Chapter Sixteen:

Italian Notebook Theft Getaway

"IT WAS IIIIIIIIIIII WHO STOLE YOUR NOTEBOOK!" Mario declared with his most sinister facial expression yet, "...and I fooled you both until now!"

"All this time, I trusted you!" SMG3 wailed angrily, fists clenched with anger.

"Mario, that's a pretty low move, even for you, dude." SMG4 told the fat Italian, "And I thought we were good friends."

"SHUT UP!" Mario shouted, "You don't know how hard Mario had to use his big brain to get this notebook back, and none of you know how important getting this sussy artifact is, and you never will understand."

"Why do you even want it so badly?" SMG4 asked.

"Because..." Mario clutched the notebook with a confident grin, "It has secrets in there that will change Mario's life."

Mario's fingers grasped the edge of the book, and attempted to open it, but it wouldn't budge. He tried again, only for his fingers to get a little strained, and the fat Italian took notice to the lock that had been placed on the notebook. Why in the name of spaghetti noodles had he not noticed that before?

"That's right, I knew thieves like you would try to steal my notebook." SMG3 said with a sneer, "So I put a state-of-the-art lock on it. NOW GIVE ME MY NOTEBOOK BACK!"

Mario gave the ex-villain the middle finger, then he made a break for it with the notebook in hand. The dimwitted plumber dove out an open window, and ran from the Starbucks as fast as he could. SMG3 shrieked as the pudgy Italian got away, with tears welling up in the bearded meme guardian's eyes.

"MY NOTEBOOOOOOOOOK!" He cried, then the lord of the Internet Graveyard turned to a trio of monkey memes close by, "STOP THAT ITALIAN! HE'S TAKING SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO ME!"

A delighted Mario laughed, and hummed the World 1-1 theme as he clutched the notebook in his hand. It didn't matter at the moment if he couldn't get it open, that would be dealt with once he got it to his boss. But first, he had to find a portal out of the Internet Graveyard, and get back to the casino before Marty got impatient.

Furious screeching rattled his eardrums, and Mario turned to see a group of gorilla memes chasing after him, and a pair of Ugandan Knuckles had joined the chase as they said, "He doesn't know da wae!"

He raised his pistol, and shot a monkey in the forehead before shooting one of the little red echidnas through the heart. Mario bolted away from the vicinity of SMG3's lair, and he rushed towards the forest just as a microphone whined to life somewhere, and the unmistakable voice of SMG3 rang out.

"ATTENTION, ALL DEAD MEMES! ATTENTION, ALL DEAD MEMES!" SMG3 boomed, "A FAT MAN IS STEALING MY NOTEBOOK, STOP HIM AT ALL COSTS, USE FORCE IF NECESSARY!"

"Ngyes, ngyes, ngyes, ngyes, ngyes!" A distorted Inkling meme clad in strange armor cried, it flew at Mario, and the fat Italian ducked before rushing deeper into the woods in search for the nearest random portal.

"Oh long Johnson!" The famous Oh Long John cat from years ago popped up out of the bushes, staring right at Mario with mad yellow eyes, "Oh don piaaaaaaaaaaano! WHY AYE EYES YA! Ooooooh my dawg! Ooooooh long John, Oh don piaaaaaaano!"

BONK! Mario leaped on the cat, striking the animal in the head and making it fall unconscious in the leaves as he weaved around an oak tree. The spaghetti-obsessed paisano jumped over a log, and pushed a branch out of the way, just before he caught sight of a swirling red rift in reality.

His ticket out of here wasn't that far off.

'Arrivederci, Internet Graveyard.' Mario smirked, and leaped through the portal. His feet touched solid ground, and the slightly-overweight dimwitted hero was met by the colorfully familiar landscape of the Mushroom Kingdom with all of the blocks and giant mushrooms.

The rift sealed shut, and Mario punched the air with glee, then the mustached goofball made a dash for Casino Paisano, unaware that a couple of people, who'd seen SMG3's livestreams, were watching Mario. A red Toad, unrelated to the Toad the gang knew, caught a glimpse of the notebook in the pudgy plumber's hand and recognized the word "SMG3" on the front.

"HEY! HE STOLE A NOTEBOOK FROM SMG3!" The Toad shouted.

"What?!" A Goomba explained.

"Mario stole a notebook from the live-streamer SMG3?!" Old Man Stan asked baffled.

"STAHP RIGHT THERE!" A police officer shrieked upon hearing the commotion, the cop pulled out a bat and ran after Mario, right as the pudgy plumber hopped into a go-kart and took off across the grassland.

He made it to the vicinity of Casino Paisano several clicks from Mushroom City, and Mario parked the car he'd taken, then he ran for the entrance of the establishment. He pushed through the doors, dashed by the lottery area, and scrambled to the elevators while making sure nobody had trailed him here.

A wary Mario tapped the button with the number 8 on it, and the lift began taking him to the upper floor. Twenty-three seconds later, the elevator opened, and Mario dashed down the red carpet-adorned hall. He passed the secretary's desk, and the pudgy dimwitted Italian pushed open the doors to the CEO's office, where Marty was waiting at the desk.

'Well, Mario? Was it worth it?' The cardboard asked.

"I followed everything you said, my king..." Mario approached his boss, and offered SMG3's Sussy Notebook to Marty, "...and we have it. The secrets of SMG3's notebook will soon be ours, we just need to find a way to open it."

'Can't you open it?'

"SMG3 placed a state-of-the-art lock on the notebook, he'd prepared for the event that someone would steal it, even though I was successful in stealing it."

'His attempts will be futile. We will open the diary, and all of it's secrets will be revealed to the world. I will read everything in conjunction with the secret pizza recipe that awaits within the notebook's pages, and I am prepared for such an event. Place the notebook on the dais, and activate the devices. We will open it by any means necessary.'

"Okie-dokie." Mario tapped a button, and a dais rose from the floor near the vault. The fat Italian placed the book on the small table, and stepped back, then he pressed another button, and claws with steaming hot needles emerged from the ceiling. In seconds, the machines began working to open the notebook, even as it remained closed.

'You shall be paid for bringing it to me, Mario.' Marty said to his creator as he observed the efforts to open SMG3's sealed-shut notebook, 'And when the secrets are finally ours, we shall be richer than ever.'