A/N: Well, it's finally here: Mario's showdown with Bowser Jr. and his multiversal allies! I know this took a bit longer to write than I estimated it would, thanks in part to the last-minute inclusion of two "post-credits scenes" to hint at where the MGTU is headed next.
Without further ado, please read, review, and enjoy!
I do not own Super Mario (or any of the other characters appearing in this chapter).
Chapter 62: The Fate of the Multiverse
What?
The flip?
Was going?
The flip?
On?
Bane leveled one of his blasters at my head. "I won't miss this time."
Okay, which card did I want to play here? You don't want to do this? Let's all be reasonable? Or since, again, I still had no idea what was going on….
"Who the heck are all you people and what do you want with me?" I asked. "Except the blue guy, I know he's just some lowly bounty hunter."
He scoffed. "Why does everyone look down on us? It's a perfectly honorable profession."
"Bowser Jr. told us everything you did," the girl with the sword said. "Vandalizing Isle Delfino, killing your competitors at that…athletics event, thing, you had last winter, and killing his mother!"
Oh man, they just guzzled down that Kool-Aid, didn't they?
"You got cocky, didn't you?" Battoad-man said. "You thought you could come here on your own and kill Junior. Didn't even bother bringing the Joker or the Night King or any of your other allies with you."
"Okay, there has clearly been a huge misunderstanding here," I said, "because the Joker's a comic book character, I've never even heard of the Night King, and I didn't do any of those things Junior said I did-"
"Save it," Bane said. He went to fire the blaster, but suddenly, Yoshi's tongue grabbed it. Yoshi pulled the blaster from his grip and swallowed it. He then grabbed me by the seat of my pants and swung me onto his back. "Careful, careful!" I said as I was put down rather roughly. "My…my crotch is injured."
"Oh, so I suppose you'd rather die," Yoshi said.
Bane grabbed his other blaster, but Yoshi flutter-jumped into a nearby Sling Star I hadn't noticed before. Why the flip was there a Sling Star here, if this was the boss planet?
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"I don't know, but anywhere's better than here!" Yoshi warbled.
The Sling Star propelled us over Megahammer to the far side of the planet, which wasn't a huge step up but at least we were farther away from Junior's brainwashed little army.
"Okay, we need a plan, and fast," I said. "It won't take long for them to get over here."
"I have no idea," Yoshi said. "I don't even know how we'd be fighting Megahammer alone if these nine other weirdos weren't here…uh oh."
A red ring appeared around Megahammer and then blasted outward towards us, accompanied by six Bullet Bills blasting from the cannons on its back side. Then Bane came flying over the top of Megahammer after us, while Wonder Toadette-woman wrapped her lasso around one of Megahammer's arms and swung over to us. Yay, that escape tactic didn't buy us much time.
As the Bullet Bills locked onto us, I said, "Yoshi, eat one of the Bullet Bills and shoot it at Cad Bane!"
"I don't know who that is."
For crying out- "The blue, flying cowboy!"
Yoshi ate one of the Bullet Bills and shot it at Bane, but he dodged it, then rained a barrage of blaster fire down at us. Yoshi managed to flutter-jump out of the way and over the red ring, but that put us right in front of Wonder Toadette-woman. She grabbed a shield off her back and swung it into Yoshi's face, knocking me forward off his back. Megahammer, meanwhile, swung around to face me again, while the rest of Junior's minions bore down on me and Yoshi from each side.
I felt around for anything I could use as a weapon and found nothing. Was I seriously about to be killed by a bunch of complete strangers?
Yoshi shot his tongue at Wonder Toadette-woman's (I'm just calling her Wonder Woman from now on; I got no idea what her real name is) shield and yanked it from her grasp, then whipped it at several of our other attackers. The green-shirted hippie and anthropomorphic rabbit were mowed down by it, while the cat somehow managed to completely unrealistically retract his head into his neck to duck under it, and the girl with the sword flipped over it. Great; all he did was take out the two that I wasn't even worried about fighting in the first place.
Two more Bullet Bills shot towards us from the cannons on the front of Megahammer. Yoshi was busy fighting Wonder Woman, which left me with two Bullet Bills bearing down on me, along with Cad Bane, Battoad-man (Batman?), Harley, and that yellow blob.
Hold on…. If I was gonna die, there was one thing I wanted to do first.
"Hey, you!" I pointed at Batman. "What's your name?"
"I'm Batman."
Doesn't have the same ring to it as "I'm Battoad," but it was still cool to hear in person.
Bane landed behind me and pistol-whipped me in the back of the head with his blaster. I faceplanted to the ground, but suddenly Baby Luma flew from under my cap. I heard Bane grunt and turned around. Baby Luma was whacking the bounty hunter in the face with my cap, which would've been doing a hell of a lot more damage if it was my original Kevlar-lined version, but was still distracting him at least.
"Get away from me!" Bane said, firing random shots in my direction. One detonated one of the incoming Bullet Bills, while the yellow creature somehow morphed into a giant shield to protect Harley and Batman from several other shots.
Yoshi grabbed Bane from behind and threw him at Wonder Woman, but she leapt over the attack. Bane tumbled to the ground and tripped up the cat. His cowboy hat flipped through the air and then was sucked into the black hole below the planet. Come to think of it, where the flip did Megahammer even come from? The Robot Cockpit pulled Megahammer up from beneath the planet, but the only thing down there was a black hole, so…?
Baby Luma returned to my head, but then the second Bullet Bill slammed into my back. OW! I fell forward, down to four wedges of health, as Batman, Harley, and the yellow thing crowded around me. "Jake, hold him down," Harley said. The yellow creature melted into some amorphous, clay-like shape that molded around my legs and pinned me into a sitting position. Wait, that thing had a name? Jake?
"Well, that was easy," Harley said. "Here I was thinking we'd be taking on an army of ice zombies, and then it's just…you." Then she held up what looked like a grenade launcher, which I hadn't even noticed her holding before, and aimed it at my face. Oh gosh, was she seriously gonna blow my head off here?!
She pulled the trigger and I screamed. Wait a minute, nothing happened. My head was still intact, although it did feel like something soft had blown into my face….
I opened my eyes. My overalls were covered in…glitter? She'd shot glitter at me? That was anticlimactic.
"There. Now you're all ready for your execution," she said. "I'd do it myself but I don't have any lethal weapons on me, so maybe Batsy could do it, or Arya. I don't really care, just as long as I get to see it happen."
Wonder Woman grabbed a sword off her back and swung it at Yoshi, but he ducked around it. He flutter-jumped to the side; Wonder Woman went to grab him with her lasso, but before she could, Bane got up and fired a single shot at Yoshi. It hit him right in the butt and he stalled in midair. "OWWW!" he shouted, before falling past the edge of the planet. Oh great, why the flip did this keep happening to Yoshi today? Couldn't the guy catch a break?
Harley stared after Yoshi. "What the hell even was that thing?"
