AN: Hello, everyone! It's that time yet again; the most wonderful time of year that people wait in breathless anticipation for! It's time for StarlitDuck to start a new story!

Lol in all seriousness, I am looking forward to this one. Like a lot of SK episodes that I have already done and/or planning to do, I've been wanting to write this story for years! Literal years; I've been planning this for a long time. So… hopefully this story turns out decent at the very least.

Oh, and one more thing I should mention before we get started. This has always been the case, but I have neglected to mention it in previous stories. That being, the events of the Paper Mario games didn't happen in SK. Obviously, some of the characters from Paper Mario, like Doopliss and Vivian (as well as some characters who are in this story) appear in SK, but they are alternate universe versions of the characters with different backstories. Just thought I'd mention that.

Anyway, enough with this long author's note. Let's get started! :D

Chapter 1 Francis the NEET

Munch munch munch.

The screen in front of Francis displayed a raid battle in the MMORPG game "Warriors of Avongard," a game that he had played religiously since it came out over a decade ago. This game gave Francis sweet sweet serotonin, like it was a drug engineered to set off the happy chemicals and parts of his brain. Was Francis addicted to the game? Eh… maybe? He did dedicate a generous portion of every day to playing it. When he wasn't playing it, he was thinking about it; longing to be in front of his computer exploring the world of Terrastria. Playing Warriors of Avongard, in Francis's opinion, was Heaven on Earth. So, really, why would it matter if he was addicted? It made him happy, and that was all that mattered.

Francis dug his hand back into his humongous bag of cheese puffs, all without letting go of his mouse. He chowed down on the orange treats, getting the cheesy dust all over his hands, his shirt, and his keyboard. The orange of the dust was a stark contrast to the green of his reptilian skin, sticking out in a way that would probably make most artists have a heart attack. Well, whatever. Francis didn't care; he was a chameleon, a lizard. Lizards didn't spend their time thinking about what others thought about them. That would just be silly.

Playing a video game in a dark, enclosed, fortified space, by contrast, wasn't.

"Come on." Oh man, this boss was a nightmare. He was currently in a raid dungeon, and every player who was currently in the raid was going out of their way to fight the bat-like, horrific boss. They had been doing this for… Francis didn't know how much time he had spent trying to defeat the boss. Ten minutes? Half an hour? Half a day? He wasn't sure, but did that really matter? He wasn't going to rest until his party had defeated this annoying as-hell boss. Depending on how one chose to view WoA and how categorize its bosses, this boss was the final boss of the entire game. So, Francis had to defeat it. He had to, as not only would it drop some sweet gear, but it would also provide him with some legitimate bragging rights.

"Come on!" The boss was down to twenty-five percent health. Just a few more hits and this behemoth would be defeated. This stupid, stupid boss would drop its awesome, awesome loot, an action that Francis's whole being anticipated. He would get the helm of Astrassa. He would get the sword of Valion. He would equip them and show everyone in the game world that he had defeated Ballcifer the Bat. He was so close to accomplishing this. All he needed to do was have his party defeat Ballcifer without having him enter his final stage of combat…

"No." Francis's eyes grew wide when he saw the boss glowing with a purple light. "No, no!" He leaned extra close to the screen and typed into the group chat. "Guys hit him in the head! Spam some fireballs; don't let him explode…!"

It was too late. Ballcifer exploded, making the entire screen go blank with bright purple light. When the light cleared, Francis's character was dead. In fact, all the player characters were dead; Ballcifer had completely wiped them out. Again.

"FUCK!" Francis stood up from his chair, gritted his teeth, and banged his fist against the table. "Fuck fuck fuck!" Could this be considered a temper tantrum? No; Francis liked to think of it more as Gamer Rage. Temper Tantrums were for babies, whereas Gamer Rage was not only for adults but also completely justified. "Fuck fuck FUCK!" If he had hair, he would be pulling it out. He was so close! So close; closer than he had gotten in a while! Why hadn't he been able to do this? Sure, it was the hardest boss in the game, but he should've been able to defeat Ballcifer. Why couldn't he?

It must be because of his raid party members. Yeah, that was it; the raid party members. They were probably Noobs at best and literal children at worse and thus had no experience fighting in a raid dungeon. Yeah, that was it; it had nothing to do with Francis's skills. His skills were already on the legendary level. As such, he had every right to be angry. He had every right to bang his cheese-puff-coated fist against the table. He had every right to…

"Master Francis?"

Francis stopped. He kept his eyes on his keyboard when he heard the monotone voice that he knew all too well. He backed up from his computer and looked up. Specifically, he looked up into the camera that served as his computer's eyes.

"What is it, TEC-XX?"

"Your adrenaline levels and heart rate are both elevated beyond a reasonable level."

Francis gritted his teeth again. "I know! I know they are; so what?"

