World 2-1: Welcome To My Nightmare

Luigi had no idea where he was. It seemed to be a building of some kind. Clearly old, though he has no idea how old. It was like someone had taken an old castle from the medieval ages, spliced it together with a Victorian mansion and furnished it with random decorations from every era. More troubling than that, though, was the layout. An endless web of sprawling hallways that didn't lead anywhere but to more halls. He couldn't help but think back on stories he'd heard as a kid, of the Minotaur in ancient Greek myth. Trapped in a labyrinth its whole life until it was slain by Theseus.

But was Luigi Theseus, or the Minotaur?

He continued to wander the dimly lit maze, moving from candlelight to the bold electric lights you might see in a mine, to gas lanterns. At first, it seemed that he was alone, so signs of anyone or anything else in there with him. Then he started to hear noises. Shuffling, footsteps, moans and bumps. He preferred the quiet.

After wandering the labyrinth for what felt like an eternity, Luigi finally found a door. An old wooden door that felt strangely familiar to him but he couldn't quite place where he had seen it before. He opened it to see what was on the other side and froze.

He had just stepped into Mario Bros. Plumbing. Not the house that he and his brother had built together in the woods outside of Toad Town. No, that was Super Mario Bros. Plumbing. This was the old Flatbush apartment basement where Luigi and his brother had first set up shop back in the old days when they were just a pair of young New Yorker plumbers out to make a name for themselves. The lopsided stairs, the collapsed brick wall that led out into an old subway tunnel, the big open sewer pipe that gave them direct access to the city's sewers. Even the old bathtub garden was exactly as he remembered it with a few sunflowers in bloom.

But Luigi knew for a fact that the old apartment building had been condemned and demolished shortly after they'd found that old warp pipe to the Mushroom Kingdom and permanently moved there. It shouldn't have been possible for him to be in a place that had been torn down and no longer existed.

Luigi wandered the old basement, memories of a much simpler time flooding his mind like a dam had just burst. The quirky neighbors and customers, their electrician roommate, the giant sewer rat that would sometimes sneak in… or was it an alligator? It was hard to remember after so long.

Then he heard breathing. Airy, ragged breathing coming from the sewer access pipe. Luigi turned to the source of the noise just in time to see a shadowed figure shuffling closer. He could just barely make them out in the dim light.

"Mario?" Luigi recognized the overalls, the red shirt and the hat that his brother had always favored. But it couldn't have been him. The way it moved was all wrong. It limped forward, stiff and awkward. He recognized those movements from a far more recent memory, his time trapped in the Grimoire of Souls, and his heart practically stopped as he realized what he was looking at.

The smell of rotting flesh hit Luigi mere seconds before the monster walked out into the light. Its flesh had withered away, putrid and green. It was his brother but as Luigi already knew, Mario was dead. The zombie shuffled towards him, slow but determined. Luigi panicked and ran for the door, only to find that it had locked behind him. With his back literally against the wall as Zombie Mario crept ever closer, Luigi scanned the basement looking for anything that he could use to defend himself.

Seeing his old toolbox sitting on top of a pile of broken bricks, Luigi ran around the room to get to it. He dug through the green metal box before finally pulling out his largest wrench, gripping it firmly in his hands. His knees shook as what was left of his brother's corpse closed in on him but he held his ground, bracing himself to attack with the improvised weapon.

No matter how much he tried to rationalize that it was an undead monstrosity and a perversion of his brother's legacy, however, Luigi found that he couldn't bring himself to attack it. Instead, he took a few steps back towards the rusty, dirt-filled bathtub in the corner.

An arm shot out of the soil as Luigi backed into the cracked tub, grabbing him by the strap of his overalls. He pulled away, wrestling out of its grip as a second Zombie Mario rose from the garden soil. Luigi jumped back and tripped over an old oil can, falling flat on his back. He rolled to his feet and looked around, seeing that there were at least five of the undead monsters now, all disfigured imitations of his late brother. They had him surrounded as they shambled towards him from all directions.