Before she could react, I swiped the grenade launcher from her and swung it into her leg. She fell over, and I slammed the grenade launcher into Jake. It tore a hole in him, and I was able to break my legs free the rest of the way from there.
But I didn't have a chance to further my escape before Wonder Woman lassoed me, binding my arms to my chest and making me drop the grenade launcher. I fell to my knees. Oh great, this was ridiculous! That was my last best hope; I was gonna die here.
Harley kicked me in the side. "I try to make you look nice, and what do you do? Steal my Fun Gun, you bastard." She aimed the grenade launcher at my crotch and pulled the trigger again. This time, instead of the expected spray of glitter, a beanbag shot out at God knows how many miles an hour and nailed me between the legs.
"OOOOF!" I groaned.
Bane edged past Wonder Woman and aimed his blaster at my forehead. "Your turn. Lights out, plumber."
"Wait." The girl with the sword walked past Bane and Wonder Woman and stood before me. She pointed the sword at my neck. I gulped. "If you would take a man's life," she said, "you owe it to him to look him in the face and hear his last words. What are yours?"
"WHAT ARE ALL OF YOU WAITING FOR?!" Junior demanded, his voice somehow being amplified. "JUST KILL HIM ALREADY!"
"My last words are that I didn't do anything Junior said I did!" I spat. "He's the bad guy here; he and his father are out to conquer the universe or the Mushroom Kingdom or whatever, I don't even really know anymore. Junior was the one who vandalized Isle Delfino and then he framed me for it. I didn't kill everyone at the Olympics last year; that was some demon possessing Sonic the Hedgehog and, I mean, he had to be killed, but that was to keep him from killing a bunch more people. And I didn't kill Junior's mother; I don't even know who Junior's mother is! I don't even know if he has a mother; I mean, for all I know, he and the Koopalings might've started out as warts growing on Bowser's ass that just spontaneously dropped off him one day. Back in 2002 Junior claimed Princess Peach was his mother, but that was just a load of garbage Bowser fed him for some reason. But I didn't do any of this and you're all a bunch of gullible fools for believing whatever he told you. Oh, and I have no flippin' idea who this Night King even is, so there's that. Boom. Last will and testament said." Well, that was a bit more than I was planning on saying, but once I started I just couldn't stop.
"He's telling the truth," Wonder Woman said.
"How do you know?" the girl asked, her sword not moving.
"The Lasso of Hestia compels you to tell the truth. He can't have been lying. Junior tricked us."
Well, that was an unexpected deus ex machina. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth here or anything, but that just came completely out of left field.
Wonder Woman pulled the lasso off me. The girl hesitated a second longer, then backed her sword away from my throat.
"What are you doing?" Bane asked.
"Junior lied to us. He's not the bad guy," Wonder Woman said.
"I don't care. I still got paid to kill him. Doesn't matter if he's a bad guy or not."
Of course, another complication! What else?
Bane squeezed his finger on the trigger, but in a fraction of a second, the girl had swung her sword into the blaster, knocking it aside. She stood between me and Bane. "You're not killing him," she said. She glanced at me quickly, then turned back to Bane. "Get back. I'll handle him."
"Step aside, little lady," Bane said. "I'm not about to let you stop me from getting paid."
"WHAT IS TAKING SO LONG OVER THERE?!" Junior whined.
"I don't want to kill any of the rest of you…but I will if I have to," Bane said.
"Kill us with what?" Jake, who had turned back into a quadruped, asked. "You just got disarmed by a little girl."
"I'm not a little girl."
"You're, like, 5'1" tops," Batman said.
"You don't get to be the most fearsome bounty hunter in the galaxy by just relying on blasters," Bane said. He pointed one arm at me, and suddenly a blast of flames shot from a device on his wrist. The girl ducked under the fire and I staggered backwards. I fell over, my overalls on fire.
"AAH!" I screamed. "HELP!"
Jake transformed into a fire extinguisher and sprayed whatever that stuff in fire extinguishers is all over me. "Pfah!" I spat when he was finished. "Oh yuck, it's in my eyes!"
"SERIOUSLY?! INFIGHTING NOW?!" Junior shouted.
Through my blurred vision, I could see that some sort of bullhorn-like device had extended from the front of the Robot Cockpit. Several feet away, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the girl were holding Cad Bane at bay, while the cat, rabbit, and hippie were cowering back from the battle. Behind me, I heard Harley say, "Alright, the Fun Gun isn't gonna cut it here. Jake, turn into a rocket launcher."
"Junior, they turned on us!" Bane shouted, I'm assuming into some sort of intercom. "Take them down – they're all traitors!"
"GOT IT!" Junior said. The bullhorn retracted back into Megahammer, and a pair of Bullet Bills launched from the cannons on its front.
"Does anyone see a white egg with green spots on it anywhere?" I asked. "I can't see well; I've got fire extinguisher goop in my eyes."
Harley pointed past her. "Down that way. Stay back, I'll take care of this robot." With that, she shot a rocket out of Jake towards Megahammer.
The rocket hadn't even gotten halfway to the robot before one of its hammers smashed it apart.
"Huh," Harley said. "Well, shit, I thought that would work."
I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. Okay, that was a little better, but I still hoped this wouldn't be an eyesight-intensive battle. If everything I had to keep track of was at least the size of a Bullet Bill, I'd probably be in the clear.
Speaking of Bullet Bills, the two that Junior had shot didn't even home in on me; both of them headed towards the three who were fighting Bane. So what, did Junior change the Bullet Bills' programming or something now that he viewed everyone but Bane as a threat?
As I ran towards Yoshi's egg, Bane dropped back and picked up his blaster. He shot it at his attackers, but Wonder Woman X-ed her bracelets in the blast's path to stop it. Suddenly, the Bullet Bill cannons in Megahammer disappeared, and were replaced by a BANZAI BILL CANNON! What the flip?! Oh come on, now Junior was playing dirty! The Banzai Bill shot towards me as I spun into Yoshi's egg. He popped out. "Oh great," he groaned. "Back here again?"
"Yes, again; you don't get to hang me out to dry that easily," I said as I hopped on him.
"Come on, I've already been killed by a pirate and sucked into a black hole today. Have some mercy on me."
"Oh, and everyone but Junior and the blue cowboy over there is on our side now, so only attack the two of them."
"Where the heck is Junior?"
"Inside that robot there." I pointed to Megahammer.
"How are we even gonna attack that thing?"
"I have no idea."
The Banzai Bill crashed into the side of the planet, having been shot a bit too low to hit us. The Bullet Bill cannons returned and shot another pair of Bullet Bills at us; one homed in on me, one on Harley. Given that this level had involved many instances of having to have Yoshi eat a Bullet Bill and shoot it back at something, I figured I'd have to shoot Bullet Bills at Megahammer to defeat it. Maybe those blue orbs were the weak spots? They did look kinda like Gobblegut's bellyache bulges, or even those green bulges on Tarantox in my first galactic adventure. But of course, now I'd have to put up with the hammers potentially smashing the Bullet Bills before they hit the orbs, like they'd done to Harley's rocket. Well, there were nine of us (counting me and Yoshi as one entity) fighting Junior and Bane; that was more than enough to get some diversions going. And, of course, the hammers couldn't defend the orb on Megahammer's back.
