A/N: Welcome back to "Mario's Galactic Tale!" I'm excited to be back to writing it, and there's still a lot more craziness yet to come. Thanks for bearing with me over the hiatus the past few months. I'd hoped to have three "MGT" chapters ready to go today, but I ran into some unexpected delays this week and had to settle for two.

In addition to this batch of "MGT" chapters, today I also posted the first chapter of the spinoff "Harley's Angels" (which follows Harley Quinn after the events of the previous chapter, and will also tie into the first "post-credits scene" of the last chapter, where the Koopalings kidnap Luigi. Even though Harley is the main character, it is still a very Mario-centric story; the other main characters will all be Mario characters (Daisy, Luigi, the Koopalings, Pauline, etc.), and it may cross over with "MGT" at some point in the future.

Without further ado, please read, review, and enjoy!

I do not own Super Mario.

Chapter 63: Aftermath

While I flew back to Starship Mario, I let my guard down for a second and let myself feel a bit optimistic about the future. I mean, why shouldn't I? I'd defeated Bowser Jr. and Cad Bane. All the folks from alternate universes were back where they belonged. I'd resolved the situation with the Murk…Merc, Deadpool, whatever. Lubba and his mutineers were still stuffed down the Warp Pipe on Starship Mario…except for Star Bunny, but he was probably done for after getting sucked into those purple flames in the Haunty Halls Galaxy…and the Co-Star Luma, but he was still trapped in Launch Star form in one of the Starship's closets. There was no way that psycho pirate Urine Greyjoy had survived falling to the Mushroom Planet.

Maybe from here on out this quest to save Peach would be…normal-weird. Like, no weirder than that goop King Boo from Super Mario Sunshine.

When I arrived back at Starship Mario, the Grand Star I'd gotten from Megahammer opened a portal to World 4 before me. I dropped onto the helm, but landed on something that was definitely a few feet above the helm, then tumbled off it. What the flip was this? I sat up and saw that…oh. It was a giant pile of all the replacement furniture and appliances I'd ordered yesterday, to replace the ones that broke when I flipped the Starship upside-down.

But…wait, why hadn't they all been here this morning when I got up? That's how it's worked all the other countless number of times I've ordered replacement TVs and Super Mario costumes. Maybe this order took so long to deliver because it was so large?

At that point I didn't even care anymore. I was done caring for the day. The entirety of my Care-O-Meter had been exhausted with that multiverse crisis nonsense and the upending of a central tenet of my existence for the past couple weeks with the revelation that the Murk wasn't actually a bad guy.

In other news, I now had 29 Power Stars and 13 Comet Medals, so…yay, I guess.

Bartholomew and the rest of the Toad Brigade teleported over to Starship Mario from the Berry Planetoid. "Mario!" Bartholomew exclaimed. "You made it back! We were starting to worry about you. There were a bunch of weird purple flashes in the sky, and we thought it was Junior setting off fireworks to celebrate that he'd killed you or something."

"No, it was really just a bunch of tears in the fabric of the multiverse," I said. "Now come on, let's get some of these boxes unpacked."

Bartholomew's eyes widened. "The multiverse? It's real? Who came through? Did you see any of these other universes? Daniel, you owe me $50. I told you the multiverse is real." He made a "gimme" gesture with his hand. Daniel groaned.

"Not now, I'm too exhausted. Now let's unpack this stuff."

"Why do you want to unpack if you're exhausted?" Blue asked.

"Because even more than I want to flop down and go to bed right now, I want to flop down and go to bed while watching TV, which I can't do until we unpack, at the very least, the new TV!" Then a thought occurred to me. "Actually, wait, hold off on that for a minute. There's something else I want to take care of first."

I walked over to the helm and gripped the steering wheel, then steered Starship Mario through the portal to World 4. I wasn't planning to take a look around at any of the world's galaxy icons, but I wanted to put some considerable distance between me and Bowser Jr.'s Fearsome Fleet as soon as I could. Because the last thing I wanted was to take the chance that Deadpool's sorceress-witch-whatever friend Illyana had somehow botched the spell she cast to stop the incursion, and that it would start up again and another random portal would open there and suck Starship Mario in. Or, worse still, a portal would open and out would come a bunch of people who'd just gotten Megahammer dropped on them and were out for revenge. And no doubt they wouldn't blame Junior for starting the incursion, or even that guy Darkside for dealing the killing blow to Megahammer; no indeed, they'd find a way to blame me for their problems, just like everyone else does.