Out of options, Luigi gave an audible gulp and jumped over the collapsed brick wall behind him, making a mad dash down the abandoned subway tunnel. He needed to get out of there, find the others and come up with a plan.

"Going somewhere?"

Luig nearly ran headfirst into a large, round mass of shadows but managed to slide to a stop before he crashed headfirst into it. A pair of shadowy purple eyes glared down at him above a fanged mouth from which a bulbous blue tongue hung out.

"K-k-king Boo?"

Luigi scrambled back to his feet and ran the other way, pursued by the giant ghost. He wasn't sure how long he ran before he finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel. Turning around to see that King Book was still hot on his heels, Luigi hurried outside of the man-made tunnel and out into-

This wasn't New York. Luigi found himself in an old, abandoned village that he suspected was somewhere in eastern Europe. Probably Romania, or somewhere around there. A tall, haunting castle cast its shadow over the town, which seemed all but abandoned save for a man sitting at a table outside a small café, whose face was hidden behind a large newspaper with the headline 'Royal Wedding Cancelled' printed in big, bold letters. Sitting on the table in front of him was a glass of red liquid that was too thick to be wine.

"You know, it says here that you're dead." Dracula neatly folded up his paper and set it down on the table before finishing off his drink. "Perhaps I should make that a reality."

The world was on fire around her. The screams of her dying friends and family pierced the air and everyone she had ever known died a slow, agonizing death. Samus could practically taste the blood in the air.

"NO! Get away from me!" the three-year-old screamed as she tried to crawl back, away from the monster standing over her.

The ashen dragon crept ever closer, its harsh golden eyes shining like burning coals as it absently chewed the bloody mess of mangled flesh in its crooked toothy jaws. If Samus had tried eating as messily as that, her mother would have scolded her for her bad manners. But it would have been hard for Virginia to raise a fuss when she was what it was eating. The monster spread its dark wings, blotting out what little sunlight remained that wasn't already obscured by the clouds of smoke billowing around them.

Samus soon found herself backed against a wall. The burning remains of what had once been her family's house, her home. Now it was little more than a pile of ash and melted steel. With nowhere left to run and nowhere left to hide, Samus simply curled up into a ball and rocked back and forth, crying her heart out.

"M-mama!" she cried out desperately. "Papa! Someone, help!"

"They're gone." The monster fell forward onto its hands so that it could get even closer. If Samus held out her hand, she would have been able to touch her mother's leg hanging out of his mouth. Then the monster suddenly jerked his head upward and loudly swallowed what was left of Virginia Aran. "There's no one who can save you now. There never was."

"No!" Samus recoiled from the beast.

"No one has ever been able to save you. Not your parents, not the Chozo, not Adam. Not even you. They all just end up prolonging your suffering." The monster stuck its tongue out, its breath so putrid that Samus nearly passed out from the smell, and licked her face. Samus shivered as blood smeared everywhere and matted her hair. "Yet no matter what happens, I am always there. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try to run and hide, I am there. I am the only real family that you've ever had."

Samus finally couldn't take any more and rose to her feet, ducking under the monster's legs and running as fast as her stubby little legs could carry her. She needed to find somewhere to hide. She needed to find someone to protect her. A gun to defend herself. Anything!

The monster simply turned and laughed, following but not chasing her. It had no need to chase her. She could never truly run away from him.

"What do you think you're trying to accomplish?" it asked with a voice like ice. "There is nowhere that you can go where I won't be waiting. Face it, my child…"

She tried to run to the shipyard. Her Papa would be there waiting for her, right? She just had to get to him and he'd protect her from the monster. That's what Papas did, right?

Samus scrambled up the loading ramp of the largest ship, headless of the smoke billowing from inside. She coughed and hacked as she ran through the burning hallways until at last she found her Papa, obscured by the smoke. She jumped into his outstretched arms, ready for him to take her away from the monster and the badness that followed in its wake.