"Yoshi, eat that Bullet Bill," I said.
Yoshi shot out his tongue and grabbed the Bullet Bill homing in on us. Then I ran him towards the Sling Star to take us around to Megahammer's backside. As soon as we landed, that red shockwave blasted out again, and six more Bullet Bills were launched. Yoshi shot the Bullet Bill at the blue orb in the center of Megahammer's back and leapt over the shockwave. About a quarter of the ring away from me, though, everyone but Bane, Wonder Woman, and the girl with the sword was hit by the shockwave and fell over; Megahammer was blocking my view of what happened to Harley. Bane rocketed into the air with his boot jets and then flew towards me. Oh great.
The Bullet Bill, meanwhile, smashed into the blue orb on Megahammer's back. It cracked a gaping hole right in the center of the orb, and a plume of smoke floated from the hole. Okay, so that was the weak spot. The robot shuddered as the Bullet Bill hit it, then turned around to face me. Yoshi ate one of the six Bullet Bills that had been launched and shot it into another one, while the other four targeted the others.
"Like, zoinks!" the hippie exclaimed as one of the Bullet Bills locked onto him. He turned and ran past the cat and rabbit, but the Bullet Bill kept chasing him. Wonder Woman, meanwhile, threw her lasso around Bane's legs, but he kept flying towards me. She picked up her shield at the last second and used it to block an inbound Bullet Bill, then the one that was chasing the hippie guy.
Suddenly, Megahammer shuddered again. What the flip? I hadn't even attacked it this time! It turned around again, and I saw that the blue orb on its back had now been completely destroyed and was on fire. Had Harley dealt the final blow with that rocket launcher? Well, now it was just a matter of the two front orbs, which were more heavily guarded. Yay.
Bane landed next to me and prepared once again to shoot me, but now that he wasn't flying anymore, Wonder Woman gave a tug on the lasso and yanked him towards her. He spun around several times, then was smacked full-on in the face with her shield. Ouch. That hadda hurt.
Harley came running around the side of the ring, chased by two Bullet Bills. She turned around quickly to shoot a rocket at one, blowing it up; the other one kept coming, though. Megahammer turned to follow her, turning back towards me too. "Yoshi, get that Bullet Bill!" I pointed to the one chasing Harley.
Yoshi flutter-jumped towards her and ate the Bullet Bill. "How did you finish off the back orb?" I asked Harley as we landed next to her.
She held up the rocket launcher. "Jake here."
Okay, so that confirmed it. "I'm gonna have Yoshi shoot this Bullet Bill at one of the orbs on Megahammer's front. When Junior smashes it apart with one of the hammers, you fire a rocket at the other orb. The rocket travels faster; it might be able to reach the orb before Junior can react."
"No need to hurry; it's not like my head's about to explode here or anything," Yoshi warbled.
"Shoot it now!"
Yoshi fired the Bullet Bill at the right orb and, as predicted, Junior destroyed it with one of Megahammer's hammers. But just as he did, Harley propped the rocket launcher on her shoulder and fired at the left orb. It was hit right in the center, and a hole appeared in it, like the one the Bullet Bill punctured in the back orb. So each orb would take two hits to take down, whether it was hit with Bullet Bills or Harley's rockets. Good to know.
Bane, meanwhile, blasted fire from his wrists at his attackers, but Wonder Woman blocked the attack with her shield. "Let go of me!" he demanded. "I'm just doing my job here!"
Yeah, when you have a morally ambiguous (albeit cool) job like a bounty hunter, you don't get to play the "I'm just doing my job!" card.
The Bullet Bill cannons on Megahammer's front vanished again, replaced by the Banzai Bill cannon. It shot a Banzai Bill at me and Harley but, just like the last one had, it slammed into the inner edge of the ring before it could hit us. But this time it hit a striped, yellow-and-black section of the ring, and the section fell away. Yoshi and I leapt off it before it fell below the rest of the ring.
And then, because apparently this battle still wasn't complicated enough, another one of those purple cracks like the one Urine's ship had come through tore open above Megahammer. Out of it flew a handful of humanoid insect things with four wings and glowing red eyes. What the flip was this now?!
"Crap," Harley said. "Parademons. How did they get here?"
"What are those things?" Yoshi warbled.
"Servants of an evil alien called Darkside," she said. She pointed to Batman and Wonder Woman. "I think he took over the version of my home planet in their universe and, like, destroyed it."
The Parademons chittered and swooped towards Batman and Wonder Woman. Harley blew one out of the sky with a rocket and it fell into the black hole below Megahammer, but she missed the others. The hippie and rabbit ran away from the Parademons, while the cat, sword girl, and Batman formed a line between them and Wonder Woman, who was still dealing with Bane. Two of the Parademons broke off towards me and Harley.
Yoshi ate another approaching Bullet Bill while Harley sniped the Parademons from the air, then we pulled the rocket-Bullet Bill switcheroo again to finish blowing out the left orb on Megahammer's front. Two down, one to go, then hopefully this stupid robot would be done for, then I could get back to Starship Mario, call the Interim Princess, and have her, I don't know, fire a missile at the Fearsome Fleet or something to destroy it before more alternate-universe menaces could show up here.
More Parademons flew through the portal, and Junior started swatting at them with Megahammer. But this backfired and just made them attack Megahammer instead, barraging it with lasers that I guess they could shoot out of their arms. But these did no damage to the robot, even the attacks that hit the orbs.
Batman shot a grappling hook around the thruster on the Robot Cockpit, which was now almost vertical atop Megahammer, and swung towards the portal the Parademons were coming out of. Unfortunately, his trajectory took him past several Parademons that Junior was trying to smash. And before he could react and alter his course or something, Junior slammed both hammers together…right on him.
Ouch.
Well, at least it was quick.
"OH MY GOD!" Yoshi screamed. "Did…did that…?"
Another salvo of Bullet Bills shot from Megahammer, but this time all eight of them homed in on the Parademons instead of us. Good; get the bad guys fighting each other. Not something I'd dared to hope for, but I wasn't complaining either.
The cat was hauled into the air by three Parademons and pulled back towards the portal above Megahammer. He yowled and tried to bite at them, but they refused to let go. Wonder Woman let go of Bane with her lasso and threw it around the cat. Suddenly, a Bullet Bill blew up one of the Parademons grabbing him, shaking the other two loose as well and letting Wonder Woman haul the cat back towards her.
But while she and the sword girl were occupied with the Parademons, Bane sat up and grabbed his blaster.
"Yoshi, get the blaster!" I shouted.
Yoshi ran towards Bane and grabbed the blaster with his tongue. But Bane somehow didn't let go, and was hauled along with the blaster. He ended up with his head, chest, and arms in Yoshi's mouth, but his legs sticking out.
