Mario's sad past

The Showgrounds was eerily quiet, an occurrence so rare that SMG4 actually found it difficult to concentrate on his editing. Usually, the air was filled with the sounds of explosions, the scent of burning spaghetti, or the high-pitched "Wahoo!" of a certain plumber causing a ruckus. Today, however, the silence was heavy.

In the main foyer of the castle, the gang was scattered across the mismatched furniture. Meggy was idly polishing her Splatshot, though her heart wasn't in it. Tari was focused on her handheld game, but her thumbs were barely moving. Saiko sat with her legs crossed, staring at the ceiling, while Bob and Boopkins were engaged in a half-hearted debate about which anime girl had the best hair.

"It’s... weirdly peaceful, isn't it?" Boopkins piped up, breaking the silence.

"It’s freaking boring is what it is," Saiko grunted, though her voice lacked its usual bite.

"I don't know," SMG4 said, walking into the room and wiping sweat from his forehead. "I’m actually getting work done for once. Mario’s been gone since sunrise. Anyone know where he went?"

Luigi, who had been sitting in the corner nursing a cup of tea, stiffened. He stared intently into his mug, his hands trembling just enough to make the liquid ripple. "He... he said he was going to the old house. To clear out some boxes."

"The old house?" Meggy looked up, her brow furrowing. "I didn't even know you guys still had that place. Why would he go there alone?"

Luigi didn't answer. He just took a very long, very slow sip of his tea.

Suddenly, the massive television screen on the wall—the one usually reserved for memes or emergency news broadcasts—flickered to life with a loud static pop. Everyone jumped.

"Bob, did you sit on the remote?" SMG4 asked, annoyed.

"I dOn'T nEeD a ReMoTe To Be ThIs SeXy, GeT oFf My BaCk," Bob retorted, waving his blades dismissively.

The static cleared, but it didn't show a news report. It looked like a digitized version of an old home movie. The film grain was heavy, and the colors were washed out into sepia tones.

On the screen, a date appeared in the corner: *Thirty years ago.*

"Oh, look! It’s a baby Mario!" Boopkins squealed, leaning forward. "He looks so cute and round!"

Indeed, a very young Mario—perhaps no older than five—was sitting on a dusty wooden floor. He was playing with a small, wooden block, trying to stack it on top of another. He looked remarkably similar to the Mario they knew, just smaller, with a tiny mustache that was little more than a smudge of fuzz. He was humming a disjointed tune, looking genuinely happy.

"I didn't know Mario was ever that quiet," Meggy said with a small smile. "Look at him. He’s actually focused."

But the atmosphere in the room shifted instantly when a door slammed in the background of the video. The sound was so loud it distorted the audio. A man’s shadow stretched across the floor, long and jagged.

"Mario!" a voice boomed. It wasn't the friendly, boisterous tone of the Mario they knew. It was a voice dripping with venom and whiskey-soaked rage.

The little boy on the screen flinched so hard he knocked his blocks over. He scrambled to his feet, his bottom lip trembling. "P-Papa? I was just—"

A woman stepped into the frame next to the man. She didn't look like a motherly figure; her face was set in a mask of cold, sharp disappointment. "We told you to have the floor scrubbed by the time we got back, you useless brat."

"I did! I tried!" the young Mario squeaked, his voice cracking. "But the bucket was too heavy and I—"

The man didn't wait for an explanation. He moved with a speed that was terrifying. He snatched the boy by the collar of his shirt, lifting him off the ground.

"Hey, wait a minute," SMG4 muttered, his smile fading. "This isn't a funny home video."

On the screen, the man threw the child against the wall. The sound of the impact—the dull thud of a small body hitting plaster—echoed through the castle foyer. The gang sat frozen. This wasn't the slapstick violence they were used to. There were no cartoon stars, no funny sound effects.

"You’re a drain on this family," the man spat, unbuckling a heavy leather belt. "Nothing but a fat, stupid mouth to feed. Maybe this will help you remember your chores."

The beating that followed was systematic and cruel. The young Mario didn't even scream after the first few hits; he just curled into a ball, tucking his head between his knees, trying to make himself as small as possible. His parents took turns—one shouting insults that attacked his intelligence and his worth, the other delivering blows that left dark, angry welts on his skin.

"Turn it off," Meggy whispered, her hand gripping the armrest of the sofa so hard her knuckles turned white. "SMG4, turn it off!"

SMG4 was fumbling with the remote, his face pale. "I—I can't! It’s not responding! It’s like it’s hardwired into the system!"

Tari had hid her face in her hands, her robotic arm whirring frantically as her processors struggled to handle the distress. "Please... make it stop. He’s just a little boy."

The video skipped forward. Now Mario was eight. He was sitting at a kitchen table, trying to do a math problem. He looked malnourished, his cheeks sunken. His mother walked by and, without a word, slapped the back of his head so hard his face hit the table.

"Stupid," she hissed. "Why can't you be smart like Luigi? Why are you such a failure?"

The video skipped again. Ten years old. Twelve. Fifteen.

In every clip, Mario looked more defeated. The spark in his eyes was being systematically extinguished. They watched as he was pushed down stairs, locked in dark closets for days, and told repeatedly that he was nothing more than a mistake. They saw him try to cook a meal to please them, only for the hot pan to be pushed against his arm as punishment for "wasting ingredients."

The most haunting part was Mario’s face as he grew older. He stopped crying. He stopped fighting back. He just stared into the distance with a hollow, vacant expression—the same expression he sometimes wore now when he thought no one was looking.