"...You are mine!"

But the figure she ran to was not her papa. Rodney Aran was already gone, just like everyone else in her life. Samus struggled as the monster pulled Samus into a tight embrace but it was no use.

She would never be able to get away from Ridley. She never could. No matter how much she fought, no matter how many times she defeated him, he was always there.

Roshi curled up in the old straw hammock that had once been his childhood bed, trying to cry himself to sleep even though it was still midday. He would have locked himself away in his room if he could but the primitive huts of Yoshi Island's main village lacked such luxuries as locks or doors. He didn't even have any way of closing the window to drown out the cacophony of children's voices shouting from outside.

"Fatso!"

"Chubby!"

"Burt!"

He'd had to deal with this for as long as he could remember. Meanspirited children and even the occasional adult jeering and making fun of him for his weight. It wasn't his fault. Really, it wasn't. He ate half as much as any other Yoshi his age and yet somehow managed to pack on twice the pounds. Whatever it was that the rest of his kind had that allowed for their signature endless stomachs, he'd simply been born without. He didn't even mind that much, except for the name-calling and constant bullying that it had led to when he was a kid.

His parents had tried to help him by giving him a pen pal. The chief of Lava Lava Island's Yoshi village, who was afflicted by the same condition as him. And he did find comfort in knowing that he wasn't alone, that another of his kind had not only been through everything that he had but been able to thrive and become a leader. A true hero among Yoshis.

But Roshi wasn't the chief. No matter how hard he tried, he'd never been able to overcome his own self-doubt and fear. And when the opportunity had finally come, he'd run away. Instead of facing his problems, he'd gone off to the Mushroom Kingdom to start a new life. Sure, he liked his new home and the people who he would call his friends but did they feel the same way about him?

"Can you believe that idiot?" The voices outside changed, the young Yoshis replaced with the familiar raspy chuckle of a certain former space pirate. "He actually thinks that he can stand beside us!"

"I-a know!" his boss laughed. "He-a can't even realize that-a we just keep him around as a joke."

Roshi rolled over and tried to cover his ears. It wasn't true! It wasn't!

"I think I'm getting tired of him," the bounty hunter lady said. "Maybe we should just ditch him and move on. Leave him here."

"I have a better idea," the deep growl was less familiar to Roshi but he was still able to recognize the King of Koopas, "why don't we roast the little piggy? Hold a luau?"

"What a lovely idea!" Princess Peach cackled in delight. "That's all that a plump little piglet like him is good for, anyway!"

That was enough. Roshi had to get out of there, immediately. His life depended on it!

Roshi tried to get out of the hammock but fell face-first onto the floor before scrambling to his feet and running out of the dirty hut. He didn't see anyone as he hurried into the forest but their voices, mocking and cruel, continued to follow him.

"Oh, look, he's running away again!" Ridley taunted.

"It seems that's all he can-a do!"

Roshi's breathing turned heavy as he lumbered through the woods. He'd never had much in the way of stamina and it didn't take long for him to wear himself out. He tried to fight it but eventually, his fatigue grew to be too much for him and he was forced to take a break and rest on a fallen log, gasping for air while his legs felt like they were on fire.

"What a disappointment," Roshi's father's voice sighed.

"Why couldn't we have had a normal child?" his mother's voice asked.

Roshi's heart pounded, feeling like it would burst out from his chest, but he found the strength to get up and continue. He twisted and turned around the trees until at last he reached a cliff overlooking a rushing river. He turned to find another way, only to see the bushes behind him start to shake. Something was coming.

Roshi took a step back, towards the sudden drop, when a shadowy figure popped out from the foliage, followed by another and another. Dozens of small, amorphous black creatures stared at him through beedy, lop-sided eyes, the only feature he could make out from them apart from their gaping, toothy grins.