This might well have been the most ridiculous thing I'd ever borne witness to.
"Give me back my blaster!" he yelled. "Alright, screw it."
Suddenly, Yoshi screamed, "OWWW! HEARTBURN!"
Flames belched out of Yoshi's mouth, and he hacked up Bane and the blaster. Bane had obviously activated the flamethrowers on his wrists to burn Yoshi, but the moron had ended up cooking himself too.
Most fearsome bounty hunter in the galaxy, he said? Uh huh, sure.
Bane slowly sat up, his head and duster jacket scorched, and coughed. "Maybe that wasn't such a good idea."
Gee, ya think?
The cat ran away towards where the rabbit and hippie were hiding, on the far side of the planet from the main battle. So, as I figured they would be, they were being absolutely useless. Basically it was just me, Yoshi, Wonder Woman, Harley, and the girl versus Junior, Megahammer, Bane, and the Parademons that kept flying from the purple crack.
Harley took out several more Parademons, while I decided once and for all to figure out my final ally's name. "Hey!" I called to her. Both she and Wonder Woman turned to face me. "No, you, the short one with just the sword. What's your name?"
"Arya," she said as she slashed into a Parademon with her sword.
Hmm. I was expecting something a bit more dramatic than that.
Another round of Bullet Bills launched from Megahammer, and some of them targeted the Parademons Wonder Woman and Arya were fighting. "Yoshi, eat one of these Bullet Bills and shoot it at Megahammer. Junior's distracted; he might not notice it coming."
Yoshi did so, and my hunch was correct; distracted by smashing the giant insects, Junior missed the Bullet Bill speeding towards Megahammer. The giant robot rocked again; one more hit and then it should be done for.
Suddenly, someone leapt on me from behind and tackled me to the ground. Ugh; Bane. He clenched one hand around my throat and aimed the flamethrower on the other wrist at my face. "Time to die," he grunted, his glowing eyes more ominous than ever against his scorched face.
A whizzing sound came from behind me, and then one of Harley's rockets flew into Bane's head. One wet, messy explosion later, his headless corpse rolled off me. Oh gosh, and I thought having fire extinguisher goop in my eyes was bad; now this was the damn N64 Rainbow Road Bob-Omb Incident all over again, only I was the road this time.
Yep, I was definitely buying another new Mario costume if I survived this battle. My costume was still intact, but someone's brains splattering all over an article of clothing is kinda where I draw the line about whether it's worth salvaging or not.
I got up, wiped off my overalls, and surveyed what was happening around me. Basically everyone was still fighting those Parademons (Junior included), except Harley, who was taking aim for the final blow to Megahammer. I went to hop back on Yoshi, who was running around like crazy again, then made a spur-of-the-moment decision to grab the flamethrowers off Bane's wrists. Wouldn't be needing Fire Flowers anymore now.
I leapt back on Yoshi and tried to slide the flamethrowers onto my wrists. What – oh come on, my arms were too big for them?! I looked down at Bane's corpse. Eh, he was on the skinny side. Welp, those things wouldn't be doing me any good. Assuming they even worked anymore after getting their own flames blasted back at them.
Harley took aim and shot a rocket at the third orb. It flew past a few Parademons, barely missed a swinging hammer, and then hit its target. The orb exploded, and Megahammer shook one final time….
…or, rather, what I thought was one final time.
Nope, instead the shield over the Robot Cockpit's windshield just flipped open, and Junior screamed in frustration. Oh come on, how much more did we have to do here?! What, did we have to blow up the Robot Cockpit itself? It kinda made sense; that's what Junior was using to control Megahammer, and he'd just foolishly opened it to attack in a fit of childish rage. Idiot.
That was apparently what had to be done, only neither Harley nor I got to do it. Because as Junior was preparing his next attack, the purple portal above Megahammer flared, and something else dropped out of it. This time it wasn't a Parademon, it was a big, hulking guy with glowing orange eyes wielding some strange amalgamation of a trident and a spear. But he landed smack dab on the Robot Cockpit's windshield with the business end of his tri-spear pointed down, shattering the windshield and coming about an inch shy of shishkebabing Junior.
"AAAAH!" Junior shrieked as the guy landed next to him. "YOU RUINED MY NICE, COMFY, LUXURIOUS, VELVET SEAT! LOOK WHAT YOU DID!"
"Who's that guy?" I asked Harley. She knew who the Parademons were, after all, and this guy came out of the same portal as them so maybe she'd know.
"Oh no," she said. "Oh shit. That's Darkside."
Oh. Lovely.
Meanwhile, it seemed like Darkside had finally dealt the killing blow to Megahammer; the robot exploded again, and started to fall towards the black hole. Darkside wrenched his Tri-Spear free of the Robot Cockpit's cushion and raised it over Junior, but Harley shot a rocket right at him. It exploded against his side, but did little to no damage. Oh great, and to top it all off, the guy apparently couldn't be destroyed by conventional means.
Darkside turned to Harley, seemingly forgetting all about Junior, and leapt off the Robot Cockpit. Junior hurriedly pressed several buttons on the Robot Cockpit's dashboard, and it detached from the rest of Megahammer. The Robot Cockpit sped away, trailing smoke from its thruster, while the rest of Megahammer continued to fall. But a fraction of a second before it was sucked into the black hole, another purple crack tore open beneath it. Megahammer fell into it and vanished. It almost looked like there was a castle or something on the far side of the portal, but I wasn't really paying that much attention; I had more pressing concerns at hand.
Darkside landed in front of Harley (and, by extension, me), and snarled, "You. I killed you."
"Well, it's a big multiverse out there," Harley said. "Maybe you killed your Harley, but you're gonna have to try a lot harder than that if you want to get rid of me for good." She shot another rocket, right at the brute's face this time, but it still did nothing to him.
Darkside thrust his spear towards Harley, but Yoshi grabbed it with his tongue and pulled on it. Darkside turned to face us. His eyes flared brighter, and then he shot lasers from his eyes at Yoshi. But before they hit him, Wonder Woman leapt in from the side and thrust her shield between me and Darkside. The lasers reflected back off the shield and into Darkside's face, burning his eyes. He grunted and clutched his face. Oh, okay, so he can be hurt after all.
Harley grabbed the spear from Yoshi and stabbed it into Darkside's chest, driving him back towards the inner rim of the planet. He grabbed the shaft of the spear, revealing his horribly burnt eyes, and flung Harley towards the portal Megahammer had fallen into. Wonder Woman grabbed Harley at the last second with her lasso and pulled her back down.
Wait a second.
There was a Grand Star above the planet. When the flip did that get there?! Probably after Megahammer was destroyed and while I was distracted with Darkside.
I pointed to it and then the Sling Star. "Everyone, that thing's our ticket out of here! We've got to get in that Sling Star there and fly up to it." Wait, no one else could Star-Spin. "Okay, change of plans, I'll get in it and all of you grab onto me and Yoshi for dear life. I'll pull us all up to it, and that'll teleport us out of here back to my spaceship."