"Luigi..." Saiko’s voice was uncharacteristically soft, almost trembling. She turned to the plumber in the corner. "You knew? You saw this?"

Luigi was shaking violently now, tears streaming down his face. He didn't look up. "I was younger... They... they kept me in the other room. They told me if I tried to help him, they’d do the same to me. And Mario... Mario would always tell me to stay away. He’d whisper through the door at night, telling me jokes so I wouldn't hear the yelling. He took it all... so I wouldn't have to."

The screen flickered one last time. It showed Mario at eighteen, standing at the front door of a dilapidated house with a single garbage bag of belongings. He looked back at the house, his face bruised and his eye swollen shut. For the first time in the entire video, he spoke directly to the camera—or perhaps to himself.

"I’m gonna go," he whispered, his voice raspy. "I’m gonna go find a place where people don't hurt me for being dumb. I’m gonna find a place where I can just... be."

The screen went black.

The silence that followed was suffocating. No one moved. No one spoke. The air in the room felt five degrees colder.

Bob was the first to break the silence, and for once, there was no sarcasm in his voice. "ThAt WaS... tHaT wAs MeSsEd Up. EvEn FoR mE."

Meggy stood up abruptly, her chair screeching against the floor. She looked like she was about to vomit or punch a hole through the wall. "All those times we called him an idiot... all those times we got mad at him for being 'stupid'..."

"We didn't know," Boopkins sobbed, clutching a pillow to his chest. "We didn't know he was told that his whole life."

SMG4 looked at his hands. He thought about all the times he’d lost his temper with Mario, all the times he’d kicked him out or called him a moron for a video. He realized with a sickening jolt that he had been echoing the very voices that had broken Mario in the first place.

"He acts like he does because he wants to be happy," Tari said, her voice small and shaky. "He decided to be 'dumb' because being 'smart' was too painful. He just wanted to laugh."

Suddenly, the heavy front doors of the castle creaked open.

The gang froze. Mario stepped inside, carrying a dusty cardboard box. He looked exhausted, his red overalls covered in cobwebs and grime. He didn't see them at first; he was humming a little tune—the same disjointed tune the five-year-old on the screen had been humming.

He looked up and saw them all standing there, staring at him with expressions of pure grief and horror.

"Oh! Hey guys!" Mario said, forcing a wide, goofy grin that didn't reach his eyes. "You guys look like you saw a ghost! Did Luigi fart again? It smells like sadness in here."

He let out a forced, high-pitched laugh, waiting for someone to insult him or tell him to shut up.

Nobody did.

Meggy walked forward first. Her boots clicked rhythmically on the stone floor. Mario blinked, his grin wavering. "Uh, Meggy? You okay? If you’re mad about the spaghetti in the vents, I can explain—"

She didn't let him finish. She lunged forward and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face in his chest.

Mario froze, his arms hovering awkwardly in the air. "Uh... Meggy? Is this a new training exercise? Because Mario is not very aerodynamic."

Then, SMG4 walked over and placed a hand on Mario’s shoulder, squeezing it tightly. Tari joined the hug from the other side, her robotic hand gentle. Even Saiko stepped up, crossing her arms but leaning her head against his hat.

"Woah, woah," Mario said, his voice dropping an octave. The "dumb" persona was slipping, replaced by a genuine confusion that bordered on fear. "What’s going on? Why is everyone being weird?"

"We saw, Mario," Luigi whispered, standing up and walking toward his brother. "The old tapes. They... they played on the TV."

Mario went completely still. The box in his hands slipped, hitting the floor with a dull thud. Old photographs and a single, battered wooden block spilled out across the rug.

The silence returned, but this time, it was different. The goofy, wide-eyed expression Mario usually wore vanished. His shoulders slumped, and for a moment, he looked exactly like the eighteen-year-old boy at the end of the video—tired, broken, and world-weary.

"Oh," Mario said. It was a small, hollow sound. "That."

"Mario, I’m so sorry," SMG4 said, his voice cracking. "I’m so sorry for everything we ever said."

Mario looked down at Meggy, who was still clinging to him as if he might disappear. He looked at his friends—his real family—and the mask he had worn for decades finally began to crumble. He didn't cry, not yet, but his lower lip trembled just like it had when he was five.

"It’s okay," Mario whispered, his voice sounding more human than any of them had ever heard it. "I... I forgot most of it. I tried really hard to forget."

"You don't have to forget anymore," Meggy said, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. "And you don't have to take it anymore. From anyone. Especially not from us."

Mario looked around the room. He saw the genuine love and pain in their eyes. For the first time in his life, he didn't feel like the "stupid" one. He didn't feel like a disappointment.

He slowly reached down and hugged Meggy back, resting his chin on top of her head. One by one, the others joined in until the "dumb" plumber was buried in a sea of his friends’ support.

"Hey, SMG4?" Mario said after a long moment, his voice muffled.

"Yeah, Mario?"

"Does this mean I get free spaghetti for a week?"

The group let out a collective, watery laugh. It was a classic Mario line—deflective, silly, and food-oriented. But this time, they didn't roll their eyes.

"Yeah, Mario," SMG4 wiped his eyes. "A whole month. Whatever you want."

Mario pulled back, a small, genuine smile touching his lips. It wasn't the exaggerated grin of a cartoon character; it was the quiet smile of a man who finally felt safe.

"Okay," Mario said softly. "I think... I think I’d like that."

As they all sat down together, refusing to let Mario out of their sight, the TV screen remained black. The ghosts of the past had been summoned, but for the first time in thirty years, they no longer had any power over the man in red. He wasn't the "useless brat" his parents had created. He was Mario—and he was finally home.