Mario Out of the Game

As Marion traveled through Mushroom Kingdom he noticed that things were off. Nobody seemed to be roaming the streets of gold that he had contributed to. Everyone seemed to be afraid. But hadn't he saved everyone in the kingdom from Bowser? Yes! He was sure of it. Then why were they all so afraid? After roaming around the Kingdom pondering this question, he hop skipped and jumped his way over to Luigi's house to ask him if he knew anything about this strange happening. Once he got to Luigi's house he stepped on his front mat and immediately got shot up into the sky. At the pinnacle of his flight, a cage was dropped on him. He went unconscious.

Many days later he awoke from his severed injuries he still didn't even have the energy to stand up. He turned his head every which way but could only distinguish cold, gray, cement walls. But even in his weakened state he managed to mumble, "What happened? Where am I?" "BAM! BAM! BAM!" What was that noise? All that he could hear was pounding from the walls and screaming. Now he was worried, and also more curious than ever to find out where he was. At this point Mario had regained his strength and was ready to escape and save the day like always. But there was no way out. The cage only opened from the bottom and he was in a small cement room with no doors or windows. Now if wasn't a question of how to get out. But one of if he could get out at all. But then it hit him. He still had a couple of shrooms left in his pocket from the crazy party the other night. He quickly ate them and after a few moments began to grow at an astounding rate for a short Italian man. But he had forgotten to head to the warning of 'one shroom at a time'. And that had dire consequences'. He couldn't control himself. He just kept growing and growing. His head started pounding and his vision was blurring and the colours started to all blend together. And then he realized that he had taken the wrong shrooms. He had taken the party shrooms that Waluigi had given him, not the Royal Mushroom Kingdom Growing Shrooms. Oh no. This was bad. Then last time this had happened to his was as a senior in plumbing school. If this went anything like that did he was in for a spin. As quickly as all that had run through his head, he passed out.

What seemed to Mario like a couple of minutes, in reality was weeks. When he woke up, to his surprise, the shrooms were still in effect. This seemed rather odd to him, as they normally last an hour or two. But as he took in his surroundings he realized that the room had become quite cramped due to his largeness. But he could use this to his advantage. He pushed as hard as he could and finally broke through the ceiling and hopped out. He was ready for anything that came his way.

Mario climbed out of his cement cell with the confidence of an army. But as quickly as the confidence came, it left. He was surrounded by thousands of goombas, turtles, ghosts, and countless other fear instilling creatures all ready to pounce at a moment's notice. Which just so happens to be exactly what they did. He held them off for as long as he could. He was punching, kicking, smashing, squishing, and even throwing the dreadful creatures away, but he was helpless. There was no way that he could survive an onslaught like this. As soon as he let his guard down, they came upon him quicker than his eyes could see. The bruised, beaten, broken, and bloody Mario was cowering on the cold, hard ground, moments away from a painful and gruesome death when he thought back to when this was all just part of the job. He had never thought about how much he took for granted. His super jump, his strength, his vast plumbing knowledge. He had always been great at everything. He was never second place. He never lost. How had this happened to him? He couldn't let this happen to him! He reached into his pocket and without hesitation pulled out the last of his fire flowers. He consumed it as quickly as he could, trying not to wince at the bitter taste. But with that bitter taste came a sweet sensation, and warmth started to grow inside of him. He could feel it working. His wounds were healing, he was warming up, and then it began. A dull, pulsing light shot out from within him. But it quickly grew more vibrant. When he could see no longer, all of the sudden it stopped. His eyes awoke from the blindness that his own body caused. He quickly looked all around him, gaining a sense of placement and beginning to strategize a game plan of how to take them all out. But the more that his vision came to, the more stunned and paralyzed bodies he saw on the ground. His very own light had caused this. Taking hold of the opportunity at hand, he sprinted past all of the paralyzed bodies that lay in piles. If he didn't have to fight them, then he would save his energy. He encountered an obstacle on his venture away from his cell. There was a massive, pegged wall that was presented in front of him. In his enlarged form there was no way that the tiny, wooden pegs could support his weight. But soon after his first glance he noticed that the pegs were moving. At closer inspection Mario noticed that they weren't pegs at all, they were caterpillars. They looked so familiar to him. They looked peculiarly like Wiggler. Wait a minute. Had Wiggler had Children? He must have. He knew of everyone and everything in the kingdom. There was only one caterpillar. He stepped back and examined the problem. "Ouch!" He exclaimed. Some of the creatures that had been knocked out were beginning to awake from there slumber and began to attack him. Remembering of his newfound power, he quickly fried the lot of them with one blast of his flame powers. He had to get away from them fast though before the number of creatures began to over overcome him. He started with a jog but quickly sped up to a full sprint. He brought his arms as close to the ground as his body would allow him and swiftly swung them up while jumping to try to grab the on to the ledge. He was about to make it when, THUD! As a crisp turtle shell hit him, he flinched. He missed the ledge, hit the wall, and was about to plummet downward to a gory and painful death, when a hand came down from the ledge and caught him just in the nick of time. He was pulled up by a familiar hand. But who was it? His head had taken the majority of the impact when hitting the wall. His vision was blurry, and he could feel his powers wearing off. "Mario! Mario, are you OK?" Who was it? He couldn't quite distinguish the voice. "It's me! Luigi!" It was Luigi! Of course! Who else could have made it up there without any aid? "Yes. Yes, I'm all right. Where are we? What happened?" asked Mario. "We were ambushed. They rigged both of our house entrances so that we would fall down. We're in Bowser's layer. He's back." said Luigi. "I thought that we beat him! I thought that we had seen him for the last time!" Mario replied. Luigi said "I know Mario, me too." They decided that they needed to take Bowser down once and for all. After countless fights, they made it to the top floor. They were greeted by nothing. Nothing but the ground beneath them and the opening of a volcano. But as soon as they had calmed down and began to relax the floor beneath them opened up and Bowser emerged from the ground. They had barely any room between Bowser and the opening to the volcano. When Mario's heart began to beat faster, Luigi started to advance on Bowser. Was he going to make a final stand? Was Luigi truly going to try to put up a fight in these conditions? But then he turned his back to Bowser and looked back at Mario. With tears streaming down his face he muttered "Mario. Oh dear Mario. I didn't want to do this to you. But how else am I to handle this? You just can't take second place, can you? Is it not good enough for you? Do you know how hard it was growing up in your shadow? Always second place. Always number 2. It's so hard. No matter how hard I try I can never make it up to your level. I could never be as good as you. But guess what. Now that I'm with Bowser I can be number 1. Because there will only be one player from now on." And with that, Luigi pushed Mario off of the edge of the volcano. As Mario reached up to try to grab onto him, all that he could see were tears streaming down Luigi's face. He was hit with a tear of his very own brother. A second later, he was gone. Mario was no more. He was second place.