"What about Darkside and the Parademons?" Harley said.
"We'll just blow this place to kingdom come once we're clear of it. It's an enemy base; I don't really care what happens to it."
"Alright." Harley and Wonder Woman followed me, while Arya killed a few more Parademons and then joined us. The cat, rabbit, and hippie cowered back on the far side of the ring, though. Well, can't say I didn't give them the chance to join us. If they choose death, then that's on them.
But just as we were about to reach the Sling Star, another portal splintered open vertically in front of us, tearing through the ring. Oh COME ON! This couldn't just be easy, could it? Then again, who was I kidding? This had been one of the hardest levels I'd ever had to put up with, even before all this pirates and cowboys and aliens nonsense.
From the portal came a figure with off-white skin, yellow eyes, and red markings on his face, holding something that looked like a red photonsword from Toad Wars. Only this one's hilt looked a bit like a protractor; pretty sure there's never been a photonsword like that in any of the six Toad Wars movies.
As he strode from the crack, he said, "Welco – where'd you go? What sort of trick of the Force is this?" He pointed the photonsword at me. "Where are Kanan and Ezra?"
Okay, I'd had just about enough of this nonsense. "Hold the flip up. Alright, look, a bunch of people who don't belong here have been showing up lately, coming out of portals like the one you just came out of. I have no idea who Kanan and Ezra are, but if you stick around and don't kill us with your photonsword, maybe we can work something out."
He smirked. "You clearly have no idea who you're talking to. This is a lightsaber, not a photonsword, as you call it."
Lightsaber? What was this, some "Toad Wars at home:" situation?
"Sir, we don't want any trouble," Yoshi said. "Look, I've already been killed twice today, and I would just very much like to not be killed a third time, if it's all the same to you, sir."
"Your request," he said, "is not granted. I have no use for cowards and suck-ups."
I threw my hands in the air; it's always a freaking toss-up with bad guys. Half of them want you bending over backwards to kiss their ass, and the other half are this guy, where they actually respect you more if you stand up to them and fight back. And I never seem to be able to properly guess which category a given bad guy falls into.
A second blade extended from the opposite end of the photon – excuse me, lightsaber's – hilt, and the guy advanced towards us. "Uh, back, back," I said. Obviously we'd be taking the long way around the planet to get to the Sling Star. Of course, that would be a pain in the ass, but it was certainly preferable to getting bisected by a lightsaber.
Harley shot the half-blinded Darkside with another rocket as we passed by him, but then another portal sliced through the air about a quarter of the planet ahead of us. What the flip was making all these things appear?! And if they had to appear, why couldn't they just lead to, I don't know, the Mushroom Kingdom or something, and just bring a bunch of Toads here?
This portal spawned another humanoid figure, but this one looked to be made of ice, had glowing blue eyes, and held a long spear that also looked to be made of ice.
"The Night King," Arya gasped.
Wait, that was the Night King? I pictured him as like, a big, gaseous shadow monster, not some loser who accidentally spritzed himself with some liquid nitrogen.
"This guy's seriously a big deal where you're from?" I asked. "The dude's made of ice. Look, you're skinny enough." I tossed her Bane's flamethrower gauntlets. "Take these and just melt him."
Arya shook her head. "Fire won't work. Drogon hit him with a direct blast of fire at the Battle of Winterfell, and it did nothing."
I heard "fire" and I heard "it did nothing," so I'm gonna assume that means the Night King is fireproof. Everything else she'd said might as well have been in a foreign language.
"Nah, I'd say give it a go anyway," Harley said. "I mean, in that same battle, Viserion, who'd just brought down the freaking Wall, couldn't even burn through a tiny pile of rock. Who's to say Drogon wasn't getting nerfed too just because the plot demanded it?"
"What's 'nerfed'?" Arya asked.
"Weakened in a particularly annoying way that makes someone basically useless. Take Darkside over there. Usually those Omega Beams he shoots out of his eyes can home in on anyone, curve around, not just travel in a straight line like normal eye lasers do. But now that ability got taken away from him basically before he even got to use it, so he's been nerfed."
The Night King walked towards us and reared back his spear-holding arm, but then ANOTHER portal opened next to him. He turned to look at it, but before he could react, a brightly-colored van with the words "Mystery Machine" on the side careened out of the portal and hit the Night King with an icy crunch. He flipped through the air and hurtled over the guardrail on the outer edge of the planet before getting sucked in by the black hole under the planet.
"That right there was better than the entire final season of Game of Thrones," Harley remarked.
A giant brown dog popped its head out the window of the van. "Where's Raggy?" he asked.
"Who the heck is Raggy?" I asked.
"Look, Scooby, he's over there," someone said from the driver's seat. The dog looked out the far side of the van, towards where the hippie, cat, and rabbit were trying to evade the Parademons swarming them.
"You cannot escape me!" the guy with the lightsaber called. I turned around; he was closing in on us.
"Hey, excuse me, Mr. Van Driver," Yoshi said. "Could we maybe hop in the back? There's someone chasing us who wants us dead for some reason, and we've got to get all the way to the other side of this planet to get out of here."
"Excuse me, I got this," Harley said. She walked up to the window. "Hey Fred, how's it going? Yeah, Shaggy's over there, but listen, we've all got to get out of here. See that guy coming after us with the glowing red thing, and all these insects flying around? Well, we've got a giant trap set up to go off and, well, trap them so we can figure out who they really are. But we don't want to get trapped too."
Wait, that guy's name was Shaggy? Then why did the dog just call him Raggy?
"Alright, hop in then," Fred said. "Scooby, open the back doors." The dog headed to the back of the van. "Where even are we? Shaggy disappeared earlier today while he was out getting sandwiches for us, and we were out driving around looking for him, and we ended up…here."
"You're in outer space," I said.
The back of the van opened, and Harley, Arya, Wonder Woman, and I edged around the narrow ledge between the van and the portal it had emerged from, then climbed in.
"What is this thing?" Arya asked.
"The Rystery Rachine," the dog said.
Oh my gosh, did every word he said start with "r"?
"But…what is it?"
"It's a van," Harley said. "It's basically an updated version of a horse-drawn carriage."
"Wait, hold on, how are we going to get to the far side of the planet?" Fred asked. "I'm not sure this path here is wide enough for us to do a three-point turn, and even then, there's this thing." He pointed to the portal the Night King had emerged from. "It's taking up, like, 75% of the path through here."
"Okay, so we get out and run the rest of the way, and leave the van here to block that guy's path," Wonder Woman said.
Scooby shook his head. "Re can't reave the Rystery Rachine!"
I had reached my breaking point with this nonsense. "If we stay here and try to three-point turn the van, that guy chasing us is going to catch up to us and most likely lightsaber us all to death. The van is not more important than your lives!"
Fred sighed. "He's right. Alright, Scooby, let's go."
