Mario's funny adventure

The Mushroom Kingdom was having a rare moment of peace, which usually meant Mario was approximately five seconds away from ruining it.

In the center of the Castle grounds, SMG4 was hunched over his laptop, his eyes bloodshot from a forty-eight-hour meme-making binge. Meggy was practicing her combat drills nearby, and Tari was focused on a handheld game. Mario, meanwhile, was currently trying to see how many plates of spaghetti he could stack on top of a sleeping Bowser’s head.

"Almost... there..." Mario whispered, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth.

"Mario, if he wakes up, I’m not helping you clean up the mess," SMG4 groaned without looking up from his screen.

"Shh! You’re gonna ruin the art!" Mario hissed.

Just as the tenth plate was about to be placed, the sky above the castle didn't just darken—it cracked. A swirling vortex of violet and black energy tore open the fabric of reality directly above the plumber. The vacuum force was instantaneous, pulling upward with the strength of a collapsing star.

"Mamaf—!" Mario’s scream was cut short as he was yanked off his feet.

"Mario!" Meggy shouted, dropping her Splattershot and sprinting toward him.

The crew scrambled, a frantic chain of hands reaching out. SMG4 grabbed Mario’s boot, Meggy grabbed SMG4’s waist, and Tari held onto Meggy. For a moment, it was a tug-of-war against the cosmos. But the portal gave a violent, final lurch. Mario’s boot slipped out of SMG4’s grip.

"Oof!" Mario grunted as he was sucked into the void. The portal snapped shut with a sound like a closing book, leaving nothing but a few drifting spaghetti noodles and a very confused, now-awake Bowser.

Mario didn't fall so much as he was spat out. He tumbled through a frozen, gray sky and slammed face-first into a snowbank. Except, it wasn't exactly snow. It felt like ash mixed with powdered ice.

"Ooh, my head," Mario groaned, popping his head out of the drift. He shook himself off like a dog, sending white powder flying.

He stood up and looked around. This definitely wasn't the Mushroom Kingdom. The sky was a perpetual, sickly shade of midnight, illuminated by a shattered moon that looked like it had been bitten by a giant space-dog. All around him were the skeletal remains of a frozen city—skyscrapers leaning at impossible angles, rusted cars buried in the frost, and piles of... things.

Mario wandered over to one of the piles. He poked it with a finger. It was a mountain of robotic corpses, their hollowed-out visors staring blankly at nothing.

"Wow," Mario said, his voice echoing in the dead silence. "This place is a dump. I bet there’s not even a single pizza hut for miles."

Being Mario, the sheer existential horror of being stranded on a dead exoplanet didn't quite register. He simply shrugged, adjusted his overalls, and started walking. He began to hum a distorted version of his own theme song, kicking a robotic skull like a soccer ball as he explored the ruins of Copper-9.

High above, perched on the jagged edge of a collapsed bridge, a pair of neon-yellow eyes flickered to life.

V shifted her weight, her metal claws clicking against the rusted girder. She had been bored. Extremely bored. The local worker drones had grown too good at hiding lately, and J was being a pain about "efficiency quotas." But this... this thing below her was new.

It wasn't a worker drone. It was round, dressed in bright red, and possessed a mustache that seemed to defy the laws of aerodynamics. It was currently trying to eat a piece of frozen scrap metal it had mistaken for a cracker.

"What is that?" V whispered to herself, her digital display flickering with a maniacal grin. "It looks... squishy."

She watched him for a while. Usually, her instinct was to dive down and turn anything that moved into a fountain of oil. But there was something about the way he moved—the sheer, unadulterated idiocy of his stride—that gave her pause. He tripped over a wire, performed a perfect 360-degree flip by accident, and then started clapping for himself.

V felt a strange sensation in her central processing unit. It wasn't hunger. It wasn't the bloodlust she was used to. It was... amusement? No, it was more intense. She found his complete lack of survival instinct strangely endearing.

Mario stopped in front of a frozen fountain. He looked at his reflection in the ice, made a funny face, and then tried to lick the ice. His tongue instantly stuck to the surface.

"Mmph! Mmmph-a-mia!" Mario flailed his arms.

V couldn't take it anymore. She plummeted from the bridge, her bladed wings retracting at the last second. She landed with a heavy metallic thud directly behind him.

Mario managed to yank his tongue free with a painful *pop* and spun around. "Hey! You almost stepped on Mario’s—"

He stopped. Standing before him was a sleek, silver-haired killing machine. Her eyes were glowing yellow X’s, and her hands were currently shifted into long, razor-sharp claws that dripped with the remnants of her last meal. She was a nightmare given form.

Mario blinked. He looked her up and down. "Ooh! A robot lady! Do you have any spaghetti?"

V froze. She had expected screaming. She had expected him to run so she could enjoy the hunt. Instead, he was leaning in, looking at her claws with genuine curiosity.

"You're... not running?" V asked, her voice a mix of a purr and a glitchy snarl.

"Mario’s tired of running," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "I ran from a giant piano this morning. You're much prettier than the piano."

V’s display icons flickered wildly. A light blush of digital pink appeared on her visor. She tilted her head, her claws slowly retracting back into feminine-looking hands. She found his stupidity... charming. It was refreshing to see something that didn't immediately cower in fear.