The background of World 4 looked to be a massive galaxy against a backdrop of various shades of blue. The music was more…standard too, not the strange sad melody from World 3. Which was even stranger in hindsight, since there was nothing sad about World 3. Well, except Deadpool's cohorts all having their entire universes wiped out by that space octopus, but there was no way Bowser's sound designers could've known that when they chose the World 3 music.

Then I remembered that my shirt and pants were still covered in Cad Bane's dried blood and brains, and so I quickly headed belowdecks to order yet another replacement costume. Come to think of it, how the heck had Bartholomew gotten hung up on the multiverse being real, yet somehow he and the others managed to overlook the gore splattered all over my clothes?

Well, until the new costume came, like it or not, I had nothing else to wear, so I'd be leaving these clothes on for the time being. Sigh.

On that dismal note, I returned to the helm. "Okay, Toad Brigade," I said, "let's get this TV unboxed. Hey, where are Percy and Yoshi?"

Hugh pointed into the hole in the helm. "Down there in your former bedroom/the former prison, trying to salvage what's left of it and turn it into a joint bedroom for themselves."

Come to think of it, where the heck had Percy been sleeping since he arrived on the Starship? He didn't have a cabin, and I hadn't seen him sleeping on the helm like Yoshi.

I decided I didn't really care all that much and, given the nature of the answers I usually got when I pursued questions like that, probably didn't want to know either.

So the Brigade and I brought the TV down to my cabin and started hooking it up, But Bartholomew was seemingly incapable of being satisfied with a simple "not now," because he kept pestering me ad flippin' nauseum with one multiverse-related question after another.

"How many other universes are there?"

"Did you see an alternate version of me?"

"Is alternate-me-" Who, for the record, I never did anything to indicate having seen after his previous question. "-a famed explorer?"

"Is there a universe where we're made of cheddar cheese?"

"Is there a universe where we're made of Monterey Jack cheese?"

"Is there a universe where-?"

Oh my gosh, this was even more unbearable than that stupid Happy Work Song, or whatever the flip he'd called it.

Eventually I turned to him and snapped, "I hardly saw anything of these alternate universes, I only saw some people from them. There was a blue cowboy assassin and a creepy dude with a photonsword and a talking dog and an ice zombie and a bunch of humanoid insects. But there were no alternate versions of you, and there were none of these cheese people you have some weird obsession with!"

After that, the rest of the job was carried out in silence. Which, quite frankly, was all I wanted when we started.

"Okay, Mario, that's done," Jacques said when we'd finished.

"Thanks," I said.

"Hey, Captain, can we go check on Yoshi and Percy?" Banktoad asked. "Maybe they could use some help."

"Sure," Bartholomew said, as the Brigade left my room. Then he turned back. "Oh hey Mario, just one last question. Is there a universe where-?"

I kicked the door shut in his face.

After that, I didn't even bother changing out of my clothes before flopping on the bed. But as soon as I did, a reverberating groan came from beneath me. Then the bedframe buckled and snapped in two. What the flip?!

Then I remembered Banktoad's words concerning the bed from the previous day: "It should hold up for now, but I would advise against subjecting it to any extreme duress including but not limited to flopping, jumping, or engaging in procreative activities on it."

Clearly he wasn't kidding about the whole "no flopping" thing. But come on, I hadn't even flopped on it that hard! What sort of shoddy workmanship had he put into fixing this thing? Making a bed that you can't even flop on like I'd just done is like making a recliner that can't recline!

So instead of sitting down then and there to continue watching the new season of The Punishroom, I trudged back up to the helm and dug through the pile of boxes until I found my new bed. I briefly considered the hole in the floor; I could hear Yoshi, Percy, and the Toad Brigade down below. Putting together the bed would be a lot more work than setting up the TV. But of course, if I asked for help, I ran the risk of Bartholomew pestering me with more questions about sentient cheese.

Forget it, I'd just set up the bed on my own.

Five hours later, I finished assembling my new bed. Baby Luma had tried to help, but his contributions ended up being miniscule, borderline nonexistent, given his tiny stature and apparent inability to operate a flippin' screwdriver.

By then the World 4 sun had already set. I didn't even bother eating dinner…or catching up on lunch, for that matter. I instead took great pleasure in flopping on my new bed, then turning on the TV.

"Can we watch some more Hallmushroom Christmas movies tonight? Please?" Baby Luma asked. "The show we watched last two nights ago gave me nightmares."

I groaned. "It's JUNE now! Why the flip are they still showing Christmas movies?!"

"For Christmas in June. It's like Christmas in July, but a month earlier."

For – what? "Well, then why were they showing them last month? And if you say-"

"For Christmas in May."