He, Scooby, and Arya got out through the driver's-side door, while Wonder Woman, Harley, and I climbed out the back. We ran past the Night King's portal and headed towards Shaggy and the cat and rabbit. Harley blasted several of the Parademons chasing them with rockets. Meanwhile, more portals were opening in the space all around us, thankfully none of them shearing through the planet for the time being.
"Shaggy!" Fred called. "We're gonna head over to the far side of the planet to get out of here. I'm not sure how it'll work, but these guys say it will."
"Like, you found me!" Shaggy said. "I was starting to think I'd be stuck here for-"
"Less talking, more running!" I snapped. "Come on, there's still-"
The sound of metal groaning and crunching came from behind us. I whirled around to see the Mystery Machine get crushed as the lightsaber guy approached it. Oh dang it, he was using the Force! He flicked his hand in our direction, and the remains of the Mystery Machine hurtled towards us. Wonder Woman blocked the attack with her shield, and the van deflected off it into the same portal Megahammer had fallen into.
We ran down the far side of the planet, with Harley holding off the Parademons. The guy with the lightsaber wasn't even running to catch us or anything; he was just doing that super slow, horror movie killer walk, like he knew that somehow even though we were running and he wasn't, he'd catch up to us.
All of a sudden, the portals emitted bolts of purple electricity. They forked out to all sides, creating smaller rips wherever they ended. Several of them hit the planet near us, exploding parts of it. The section of the planet we were on ended up completely severed from the rest of it, and a powering-down sound came from the underside of the section. Oh no, don't even tell me the thruster holding this segment of the planet in place just crapped out.
Sure enough, the section we were on started to tip and fall below the rest of the planet. Yoshi and I flutter-jumped onto the rest of the planet, then Yoshi grabbed Harley with his tongue and pulled her up too. Arya and the rabbit leapt after us, while the cat dug his claws into the side of the planet and climbed up. The others jumped too late to land on the rest of the planet. Once Yoshi put Harley down next to us, I had him shoot his tongue again to grab the others.
But another lightning bolt landed right at our feet, flinging me and Yoshi off the planet.
Honestly, I didn't even have enough mental energy left to be infuriated by that happening. It looked like Yoshi and I were going to fall into the purple tear that Megahammer and the Mystery Machine had fallen into. Whatever was on the other side, it sure as heck couldn't be worse than my life of eternally fighting Bowser over Peach.
But then we landed on something.
I looked to see what it was. It was some sort of circular, translucent orange platform with runes and stuff circling its center. It looked like one of Doctor Strangetoad's magic shields from the Mushroom Cinematic Universe movies. I looked around to see where it had come from. Had Doctor Strangetoad himself flown out of one of the portals?
Yeaaahhhno.
Next to the Sling Star, a rectangular orange portal had opened, and from it walked six people. But there was only one who I paid any attention to.
THE MURK!
After all this time, in the unlikeliest of places, that red-and-black samurai had finally come back. Was he behind all this nonsense that was going down? Some sort of contingency plan of Junior's in case I beat Megahammer and Cad Bane and everyone else, to have this guy come in and start opening portals to alternate universes to kill me?
"YOU!" I shouted at him. "Guy in red and black! Get over here! We've got unfinished business!"
"Shit, why did all the incursions have to be happening in this universe?" he groaned. "I've been here before; this version of Mario is no fun."
"How do you know who I am?"
"Wade?!" Harley called. "Is that – how did you find me?"
"I didn't…per se. Not for lack of trying, though. I was off looking for you on my own, and then Sylvie called me in because she'd finally pinned down the incursion that Cad Bane had caused, and then we ended up here. Happy, unintentional reunion."
Yoshi flutter-jumped us back onto the platform. "Okay, what in all flip is going on here?" I asked. "Harley, you know that guy?!"
"Yeah," she said. "So?"
"That guy killed Frosty the Snowman on Cool, Cool Mountain and then assaulted me earlier in my adventure."
"No, no, you instigated that," the Murk said. "You copped a bad 'tude with me, and I was just putting you back in your place."
"In all fairness, you 'cop a bad 'tude' with me all the time," a blonde woman in a green cloak, who had appeared with the Murk, said.
"Not the time."
"Who are you people and what are you doing here?" Wonder Woman asked.
"Stopping all these incursions," the woman in green said. "The situation is worse than I thought it would be."
More lightning bolts struck the ring, causing several other sections to break apart.
"And what are these incursions?" Arya asked.
"Oh my God, it's Arya Stark!" the Murk said. "Are you seeing this, people? It's Arya freaking Stark!"
"Illyana, do what you can to fix this," the woman in green said. Another one of the Murk's compatriots, who held a blue flaming sword, nodded and levitated above the planet. "Incursions happen when someone jumps between universes and spends too much time in an alternate universe. Their life energy starts dragging their home universe towards the one they ended up in, and when the two universes collide, one or both of them end up being completely obliterated."
"So all these people showing up from alternate universes are causing the incursions?" Yoshi asked.
"No, they're the byproduct of it. The incursion was started when someone named Cad Bane, from Earth-119, was accidentally transported to your universe, Earth-6488. But recently several other universes started heading towards this one too, meaning people from those universes had ended up in this one too. Each additional universe that became involved accelerated the incursion process. And as the incursions begin, small tears in the fabric of reality open, allowing people to travel between the colliding universes if they're in the right place at the right time. That's what all these are." She gestured to the purple cracks around the planet. "Harley, do you have any idea what happened?"
"After I got yanked from Deadpool Tower, I ended up in some sort of castle, where this turtle-thing called Bowser Jr. claimed he'd summoned us from across the multiverse to help battle some evildoer named Mario." She pointed to me. "Who it turned out wasn't actually an evildoer, and Junior had just tricked us. That's where I met Arya and Wonder Woman and everyone else."
While this was going on, Illyana had been chanting some strange spell. Suddenly, beams of orange light shot from her hands and looped across the sky, plunging into the portals. Tendrils of energy spread out from them, sealing the cracks like a thread stitching a wound back together.
"RAGGY!" Scooby shouted from behind me.
I whirled around to see that the hippie had been stabbed through the chest by the lightsaber, and collapsed to the ground.
"You are not going anywhere," the lightsaber guy said.
"Holy shit, it's the Grand Inquisitor!" the Murk gasped in what seemed like awe. "Alright, kids, get back. Time to see if adamantium is as strong as beskar."
All of us ran towards the Murk and his cohorts as the Grand Inquisitor advanced on us from behind. The Murk grabbed those blasted swords off his back and charged towards the Inquisitor. The Murk leapt and landed behind us, swinging his swords into the lightsaber. A spray of sparks erupted where they collided, but the swords stayed intact. I guess lightsabers are weaker than photonswords, because there's nothing that photonswords can't cut through. Once again, "We have Toad Wars at home."