"You're a weird little meat-thing," V said, stepping closer. She reached out and poked his nose. It made a *honk* sound.

Her eyes widened into large, shimmering yellow circles. "I think I’ll keep you."

Mario grinned, completely missing the predatory undertone. "Okay! You can be Mario’s new friend. I’m looking for the exit. This place smells like old batteries."

Mario turned and started walking again, his hands behind his head. V didn't fly away. She stayed right behind him, her gaze fixed firmly on him. Specifically, she found herself staring at the way he waddled. It was strangely hypnotic. She felt a sudden, violent urge to dismantle anyone who might try to take this hilarious creature away from her.

As they walked through a narrow alleyway between two ruined warehouses, the air suddenly hissed. A familiar violet glow illuminated the rusted walls.

"Mario! There he is!"

SMG4, Meggy, Tari, and Bob tumbled out of a fresh portal, landing in a heap of snow and scrap. They scrambled to their feet, weapons drawn, looking frantic.

"Mario, thank God!" Meggy cried out, stepping forward. "We used the emergency warp—get away from that thing!"

She pointed her Splattershot at V, who had instantly shifted her stance. In a blur of silver and chrome, V was in front of Mario, her wings unfurling like serrated steel fans. Her hands transformed into twin submachine guns, and her visor flickered back to the deadly 'X' symbol.

"Back off, toasters," V hissed, a low growl vibrating in her chest.

"Who are you calling a toaster, you edgy barbie doll?" Bob shouted, waving his blade-arms. "Give us the fat guy back!"

"No," V said, her voice dropping to a dangerous, icy tone. "He’s mine. I found him. He’s my pet."

"Pet?!" SMG4 yelled. "He’s a human being! Well, mostly! Mario, get over here!"

Mario, who had been watching the confrontation with the detached interest of someone watching a boring documentary, stepped between them. "Hey, hey! Everybody take a chilled pill! This is... uh..." He looked at V. "What's your name again?"

"V," she whispered, her eyes softening only for him.

"This is V! She’s nice. She didn't even try to stab me once," Mario explained, gesturing wildly.

"Mario, she has literal chainsaws for hands!" Tari squeaked, hiding behind SMG4.

"And I have a head made of stupid! We're a perfect match!" Mario retorted. He looked at V and then back at his friends. "They're my crew, V. They're annoying and they never let me eat the trash I find, but they're okay."

V narrowed her eyes, her sensors scanning the group. They looked weak. She could kill them all in roughly forty-six seconds. But if she did that, the red one might get upset. And for some reason, the thought of the red one being sad made her internal cooling fans kick into overdrive.

She slowly retracted her weapons, though her wings remained flared out, making her look twice as large and three times as intimidating.

"Fine," V spat. "They can come. But if any of them touches you... I’ll turn their spines into a necklace."

Mario clapped his hands. "Yippee! Group exploration! Let’s go find some space-pasta!"

Mario turned and skipped further into the ruins, seemingly oblivious to the tension. V immediately fell into step right behind him, her shoulder brushing against his. She cast a murderous glance over her shoulder at the SMG4 crew, her tail—tipped with a glowing syringe of nanite acid—flicking back and forth like a frustrated cat’s.

"I don't like this," Meggy whispered, keeping her gun leveled at V’s back. "She’s looking at him like he’s a snack."

"Or a husband," Tari added nervously. "Did you see the way she looked at his... uh... overalls?"

"I don't care what she's looking at, as long as she doesn't kill us," SMG4 said, wiping sweat from his brow. "Let's just find a way out of this frozen hellhole and get Mario home."

"Oh my god, guys, look!" Mario shouted from up ahead.

The group caught up to find Mario standing in front of a massive, vaulted door labeled 'Deep Storage.'

"I bet there’s a giant fridge in there!" Mario exclaimed, reaching for the handle.

Before he could touch it, V’s hand shot out, grabbing his wrist. Her touch was surprisingly gentle despite the metal. "Careful, Red. This sector is crawling with shadows. Stay close to me."

She pulled him slightly closer to her side, her metallic wing draping over his shoulder like a protective cloak. Mario didn't seem to mind; he just leaned into the cool metal.

"You're very shiny," Mario noted.

V’s visor flickered with pink pixels again. "Shut up and keep walking."

The crew followed behind, feeling like third wheels in a very bizarre, very dangerous romantic comedy. Bob leaned over to SMG4.

"Yo, do you think I can get her sister's number? I like the 'will-murder-me' vibe."

"Bob, shut up," SMG4 groaned.

As they entered the dark warehouse, the faint sound of skittering claws echoed from the rafters. V’s eyes sharpened, her combat subroutines humming to life. She didn't care about the others, but as she looked down at the idiot plumber humming a tune beside her, she felt a strange new directive override her programming.

Protect the Red One. At all costs.

"Hey, V?" Mario asked, looking up at her.

"What?"

"If we find a pizza, do I have to share it with you?"

V paused, a genuine, terrifyingly sweet smile spreading across her face. "No, Red. I’ll kill the pizza for you myself."

"Mama mia," Mario whispered, his eyes sparkling. "I think I’m in love."

The SMG4 crew collectively facepalmed as they ventured deeper into the darkness of Copper-9, led by a plumber and his homicidal robot bodyguard. It was going to be a long day.