Roshi had never actually seen a Fuzzy before but he knew that he'd always been warned never to approach one. He'd been told that they released a spray of powdery spores when touched that poisoned your brain and caused you to hallucinate. Even when he had no idea what they were, he'd always been terrified of encountering one. It wasn't until much later, as an adult, that he'd finally seen pictures in a book of Dinosaurland wildlife that he'd finally had an image to put to the name. The book hadn't mentioned anything about the spores, strangely enough, but did talk about how aggressive and mean they could be, which only heightened his fears.

And now he was surrounded by them.

The black Fuzzies bounced and hopped along the ground, coming steadily closer to him as more and more of the small furry creatures emerged from the forest. Roshi instinctively took another step back. The ground crumbled beneath his foot and he realized that he was about to fall. And with the swarm of Fuzzies approaching from what felt like every direction, Roshi had no way to get away from the ledge.

The next thing Roshi knew, he was falling. Then there was a splash and everything went dark.

Ridley dove into a pool of lava, the Dark Hunter right on his tail. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't manage to shake her for more than a few seconds at a time. Looking back on it, he'd never been able to escape an encounter with the real Hunter unscathed, or even alive for that matter, and this thing that took her form was far more relentless and merciless than the real Samus could ever be. Not to mention that he was currently nearly powerless. With his wings mysterious gone and his plasma breath not working for some reason, he might as well have been human. All he had were his claws, his tail and the red cap that was somehow not catching on fire or melting. Ridley could've done without the dream physics but of course he had other, much more pressing concerns than that.

As Ridley swam through the current of melted rock, remembering the cavernous layout from his previous visits to the real Zebes, Dark Samus jumped in after him. That wasn't ideal, nor was the fact that the tunnels of Norfair weren't complying with his memories of the area. He had no idea where he was going.

After a while, he slipped through a crevice into one of the deeper magma veins, then promptly fell out of the lava stream into a large cave. He scrambled to his feet and bolted along the wall into a side tunnel just as Dark Samus landed on the ground on one knee. The mysterious phazon demon slowly rose to its feet, turning its head to where Ridley had just vanished before slowly trailing after him.

It would have been useful if Ridley had any idea who or what Dark Samus actually was, any knowledge at all of how he could fight it or at least fend the monster off. But the Dark Hunter had always been an enigma to the Space Pirates. It had simply shown up one day out of nowhere and swiftly took over nearly their entire operation, practically in an Urtagian solar cycle. All he knew was that it was of Phaaz and that he could still recall what it was like to be under that thing's thrall all too well. That was not something that he ever wanted to experience again.

After a few minutes, or maybe they were hours, Ridley ducked around a corner into what proved to be a dead end. The sound of armored footsteps echoed behind him as he frantically searched for a way out. Seeing no other way, Ridley felt pressed to rely on one of his lesser-used abilities. He jumped up to the roof and curled up as his skin gradually shifted into the same hue as the rocks around him. His camouflage ability was practically useless when the enemy had scanning capabilities or relied on senses other than sight, which is why he so rarely used it, but perhaps he could get lucky and the thing would miss him.

Of course, he wasn't going to be that lucky, though. Dark Samus found him immediately and Ridley barely had time to drop out of the way of a phazon blast from its arm cannon. He tried to scamper around the Dark Hunter and run off in the other direction but Dark Samus twisted around and grabbed him by the back of his neck, digging its clawed fingers into his flesh.

A familiar burning chill coursed its way through his veins as raw phazon was pumped into his system. He tried to struggle, to resist the corruption and its influence, but his own body betrayed him. Somehow, despite everything, a lingering dependency on the parasitic toxin had remained within him and he found, to his horror, that his body openly welcomed the phazon's return. His five remaining limbs went slack, ignoring the signals his brain was trying to send to fight off the bodily invasion. But no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't move or do anything to fight its influence.