The Grand Inquisitor swung his lightsaber at the Murk again, but he blocked the blow with his swords and stabbed one into the Inquisitor's chest armor. He grunted and staggered backwards, but clearly still wasn't done for. "Just like Reva," he said. Suddenly, the blades on his lightsaber started whirling around, and they slashed the Murk's right leg. He stumbled and fell over backwards, and the Inquisitor lowered the lightsaber towards his neck.
Harley shot a rocket at him, but he deflected it with the Force. It hurtled towards Illyana, but Yoshi shot out his tongue and grabbed the rocket before it could hit her. He immediately spat it back out into the portal at the center of the planet, right between two of the strands of magic sealing it.
Man, whoever lived on the far side of that thing was gonna be pissed. First a gigantic robot gets dropped on them, then a compacted van, and now a rocket.
The final tendrils of magic wove between the portals, sealing them shut. All that remained were faint orange glows where they had been. Illyana dropped back to the surface of the planet. She ran past us towards the Inquisitor, and while the Murk was keeping both blades of the lightsaber occupied, she thrust her sword into the center of the lightsaber. It sparked and then exploded, flinging both blades through the air in opposite directions. One of them sliced off the tips of the anthropomorphic rabbit's ears; the other stabbed the still-blinded Darkside through the gut, and he flopped over, probably dead.
"Eh, that was close," the rabbit said.
The Inquisitor was thrown backwards by the explosion, his chest armor burnt and mangled. He got to his feet and glared at all of us. "You think breaking my lightsaber means I'm helpless now?" He extended his arm towards us, but then glowed with a white light and vanished.
"Where's he go?" I asked.
Illyana's sword somehow retracted into her arm. "The cracks in spacetime are healing. They're all going back to their home universes."
The remaining Parademons that Harley was shooting at flickered and vanished as well.
Well, if everyone was gonna be disappearing soon, I had a question that still needed answering. I looked at Wonder Woman. "Would you please lasso Mr. Red-and-Black Samurai? I'd like to have an honest word before he heads back to his own universe."
"Oh, that won't happen," he said. He gestured to his cohorts. "Yeah, our home universes were destroyed by this gigantic space octopus called Shuma-Gorath. Well, Sylvie's and Loki's were technically destroyed a while before that, but still. I was actually in the middle of fighting Shuma-Gorath when I ended up in your universe last time. "
Well, that was actually kinda depressing.
"Us being here can't cause an incursion," the woman in green said, "since we don't have any universes to pull towards yours."
Wonder Woman threw her lasso around the Murk. He laughed. "Is this really necessary?"
"Why did you kill the snowman on Cool, Cool Mountain?" I demanded.
He scoffed. "Pssh. What the hell is Cool, Cool Mountain?"
"When you showed up at Bowser Jr.'s Fiery Flotilla, you said you'd killed Frosty the Snowman. And the only sentient snowman I've ever heard of is the one I encountered back in 1996 on Cool, Cool Mountain."
"Is that seriously what this is all about? No, Frosty the Snowman is from this TV special that airs every year, and I killed him because he's annoying. He doesn't even live in your universe."
"It's true," Harley said. "I can't stand that guy."
What – are you flippin' kidding me?! So this guy wasn't working for Bowser, and he hadn't killed the snowman from Cool, Cool Mountain? Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't jump to conclusions so much in the future.
Around us, Scooby, Fred, and the rabbit vanished.
I thought of another question. "Is your name seriously 'the Murk'?" I asked.
"Well, my real name's Wade Wilson, but I also go by Deadpool and the Murk with a Mouth."
There it was again. "But what does that mean? 'Murk'?"
"You know. Like 'mercenary' minus the '-enary'?"
What-? The MERC with a Mouth?! Seriously, that's how it was spelled?! Wait, so Junior was serious when he said that same thing when I confronted him back at his Fiery Flotilla? "Merc" being short for "mercenary" is actually a thing?
Wonder Woman and her lasso disappeared. Deadpool sheathed his swords again and asked, "Is that it?"
"I guess," I replied.
"Good. You're welcome for saving your universe, by the way. Incursions aren't fun, from what I understand." He then turned to Arya. "I can't believe I'm actually getting to meet you."
"Uh…thanks?" she said. She held out Bane's flamethrowers. "Should something be done with these?"
"Nah, keep them. Only the energy of living beings can cause incursions; those things being in your universe won't be a problem." He looked over his shoulder at the woman in green. "Did I get that right, Sylvie?"
"You did," she replied.
Deadpool turned back to Arya. "You look like post-Season 8 Arya. Where were you before you came here? Sailing across the Sunset Sea?"
"Yeeees."
"Cool. Write me and let me know what you find out there."
Before Arya could reply, she and the flamethrowers vanished too.
"Wait, so does that mean Cad Bane's corpse isn't gonna head back to his universe?" I asked. And Shaggy's, and Darkside's, and Urine's, for that matter.
"You killed Cad Bane?" Deadpool exclaimed.
"I did," Harley said. She held up the arm that had been holding the rocket launcher, only the rocket launcher was gone. "Huh; didn't even realize he went home."
The cat vanished next. "Well, I guess it'll be your turn next," I said to Harley. "Thanks for your help."
"Oh, my home universe is gone too," she said. "Everyone who has to go back is home now."
"Great, now can we please just go?" Yoshi asked. "This whole day is giving me a headache, and I have no idea what the heck is going on here."
"You and me both," I said.
"Well then, we'll be going," Sylvie said to us. "Good luck at…whatever this is, you two. Wade, Harley, c'mon, let's go."
"Actually, I think I'm gonna hang around in this universe for a little bit," Harley said.
Oh dear God, would this conversation please just END already?
"Are you serious?" Deadpool asked. "You're gonna leave me alone with the rest of them?"
"It's not like this is the last time we'll see each other; you can come visit this universe as often as you want," she said. "But it seems like this universe could use some help, and it's not like Mario here can be everywhere at once."
"You want us to bring you back to Starship Mario and then drop you off somewhere?" Yoshi asked.
Why did he always go making generous, non-Mario-approved offers to complete strangers that ended up inconveniencing me? Like that time we were driving to a doctor appointment of his, and he insisted on picking up a hitchhiking Toad, which ended me not only driving half an hour out of my way to get him where he wanted to go, but having to listen to him play a harmonica the whole way there. And then we ended up being so late for Yoshi's appointment that it had to be rescheduled, and I had to drive him there all over again the following week.
"Nah, I'm good," Harley said. "Kamek made Bane some device to let him remotely control his ship. I'll just take that from him, call his ship here, and head out. See you around, Wade."
"You too," he replied. He saluted her, then followed the others through the orange portal. It snapped shut behind them.
Yoshi and I headed towards the Sling Star, got into it, and flew towards the Grand Star. Thank goodness this nightmare was finally over, and I hoped and prayed I'd never have to come back to this place. I know that didn't seem too likely due to the presence of the Comet Medal in the galaxy, but I still wanted to believe I was wrong about a Prankster Comet showing up here at some point.
Yoshi and I grabbed the Grand Star, and our surroundings faded away. The last thing I saw before that happened was Bane's ship zooming away into the stars.
