Mario's backstory

The main hall of SMG4’s Showgrounds castle was unusually quiet. The air was thick with a rare, peaceful stillness that usually only occurred when the world was ending or, more commonly, when Mario was not around.

SMG4 sat on the edge of the velvet sofa, mindlessly scrolling through his phone. Meggy was polishing her Splatshot, though her movements were sluggish. Bob and Fishy Boopkins were arguing in hushed tones about which anime girl had the best character arc, and Saiko was leaning against a pillar, looking bored out of her mind. Tari was busy tinkering with a small robotic duck, while Melony napped lightly on a beanbag, her breathing rhythmic and calm.

"You know," SMG4 remarked, breaking the silence. "It’s actually kind of nice to have a day where nothing is exploding. Where is Mario, anyway?"

"He said he was going to find the legendary 'Infinite Pasta' hidden in the woods," Meggy replied, not looking up. "I give him three hours before he realizes he’s just eating regular grass and comes back crying."

Suddenly, the massive television screen mounted on the wall flickered to life. It didn't roar with the usual colorful intro of a meme video or an emergency broadcast. Instead, it hummed with a low, static frequency that made the hair on the back of Tari’s neck stand up.

"Uhh, SMG4? Did you turn that on?" Tari asked, her cybernetic eye zooming in on the screen.

"No, I didn't touch it," SMG4 said, standing up and walking toward the monitor.

The static cleared, revealing a grainy, sepia-toned image. It was a small, cramped kitchen. In the center of the frame sat a young boy in an oversized red shirt. He looked tiny, his eyes wide and bright with an innocence that felt jarringly misplaced on a face so familiar. It was Mario, but a version of him that looked like he hadn't yet learned that the world could be a cruel place.

"Aw, look at little Mario!" Boopkins chirped, clasping his hands together. "He was so cute!"

The sentiment was short-lived. A shadow loomed over the boy. Two figures, their faces obscured by the harsh lighting of the recording, stepped into the frame. The audio, previously muffled, suddenly spiked in volume.

"You stupid, worthless brat!" a man’s voice roared, the sound distorted but dripping with venom. "I told you not to touch the stove! Do you have any idea how much that costs to fix?"

"I-I was just hungry, Papa," the young Mario whispered, his voice trembling.

The hand that came down was fast. The sound of the impact echoed through the castle hall, a sickening crack that made Meggy flinch and drop her weapon. The boy was sent sprawling across the floor. What followed was a barrage of vitriol and violence that none of them were prepared for. It wasn't just a scolding; it was a systematic breaking of a child.

The gang watched in frozen horror. Saiko’s grip tightened on her hammer until her knuckles turned white. SMG4 felt a cold lump form in his throat. This wasn't a joke. There was no punchline.

Luigi, who had been sitting quietly in the corner, suddenly stood up. His face was pale, his eyes fixed on the floor. Without a word, he turned his back to the screen, his shoulders shaking. He knew. He had lived in the shadow of this, perhaps protected by Mario’s own body more times than he could count.

"Luigi?" Tari reached out, her voice trembling. "Is this... is this real?"

Luigi didn't answer. He couldn't.

The screen jumped forward in time. Mario was older now, perhaps a teenager. He looked disheveled, his clothes torn and his expression vacant. He was sitting on a curb, staring at nothing. The light in his eyes—the spark they all knew as his chaotic energy—was dim, replaced by a hollow stare. Every time the screen skipped, he looked worse. Bruises that never seemed to heal, a slouch that spoke of a heavy burden, and a loneliness that radiated off the screen like a physical heat.

"We... we always called him an idiot," Meggy whispered, her voice breaking. Tears began to well in her eyes. "We hit him. We kicked him out of the castle. We treated him like a nuisance."

"He never complained," Bob said, his usual sarcastic tone completely gone. "He just... took it. He always came back smiling."

The realization hit them like a freight train. Mario wasn't just "stupid" or "random." He was a man who had been broken so many times that he had rebuilt himself out of pure, chaotic joy just to survive. He acted the way he did because the alternative was a darkness he couldn't face.

Melony had woken up. She wasn't sleeping anymore. She was staring at the screen, her large eyes overflowing with tears. She watched as the footage transitioned to a more recent era.

The screen showed a lonely Mario, sitting in a field of melons. He looked tired—not the tired from a long day, but the tired of a soul that had been wandering for too long. He picked up a melon, drawing a face on it with a marker. He talked to it. He treated it with a gentle tenderness that none of them had ever shown him.