Finally, after the damage had already been done, Dark Samus released its grip and Ridley collapsed onto the scalding stone ground, hacking and wheezing as he rose to his knees. A sickly feeling wrenched its way up from his stomach through his esophagus and Ridley found himself heaving over as he had been so oversaturated with the volatile parasitic mutagen that the extra phazon in his system was violently expunged through his mouth, the glowing blue poison forming a puddle at his knees.

The false Hunter continued to stand silently over Ridley, watching its new pawn with a dispassionate gaze as he slowly picked himself back up. While Ridley may have been able to move again, his actions were no longer his own. He was under its control once again, at the beck and call of his returning master.

Ridley stretched his arms and legs as metal plates bubbled out from under his skin, covering his body. Then he suddenly hunched over and his back violently ripped open. A shining pair of artificial wings burst out, glowing orange membranes held on metallic frames. The pain of his transformation was indescribable and yet Ridley was forced to endure as his mind remained active throughout the entire thing. He struggled to remind himself that this was just a dream, a nightmare, and that none of it was real.

Then a hollow groan echoed through the cavern as Dark Samus issued a command. 'Submit. Obey. Destroy.'

Omega Ridley replied with a mechanical growl, unable to do anything else. He was a slave to the Prime's whims, no matter how much he tried to fight it. He was nothing but a living marionette, his strings its to control. Ridley wanted to scream, to cry, but he couldn't. Instead, his body followed its master through the darkened tunnels, up, until at last they came to the surface. They weren't on Zebes anymore, though.

Dark Samus rose into the air once they were outside and Omega Ridley had no choice but to follow. Through the cloudy night sky, Ridley could clearly make out the vibrant green hills and flowing rivers of the Mushroom Kingdom. Princess Peach's castle and the surrounding town were up ahead in the distance.

'Destroy. Infect. Assimilate.'

Omega Ridley obeyed the orders he was given. Soon, these lands would be nothing but smoke and ash at his feet. And Ridley was forced to watch as there was nothing that he could do to stop himself.

Deep in the heart of the Cave of Nightmares, the Star Rod remained undisturbed upon the pedestal where it rested. Beside it, a solitary figure garbed in dark armor waited with his dark blue cape wrapped around himself. A pair of yellow eyes stared out from behind the v-shaped slit in his silver mask, which narrowed as he watched.

Four new arrivals had entered the cave and, like all those who had come before them, had been completely lost within their own nightmares. Things seemed to be playing out as they always did, much to the Star Warrior's frustration. It seemed that his wait would not yet come to an end.

But then, something unexpected happened. A bright light flashed in the corner of his vision and he turned to see the golden, five-pointed star at the tip of the white and pink striped rod had begun to glow. Perhaps these were the ones that he had been waiting for, after all.

Author's Notes: This chapter and its follow-up are the parts that I've been most looking forward to in this story. And, now that I think about it, the only parts that I really had all that fleshed out. I'm now feeling like I should have spent more time outlining this story and figuring out what I want to do apart from some vague ideas. I guess I'll be spending the next few weeks working that out in better detail.

I was originally going to have each Nightmare be a character created from each character's fears. Nightmare Samus for Ridley, Nightmare King Boo for Luigi, Nightmare Ridley for Samus and… Nightmare Fuzzy for Roshi, with that last one being something of a joke character based off of the idea that Roshi was afraid of Fuzzies (the Yoshi's Island enemy) but doesn't know that they're different from Fuzzies (the Super Mario enemy). In that version, the four Nightmares would have actually followed them out of the cave when they left and continued to chase them down for a while. I ended up changing things pretty significantly since then, though. While Samus' nightmare is pretty much the same as I originally envisioned it, everyone else's have changed, with Luigi's now being focused on a fear of death (and the undead), Roshi's now being focused more on his general insecurities and history of being bullied, and Ridley's now being focused on the events of Prime 3 and memories of his past self.