Somehow I didn't think that was the last I'd be seeing of Harley.
The drawbridge to Dad's castle opened, and Iggy and Roy flew into the castle in the Koopa Clown Car. "Did you get him?" I asked. "Is he in there?"
Roy reached into the bottom of the Clown Car and threw the captive over the rim. He landed on the floor with a thud and a groan, the latter muffled by the sack over his head. "He didn't give much trouble," Roy said. "Those Boos you sent brought him right to us."
"Well, I'm not the smartest of the seven of us for nothing."
"I thought I was smartest," Iggy said, before bursting into a fit of demented laughter.
"Are you sure we made the right call not telling Dad about this?" Larry, standing to my right, asked.
"Of course," I assured him. "He thinks we're completely incompetent on our own. If we told him about this little plan of ours, he'd have insisted on coming in and micromanaging every part of it. No, better to wait and then tell him about our success afterwards and prove we are competent."
"Let me go!" our hostage said, struggling against the green magic ropes Iggy had bound him in. "Who took me? King Boo, is that you? Y-y-you don't scare me."
Well, that was convincing. I leaned over and tore the sack off his head. "Guess again."
Luigi looked up at me and chuckled nervously. "Oh, Ludwig, it's just you. I thought you were King Boo. I mean, I still would've preferred not being kidnapped at all, but I'll take you Koopalings over King Boo any day."
"You'll be wishing it was King Boo who kidnapped you before long."
"Should we bring him down to the dungeons now?" Iggy cackled.
"No, I've got something different planned for him. Morton, go prepare the helicopter. We're taking him south."
"South?" Morton grunted. "Does that mean…?"
"Yes. Too many Toads somehow manage to break out of the dungeons; I think one of the guards is a mole. No, we're taking him out to Dad's Supermax Penal Facility. There's no way he'll escape from there. And now Marty the Green Thwomp will finally have some company."
Iggy burst out laughing. "Haha! They're both green! Marty, Luigi, Marty, Luigi."
"Since when does Bowser have a Supermax Penal Facility?" Luigi asked.
"Since always," I said. "You just probably know it by a different name. N64 Bowser's Castle." I shoved the sack back over his head. "Take him up to the helipad. We'll teach Dad a lesson in how to properly kidnap someone."
EARTH-468 (GAME OF THRONES UNIVERSE)
Sansa awoke to cries of, "Fire! Fire!"
She climbed out of bed and walked across her bedchamber to the window. A chill gust howled against the glass, driving stray flakes of snow through the air.
Beyond Winterfell's outer bailey lay a massive shape illuminated by flickering tongues of fire. It was clearly made of metal, by the way the flames glinted off it, but she'd never seen such a massive object made of metal before. It was mostly spherical in shape, with two gaping holes in it that belched flames and black smoke into the sky, and what looked like a colossal hammer extending from either side of it. One of the hammers had torn a hole in the bailey; the soldiers of Winterfell's garrison ran along the walls towards the breach.
Then she noticed the sky. It seemed as if the very air itself had been torn open in a long, purple crack, bathing the castle in violet light.
What sort of sorcery is this?
The light flared brighter, and suddenly a large object fell from the crack…not nearly as large as the metal sphere, but still larger than a horse. Men in the yard shouted, "Get back!" as the thing fell towards them. It crashed to the ground, and men-at-arms crowded around it. Was this crack in the sky some sort of magical catapult? It seemed unlikely, but then again, it hadn't been long ago that she'd seen Melisandre light 100,000 Dothraki's arakhs on fire with a thought. Anything seemed possible these days.
She left her bedchamber and headed down the stairs. About halfway down she ran into Maester Wolkan, who was on his way up. "My Lady, it's not safe for you out there," he warned.
"What is happening?" she asked.
"We know not. Some manner of purple fire burns in the sky, and the strangest objects are falling from it. They're made of metal and far more advanced than anything our smiths – nay, any smith in the Seven Kingdoms – has ever made."
"Take me down there. I wish to see these objects for myself."
Wolkan sighed. "As you wish, My Lady." He led her down the stairs and into the yard.
The object she had seen fall from the sky was crushed, its metal folded and crumpled. It was painted in vibrant greens and teals and oranges, and…were those wheels on its underside? Had this once been some type of carriage?
The outer bailey was ominously backlit by the flames from the larger object. Sansa gazed at the crack in the sky. Its edges had a splintered, shattered look to them, as though the sky had turned into broken glass. Through it, she faintly saw what looked like stars in the night sky, but the rest of the sky was obscured by clouds. And the stars she could see now looked…closer, somehow, than they ever had before.
Suddenly, orange streaks wove through the crack, and it started to shrink. Its edges sealed back together, and as it disappeared, the cloudy sky returned where the stars had been. But before the crack had fully sealed, something else flew through it, much smaller than both previous objects. It flew into one of the towers along the outer wall. A second later, the top of the tower exploded. Sansa instinctively took a step backwards as fragments of stone fell across the yard. The soldiers took shelter behind anything they could find. Atop the ruined tower, flames licked at the sky.
The crack in the sky finished closing, and the castle was once again lit only by torchlight. Sansa turned to Maester Wolkan. "Send a raven to King's Landing. Ask if there's been word of anything like this happening anywhere else in Westeros. Tell Bran that Winterfell is under attack."
A/N: Well, not exactly, but…technicalities, amirite? Also, just a quick note, Darkside's name is actually spelled Darkseid, but of course Mario doesn't know that, different universes and everything.
So now for some news regarding the MGTU. I'll start with the bad news: I'll be taking the next couple months off from writing "MGT" itself; I'll probably get back to it sometime in May (rough estimate). I want to give more time to a couple other fanfics I've been taking a break from recently, and also, well, now for the good news: I'm planning two spinoffs of "MGT" that I want to have more time to plan out. Both spinoffs were set up by the two "post-credits scenes" I included at the end of this chapter.
The first one will be titled "Harley's Angels," and even though the main character will be Harley Quinn, it will be a very Mario-centric story. It will focus on Harley meeting and teaming up with Daisy and Pauline to battle the Koopalings' schemes while Mario's off in space dealing with Bowser and Junior. I'm planning to start posting chapters for this fanfic around the same time I get back to "MGT," and to have the two run more or less concurrently (and possibly cross over with each other) going forward.
The second one (which will not be essential reading to understand "MGT" itself going forward) doesn't yet have a name. It'll be set in the Game of Thrones universe post-Season 8 and follow Arya's journeys across the Sunset Sea, armed with Bane's flamethrowers, as well as the events that follow Megahammer and the Mystery Machine crash-landing at Winterfell. I'm not sure when I'll have this one started, it's definitely more of a "back burner" story idea right now since it'll be pretty self-contained, but it is coming. However, I do have a cover image I created for this fanfic, and I posted the link to it on my profile page.
I hope this chapter lived up to your expectations, and thanks so much for taking the time to read my story!
Next up: "Huge Trouble with Big Wigglers"!