absolute horror, that something was off. WAY off. Mario felt his face again, specifically the area around his eyes. His jaw dropped when he touched his skin. Instead of the smoothness that one usually associated with human skin, he felt a roughness. It kind of reminded him of a Naugahyde couch his family owned when he was a little kid. He didn't dare take his hands away from his face for the better part of three whole minutes. It just felt so weird that he couldn't help but develop a morbid fascination with it.

But once he did remove his hands from his eyes, he really did start to panic. This was because he actually saw his hands, a sight that caused him to gasp. His heart rate picked up as he studied his hands, golden yellow and covered in iridescent scales. His breathing turned into hyperventilation, his heartbeat picked up at a staggering rate. Whimpering to himself, he looked at the rest of his body. A golden, padded belly and chest. Long, scaly legs that had sharp toenails on the end of the toes. A tail, as well as a shell that Mario just now noticed was the cause for the weight on his back.

"What's happening?" Mario screeched. His eyes fell upon the mirror near the door. He swallowed the biggest and nastiest lump he had ever had and went over to it. He didn't move slow, but he also didn't bolt over to the mirror because he was afraid of what he was going to see. Logically, he knew what he would see based on the horrifying sights that he had already discovered, but even still, he didn't want to look in the mirror. He didn't want to confirm it as the truth.

And unfortunately, this feeling of fear only made the sight that met him at the mirror all the more terrifying.

"AAAAAAAH!" He screamed. He couldn't believe this! He couldn't actually believe he was seeing this! He… he was…

"I'm a Koopa?!"

Now, Mario had seen all sorts of nasty sights throughout his years of adventuring through the Mushroom World. He had seen spikes regurgitate big, spiky weapons. He had seen dry bones, brittle and frail yet still with enough strength to reanimate and chase him down. He had seen Bowser himself, with his deep red eyes, teeth sharp enough to be used as knives, and humongous form that cast a shadow that nothing in the world could rival.

However, looking at himself with his new koopa form was the most terrifying sight out of all of these.

"This can't be happening…" Mario muttered. He continued studying himself in the mirror, taking in everything as he hyperventilated. He looked like himself, only… not himself. His hair, eyes, and mustache were still intact. In terms of the eyes, they were still the same glistening blue that they had always been. His hair and mustache were still the same style that he had grown famous for. Only now, they were fire engine red. Turning around slightly, Mario could see that their color matched the blazing red hue of his new shell.

Unfortunately, those little blips of familiarity didn't calm Mario down. If anything, they freaked him out even more. It freaked him out that these features he had owned as part of his identity were now on the face of a monster. It made him even more scared and confused that they gave away that it was him, it was HIM who was stuck in this scaly, reptilian body. As a consequence, he couldn't even look at himself for very long. He had to turn away from the mirror in order to help his sanity remain intact.

"I can't believe this…" he just now noticed that his voice was the same as it was in his human form. Sure, that wasn't necessarily surprising, but like his face, it only increased his fright. He frowned, whimpering as he looked down at his new body. His scaly body. His freaky body.

"Ohh… what am I going to do?" His mind reeled as he thought about what this new, sudden transformation meant for him. What it meant for his future, what it meant for his relationships with other people. He knew that nobody would let a koopa anywhere close to Princess Peach, no matter how much or how loudly he declared himself to be her friend. And Luigi and Toad were bound to freak out. Both would probably run away screaming, looking for Mario to extinguish or banish this koopa without even realizing that it was Mario himself that they were running away from.

Oh man, this was bad. So very very bad.

Mario let out a breath. "Okay, okay, calm down Mario. Take a deep breath." He did just that, which actually did help him to feel relatively more stable. "You need to think." He leaned forward a little bit. "Think; how could this have happened in the first place?"

As he asked himself that question, his mind zeroed in on finding the answer. The first and most obvious possible culprit was Bowser. After all, very few people in the Mushroom World had access to magic like this, and all the people who Mario knew to have it would never do this in a million years. All the people, that is, except for Bowser. And sure, this was a whole new level of low even for him, but it sadly made perfect sense in Mario's mind that his arch enemy would want to put him through this very new, very fresh, but no less horrendous level of hell.