"You're my best friend," the Mario on screen whispered to the melon. "I'll keep you safe. No one's gonna hurt you."

Melony let out a sob, burying her face in her hands. That was her. Before the mask, before the deity powers, she was a symbol of a lonely man’s desperate need for something to love—something that wouldn't hit him back.

The screen flickered one last time, shifting from physical memories to something more abstract. A glowing orb appeared in the center of the darkness. It was a heart, pulsing with a faint red light. But it wasn't whole. It was covered in deep, jagged cracks that looked like they were held together by nothing but sheer will. With every memory of a harsh word from SMG4, every time Meggy had lost her temper, every time they had left him behind, a new crack formed.

The soul was fragile. It looked like it was one bad day away from shattering into a million pieces.

The screen went black.

The silence that followed was deafening. No one moved. The air in the room felt heavy with the weight of collective guilt. SMG4 looked at his hands, the hands that had edited Mario into countless humiliating situations for the sake of "content."

"What have we done?" SMG4 asked, his voice barely a whisper.

"We were supposed to be his family," Saiko said, her voice uncharacteristically soft and thick with regret.

The heavy front doors of the castle creaked open. The sound made everyone jump.

Mario walked in. He wasn't covered in pasta or screaming about memes. He just looked exhausted. His cap was pulled low over his eyes, and his overalls were dusty. He didn't even look up at them as he trudged toward the couch.

"Hey guys," he muttered, his voice flat. "I didn't find the pasta. I think I'm just gonna... nap for a bit."

He slumped down onto the sofa, the old springs groaning under his weight. He let out a long, shuddering sigh and closed his eyes, looking older than he ever had before.

Before he could drift off, he felt a weight on the sofa next to him. Then another.

Mario opened one eye. The entire gang was there. They weren't standing back; they were kneeling or sitting on the floor right next to him.

"Uh... is there a fire?" Mario asked, a hint of his usual confusion returning. "Did Boopkins eat the trash again?"

Meggy was the first to move. She reached out and took his hand, her grip firm but trembling. "No, Mario. No fire."

"We're sorry," SMG4 said, leaning his head against the back of the couch. "We're so, so sorry, Mario. For everything."

Mario blinked, looking genuinely baffled. "For what? You guys didn't do anything today. It was actually a pretty good day. No one kicked me into the sun once!"

The fact that he considered a day without being physically assaulted a "good day" pierced their hearts deeper than any insult could.

Melony stood up from her beanbag and walked over. She didn't say a word at first; she simply leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Mario in a fierce, protective embrace. She rested her head on his shoulder, her green hair spilling over his red shirt.

"Mario," Melony said, her voice steady despite the tears. "You created me. When you were lonely, you gave me life and a name. You gave me a home."

Mario went still, his eyes widening. "Melony?"

She pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes, her expression one of fierce, divine determination.

"I saw it," she whispered. "I saw the cracks. And I am never going to let another one form. I am the deity of this group, but you are my creator. From now on, I am your shield."

She looked around at the others, her gaze challenging them.

"We all are," Meggy added, wiping her eyes. "No more 'stupid Mario' jokes. No more leaving you behind. If the world wants to hurt you, it has to go through us first."

Mario looked around the circle of faces. He saw the regret in SMG4’s eyes, the sorrow in Tari’s, the quiet resolve in Saiko’s, and the protective stance of his brother, Luigi, who had finally moved to sit on his other side.

For a moment, the mask of the "funny man" slipped. Mario’s bottom lip quivered. He looked down at his lap, his shoulders beginning to shake.

"You guys... you guys really mean that?" he asked, his voice small. "You don't think I'm just a big, dumb idiot?"

"You're our friend, Mario," SMG4 said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You're the heart of this entire place. And we’ve been blind to how much that heart was hurting. Never again."

Mario didn't wail or scream. He just leaned into Melony’s hug and let out a single, quiet sob of relief. It was the sound of a man who had been holding a heavy door shut for decades, finally allowing someone else to help him hold the weight.

"Okay," Mario whispered. "Okay. That... that sounds nice."

As the sun began to set outside the castle windows, casting long, golden shadows across the floor, the group didn't move. They stayed there, huddled around the man in the red hat, a silent vow hanging in the air. The cracks in his soul were still there—they wouldn't heal overnight—but for the first time in his life, Mario wasn't the one trying to patch them alone.

He fell asleep there, surrounded by the people who had finally realized that the greatest hero wasn't the one who saved the world, but the one who kept smiling even when the world tried to break him. And they would make sure that, from now on, he actually had a reason to smile.