"According to this article I have discovered on the internet," Tec said, using the same flat, monotone inflection as before, "a high heart rate such as this can lead to serious complications. Logic dictates that you should take a break from your video game to relax."

Francis shook his head as he let out a huff. "You don't understand anything about how I operate, do you Tec?" He looked into the camera again, this time with a frown and a raised eyebrow. "Who programmed you to be so colossally stupid?"

"You did, Master Francis," Tec said. "It was you who programmed me."

Francis held back a groan. "Well then, I need to take the time to reprogram you." He sat back down in his chair, putting his hand back on the mouse. "I'm not going to stop playing WoA. I'm so close to defeating Ballcifer!" He sighed. "Or at least, I was until he exploded." He shook his head. "Now I need to do the whole raid over again." He frowned, sitting in his chair in a way that required atrocious posture. "Whoop dee doo."

"Master Francis, I can see through your ten thousand hours of playtime that you want to defeat this boss. But, again, this practice is spiking up your adrenaline. The fact that your desire and dedication are as strong as they are fails to compute with me."

Francis snickered. "Well… make it compute." He leaned closer to the screen, so close that his eyes could make out each individual pixel. "Make it compute, and stop hounding me about my playtime. You're not my Mom Tec; you're just an AI."

"True. But still; at least give yourself some time to take a break."

Francis felt like screaming again before, suddenly, he stopped. He blinked a couple of times before sighing. "You know what, Tec? Maybe you're right." He grabbed hold of the mouse once again and clicked out of Warriors of Avongard. "I will take a break. I think that could do me some good."

"Excellent."

With that, Francis closed the game and went onto the Internet. If one were to think that Francis was going to spend time away from the computer now that he wasn't playing the game… well, Francis would love to know what they were smoking. No way was he walking away! There was so much stuff to be explored on the World Wide Web! There was so much ground to cover, and the internet is the perfect way to learn about the outside world! Granted, other people who weren't Francis could argue that going outside and talking to people is the best way to learn about the world, but Francis didn't allow those types of people in his house.

So, he scrolled through some news articles. A few of them… well, most of them talked about things like games being developed and advancements in the field of computer science. These were the subjects Francis was most interested in, and for good reason. The scientists and programmers who talked about the stuff that they were making came off as funny to the bespectacled chameleon. Why? Because he was already miles ahead of them! He had programmed an amazing AI when it came to TEC-XX, and he had also done things with other computers that left these "smart" people in the dust. He was above their level. If they knew he existed, they would weep over how little they actually contributed to the world. It was laughable; honest to goodness laughable.

Of course, there was an issue related to reading these articles. That being, Francis had already read most of them cover to cover. He could recite an article talking about Warriors of Avongard's next expansion in his sleep. And because of this, reading these articles now made Francis bored. He yawned multiple times, feeling as though his brain cells were dying as he looked at this stuff.

So, today, he did something that he didn't normally do: read other news articles. The news was often uneventful and insignificant in his eyes. So what if there was an earthquake in Sparksville? So what if ten dead bodies were found in Amber? It didn't affect Francis, so he had no reason to worry about it. The only thing he cared about when it came to the news was whether or not he could continue "working from home" (he didn't really work so much as sat at his computer eating snacks).

At least, that was the case most of the time. When he went to the news today, however, he saw something that caught his attention. He saw something that ignited both his imagination and excitement.

"Captain Metal, the metallic superhero, has been helping people all over the Koopa Kingdom," the article read. "And he's been doing so in amazing ways! With his robotic powers, he has defeated villains and stopped crimes in more towns than we can keep track of."

"A robotic superhero?" Francis said with a blink. Man, why had he never heard of this before? This was cool! This was fresh, exciting, and it offered so many possibilities. A robot who went out of their way to help the Koopa Kingdom at large? Wow. And they looked like an advanced robot too; as Francis looked at a picture of Captain Metal, he wouldn't have been able to tell they were a robot if he hadn't already know. Seriously, this was so cool!

And it ignited something in Francis. He smiled wickedly, giggling as he rubbed his hands together.

"I want that robot," he said, his voice slimy. He laughed, almost knocking his bag of cheese puffs off the table. "I want that robot, and I want him right now!"

"You mean Captain Metal?" Tec asked.

"Mmhm!" Francis stood up. "Captain Metal is obviously more advanced and more helpful than your sorry ass will ever be, Tec! And if I find a way to reprogram him… if I can mess with his mind in a way that makes him my servant…" Francis jumped up and down (which was probably the most amount of physical activity he had done in a while). "Oh, there are so many possibilities! There's just so many things I can do with a robot servant! Especially a robot servant who's as powerful as Captian Metal."

"I do see the potential benefits," Tec said. "But then, that begs the question, Master. How do you plan on getting Captain Metal in the first place?"

Francis chuckled. "Oh, I think I know of a way…