So, if Bowser was the one responsible for this, what did that mean? Well, that answer was obvious; it meant that he needed to go fight him. He needed to force him to remove the spell, to restore Mario's body and life to what it was actually meant to be.

With this thought, Mario let out another breath. "Okay," he said. "So I need to go find Bowser and go fight him. I'll have him turn me back into a human and beat him so hard that he'll never do this to me or anyone else ever again." Once he said that was when a new type of fear overtook him. "Oh, but how am I going to do that?" Koopas can't use power ups…"

That was a very big issue. Sure, Mario had fought the great Koopa King without power ups before, and obvious he had come out victorious. But here was the thing; that was a while ago. That was back when Mario was still relatively young and had a much more grounded level of confidence than he had now. But… but fighting Bowser without power ups now? That didn't sound appealing. Power ups gave him a boost, a sort of moral support. Going into a fight with Bowser without a power up was like going into a sword fight without a sword. Sure, there was a slim possibility that one could emerge victorious and/or come out of the whole situation unscathed. But, again, that possibility was slim. Incredibly slim. More than likely, Mario would get really badly beat up if he couldn't use power ups in a Bowser battle. Not to mention, Mario wasn't used to piloting the body of a koopa. With the extra weight on his back and the fat and muscles distributed to different areas of the body, the possibility of emerging victorious against Bowser was now even slimmer.

This made him whimper some more. "Oh, what am I going to do?" He hung his head in his hands, his disgustingly scaly hands. "There's no way I can fight Bowser like this!" He thought about this more before something occurred to him, a sort of dim light at the end of this very dark tunnel. "Unless… unless maybe I get some help…" he thought about this even more. "If I can somehow convince Luigi and Toad that I'm me, maybe they'll accompany me to the Dark Lands…" he smiled. "Yeah, maybe that could work!" His face fell back down. "How am I going to convince them though…?"

That would be difficult. Again, both Toad and Luigi were very easily frightened, especially when it came to monsters. And sure, Luigi had been known in the past to have the ability to push his fears to the side in an effort to accomplish a greater purpose or task. That was what he did when he wanted to save Mario from King Boo (thrice). But koopas and boos were completely different beasts. And really, Luigi had no reason to believe the words of anyone who looked like a koopa. Even if the koopa did say that he was his cursed brother, and even if Luigi stuck around long enough to listen to him, he probably wouldn't buy Mario's words simply because koopas had a notorious habit for lying their tails off.

With that realization came a whole new bout of hopelessness. Mario frowned and allowed his head to fall back onto his pillow. "Luigi will never believe me…" he said out loud. "Why would he?"

But then again… why wouldn't he? Mario still had some of the traits that pointed to who he really was, like his voice and mustache. And… well, those could act as some very solid and sturdy arguments in his favor, right? If Luigi was observant enough, maybe he would be able to tell that Mario was really Mario.

When he had this thought, hope reignited inside him once again. "But… there's no harm in trying…" he said to himself. He smiled, lifting himself up into a sitting position once again. "Okay! Let's a go try to talk to Luigi!"

He made his way over to the door. He closed it behind him and took careful steps down the hallway. The steps made the floor creak, creak in such a whiny way. Mario actually cringed when he heard this; they never did that before. Probably one of the many things he would have to get used to when it came to being a koopa.

Regardless, he managed to get down the stairs and into the living room without any issues. And thankfully for him, Luigi sat on the couch right at that moment with a bowl of cereal in his hands. So, Mario put on a smile and cleared his throat. Luigi turned to him and froze up, dropping his jaw and dropping his spoon in his bowl.

"Wha… what… WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?"

Mario took in a deep breath. "Lou, it's me!" He walked closer. "It's your brother!"

Unfortunately, those words didn't reach Luigi. He dropped his bowl and backed away from Mario like a scurrying rat. "G… get back!"

Mario cringed, feeling more and more like this plan wasn't going to work. Regardless, he knew he still needed to try. This was his only hope.

"Luigi, please! You've got to listen to me!" He held out his hand, trying to take his brother's. "I'm Mario! I'm your older brother! I'm…"

Luigi screamed right as Mario's fingers came in contact with the surface of his hand. He bolted upright, screamed, and zipped toward the front door. All without even taking the time to look back.

Mario groaned. Oh, this wasn't going well at all. Not wanting to give up though, he ran after Luigi.