Chapter Forty-One:

To Find Fun at Glitch-Con

Back at Glitch-Con, Mario became fascinated by the cylinder-shaped object on the booth's desk next to the Vader helmet-wearing Bowser, and, due to his low-level intelligence, the fat Italian picked it up while remarking; "Oooh, what is that?"

"Careful, Mario!" Bowser warned, "That's a real lightsaber!"

Mario started to play with it, ignorant of the Koopa King's warning, then his hand tapped a button, and the fabled weapon ignited with a hum.

A blue blade of concentrated energy emerged, and Bowser yelped as he felt it burn his hand. Smoke oozed from the scratch generated by the activating lightsaber, and Mario put it aside, failing to deactivate it as he did so.

In that moment, the TARDIS reappeared, while tilted over on one side, and Luigi exited with wide eyes. The green Italian was dazed from his adventure, even as the image of that ominous black-red box burned into his mind for the time being.

While the Mario Brothers took their time around the Sci-Fi booth, the cyborg gamer girl Tari, sporting a Link cap on her head while carrying a fake Master Sword, strolled through the convention hall and took in the sights as Meggy followed her, baffled by almost everything.

Tari had been on her way to Glitch Con, eager to see the fun video game-related merch and the rubber ducks, when she bumped into Meggy, who was visiting the Mushroom Kingdom with Mario in mind. Happy to see the Inkling again, the gamer girl decided to bring her along, despite Meggy insisting she wasn't into "super nerdy events".

"Ooooh!" Tari exclaimed with glee as she observed all of the booths, "Isn't this place so amazing, Meggy?"

Meggy caught sight of a Goomba wearing an Inkling girl wig walking by with a Monty Mole sporting an Octoling wig. While the orange squid girl was aware of the Splatoon video game that Nintendo had produced, she was a little weirded out by the sight of Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants wearing Splatoon-related clothes.

"Well, this place is... interesting." The athletic Inkling quipped, she didn't want to upset her friend.

Tari looked back at Meggy with a smile. "Thanks for coming with me." She complimented, "I'm too shy and nervous to cosplay alone, especially at a convention that is attended by so many people."

"Uh, no... No worries, Tari." Meggy shrugged while cringing at the sight of a heavyweight guy wearing a tutu and a wig, "I'm always up for new stuff."

The girls were just passing by an anime-themed booth when a familiar face greeted them in the form of Fishy Boopkins himself. Boopkins had heard about the convention, and volunteered to help sell some anime merch that fascinated him.

"Oh, hey, guys!" The little Spike said enthusiastically, "Come and check out my anime store! Please, please, please."

Boopkins gestured to the booth's name, which read "Boopkins' Anime Store", and Tari started to have a fangirl moment. However, Meggy stared at the anime products, feeling uneasy, and her eye began to twitch. In moments, she was remembering the day of the pizza party at Bowser's castle, when Bob and Boopkins made her watch anime with them.

Anime made Inklings very uncomfortable, with not just the big eyes and the weirdly drawn faces, but how the human women were designed, along with the content that a good many of those shows had in store. And Meggy remembered every anime-related show the Spike and the Garo made her watch.

"We have everything!" Boopkins exclaimed, and his voice was drowned out by the flashbacks in Meggy's mind...

She was sitting on the couch, tempted to shield her eyes as Meggy observed Luffy's motions from his talking to everything that he did as he stretched his body. The animation, the art style, and the voices. How could anyone find this to be enjoyable to watch? She wanted to run, she couldn't take it.

Bob and Boopkins were clamoring excitedly, enjoying the moment, with the latter loving it so much. Meggy wanted to leave, but there was nowhere else to go, even when the duo changed anime shows with Bob putting on Queen's Blade.

No, no, no. Why did she have to watch that, the tentacles? Why did it have to be anything with tentacles? Who made such a show, and what was going through the writer's minds when they did the tentacle attacks, even if some of the inspiration came from legends about sea monsters with tentacles attacking ships at sea...?

Tari squealed with glee, running to check out the anime store, while Meggy groaned as more traumatic anime-themed flashbacks ran through her mind again. She'd much rather see something related to Splatoon or sports than look at anime in the convention.

"Meggy! Check it out!" Tari cried as she held up a figurine of the MY HERO ACADEMIA superhero Toshinori Yagi, "They have Boku No Hero merch!"

The Inkling chuckled nervously, even with more anime PTSD on her mind, "Uh, that's... cool?"

She screamed with shock when Boopkins offered her a Solid Snake body pillow, cue another flood of traumatic anime-themed flashbacks in the Inkling's mind as she remembered every piece of manga and anime that Boopkins tried to expose her to.

While Tari was enjoying the anime booth and Meggy was dealing with trauma, Mario and Luigi had departed the sci-fi booth and were continuing further through the convention. The latter was in a bright mood, having brushed off the scary things he'd seen while traveling in the TARDIS, and he'd gotten a Yoda plush.

You couldn't go wrong with the wise Jedi Master and his teachings, and Mario was good friends with the elderly creature, despite his lack of amusement at the moment.

"Mario, do you like my Yoda doll?" Luigi asked.

"Ugh..." Mario groaned, "Isn't there anything fun to do here?"

Just then, he spotted a familiar blue-and-white-clad man resembling the pudgy Italian walking into a booth with a gaming theme. Mario brightened up, and ran towards the meme man with Luigi following. It was so nice to see the YouTuber, especially at this convention.

SMG4 enjoyed conventions like these, especially when it was a place where you could meet famous people, and, since the meme man was well-known to an extent, he was more than glad to swing by the convention and take up his own booth that was related to gaming. The meme man was just sitting down when Mario entered his vicinity.

"SMG4, MY HOMIE!" The pudgy plumber exclaimed as Luigi joined him.

"Oh, hello there." SMG4 greeted the Mario Brothers happily, "I see you are interested in my booth. Welcome to my tabletop game paradise!"

However, other than SMG4, there weren't that many people in the booth, save for a lonely Birdo.

"You are not-a wasting Mario's time!" Mario exclaimed.

Luigi stepped forward with a gleeful grin. "Oh, can we play Warhammer 40k?" He asked optimistically, "I love tabletop games!"

"Yeah, alright!" SMG4 led the Mario Brothers to the closest of gaming tables, all to the dismay of Mario. He'd enjoyed the sci-fi booth, to an extent, and he wasn't too happy with the rest of the convention due to the lack of a spaghetti booth. There just had to be something worthwhile, so worthwhile, Glitch Con would be Mario's favorite event ever.