…He said it.

"Well, you chose to watch The Punishroom. You could've just closed your eyes if it scared you that much."

"Mario, it's only fair that we alternate nights. Two night ago we watched your show, last night we watched nothing, which was your fault for flipping the Starship upside-down, so now tonight we watch my movies."

I folded my arms, certain that I'd found a bluff to call. "So…you will be content watching The Punishroom every other night?"

"Oh no, I'll totally cover my eyes."

"But you'll be content with every other night, not watching your movies?"

"Yes. Fair is fair."

No hesitation whatsoever. It was official: Baby Luma was a better man than me.

Well, that was a depressing note to end my day on.

Rather, it would've been, if that was really the end of my day, because for some sadistic reason, sleep refused to take me until one-and-a-half boring-ass movies later.

The following morning, I got up to find that those dang-blasted movies were still playing, and I'm fairly certain I pulled a muscle in my arm tearing the remote from Baby Luma's iron grip so I could shut them off. Then after he got under my cap he kept yammering away at me about how now he wouldn't know if Chloe left that jerk Dave and realized she was meant to be with Mark instead.

Suffice to say, I coulda cared less.

I walked up to the helm, where the rest of the boxes were still waiting. They could wait for now. I had a TV and a bed…in other words, the only two items I require for survival. Oh, except for the box containing my new costume, which I promptly unboxed and changed into. By that time the dried blood had crusted over so much of my existing costume that it felt like I was wearing flippin' cardboard.

And once again, none of the members of the Toad Brigade had noticed how messy my clothing was. Then again, why was I so surprised? As I believe I've mentioned before, I swear, aliens could build a flippin' Dyson sphere around the star the Mushroom Planet orbits, and not one of them would realize that the sunlight was vanishing.

I stepped up to the steering wheel to play the next round of everyone's favorite game, "Watch Mario Guess What This World's Galaxies Will Be Like Based on Their Vague, Unhelpful Galaxy Icons!"

Welp, let's see. Available right from the get-go were a Hungry Luma (not even bothering to see how many Star Bits this jerk wanted) and the Supermassive Galaxy, whose icon was a huge Brick Block with a Warp Pipe atop it. Either that or a regular-sized Brick Block with a tiny Warp Pipe atop it, though since the place was called the Supermassive Galaxy, I'm sticking with Guess #1.

Next up were two galaxies, one that was made of…a bunch of small rooms? Yeah, I was slapping a big, fat "IDK" on that one. The other option looked very well like it could be the other honey-themed galaxy that Bee from the Honeybloom Galaxy had warned me to stay away from in that death threat he sent me. I couldn't remember what its name was, but if it was indeed said honey-themed galaxy, I was steering well clear of that place.

Further on were two more galaxies, one that looked like a beach and one that was just a Chomp rolling in place on top of a square panel. Oh great, not Chomps. No doubt they and all their accursed derivative species like Chain Chomps and Flame Chomps and those godforsaken Chibi Wanwan would be infesting that place. No thank you, I'd be going to the beach instead, because both the beach and Chomp galaxies led to the final galaxy of World 4: another castle. Probably belonging to Bowser this time. In that case, maybe I could intentionally dredge up his history with Lubba again to try to make him just give up the Grand Star.

I know it was wishful thinking to hope that lightning would strike twice. You don't have to remind me.

So, seeing as how I was pretty sure 412 Star Bits would not be enough to satiate this Hungry Luma, and I was sure as hell not risking backtracking past Bowser Jr.'s Mega Multiversal Menagerie or whatever, there was no way to go but forward, to the Supermassive Galaxy. Maybe I'd get lucky and this place would be fairly easy, like "Jungle of the Giants" from New Super Mario Bros. U.

I flew to the galaxy, and my hopes were immediately flushed down the toilet when I saw the title of the first and only mission: "Huge Trouble with Big Wigglers."

Well, crap.

You see, as soon as I read the mission title, the words "Big Wigglers" unnerved me, because there are two varieties of Big Wigglers that the level could be referring to. The first variety, which I wouldn't mind, were the Big Wigglers that I had to ride through the poison swamps of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and New Super Mario Bros. U. The second variety, which I figured was probably more likely given the phrase "Huge Trouble" in the mission title, was the big green monstrosity that went on a rampage around Gelato Beach back in Super Mario Sunshine and trampled me more times than I care to recall before I finally figured out how to defeat him.

In all fairness, those Dune Buds should really have been made more noticeable.

But again, with nowhere else to go, I had no alternatives, so to the Supermassive Galaxy I went.