Mario's multiverse journey

The day had started out perfectly normal for the Mushroom Kingdom, which was to say, it was a complete disaster. In the middle of the SMG4 crew’s high-tech underground base, Mario was currently attempting to see how many uncooked noodles he could shove into his nostrils while balancing a rotating ceiling fan on his head.

"Mario, for the love of God, stop! You’re going to break the ventilation system again!" SMG4 screamed, waving his arms frantically as he tried to edit his latest video.

"Mama-f**ker, I’m an artist!" Mario retorted, his voice muffled by the pasta protruding from his face. He took a step back, tripped over a rogue Penguin plushie, and flailed wildly.

Before he could hit the floor, the air behind him ripped open. A swirl of neon violet and glitching black energy manifested into a swirling vortex. It wasn't one of SMG4’s usual memes or a warp pipe; it looked like a hole torn into the fabric of reality itself.

"Whoa, ho! Free pizza hole!" Mario cheered, leaning toward it.

"Mario, get away from that!" Meggy shouted, leaping over a sofa to grab his overalls.

Tari and Bob rushed forward, but the suction was instantaneous. The portal roared like a hungry beast, its gravitational pull dragging Mario inward. Meggy caught his hand, her boots skidding across the metal floor.

"I gotcha, Red! Don't let go!"

"But Meggy, I think I see a ravioli in there!" Mario pointed into the abyss with his free hand.

"It’s a black hole, you idiot!" SMG4 yelled, grabbing Meggy’s waist to pull her back.

The portal gave one final, violent tug. Mario’s hand slipped from Meggy’s grasp. With a high-pitched "Wahoooooooo!" that faded into the distance, the plumber vanished. The portal snapped shut with a sound like a slamming car door, leaving the room in a stunned, suffocating silence.

Mario didn't fall so much as he tumbled through a kaleidoscope of static and screaming binary code. When he finally hit the ground, it wasn't the soft grass of the Mushroom Kingdom or the cold metal of the base. It was concrete—frozen, cracked, and covered in a thick layer of greyish snow.

He groaned, peeling himself off the ground. He shook his head, his cap spinning back into place. "Ooh, my liver..."

He stood up and brushed the frost off his overalls. He wasn't in the Mushroom Kingdom anymore. The sky above was a deep, bruised purple, devoid of a sun, replaced by a massive, shattered moon that looked like it had been bitten by a cosmic monster. Ruined skyscrapers loomed like skeletal giants, their windows smashed and their steel frames twisted into grotesque shapes.

"Hello?" Mario called out, his voice echoing through the desolate street. "Is there a spaghetti shop nearby? Mario is very hungry and slightly traumatized!"

The only answer was the howling wind, which carried the scent of frozen copper and old oil. Mario began to wander, his boots crunching on the snow. He passed a sign that read 'Copper 9' and promptly ignored it, instead focusing on a pile of frozen corpses—except they weren't people. They were small, robotic skeletons with screen-faces, piled high in a gruesome mountain of scrap metal.

"Wow, the new Wall-E movie looks depressing," Mario remarked, poking a robotic skull with his foot.

He continued his aimless trek, humming a distorted version of the shop theme. He was so busy looking for a snack that he didn't notice the faint, mechanical whirring coming from the top of a nearby ruined department store.

High above, two pairs of neon yellow eyes flickered to life. The sensors recalibrated, zooming in on the strange, round organic creature waddling through the snow.

"Subject identified," a feminine, synthesized voice whispered, laced with a hint of sadistic glee. "Doesn't look like a Worker Drone. Too... fleshy."

"Maybe it's a new type of pest?" a deeper, more refined male voice suggested. "Should we dismantle it and see what's inside?"

"Dibs on the red hat," the female voice giggled.

Mario stopped in front of a frozen vending machine. He gave it a firm kick, hoping for a bag of chips. Instead, the machine groaned and fell over, crashing loudly into the street.

"Darn it! This planet has terrible service!"

Suddenly, the wind changed. A shadow swept over him, blocking out the dim light of the shattered moon. Mario blinked, looking up just in time to see a blur of silver and black descending from the sky at terminal velocity.

"Oof!"

Mario was slammed into the snow with enough force to create a small crater. He felt something heavy and metallic pinning his chest down. When his vision cleared, he found himself staring into a screen that displayed a pair of glowing yellow "X" shapes where eyes should be.

The creature was sleek, white-plated, and possessed a long, whip-like tail ending in a syringe filled with glowing yellow liquid. It featured a headband of five small lights that pulsed with a predatory rhythm.

It was a Disassembly Drone. Specifically, Serial Designation V.

She crouched over him, her metallic claws retracted for a moment as she tilted her head. Her digital eyes shifted from the "X" marks back to large, curious circles. She sniffed the air near his face, her sensors picking up the scent of tomato sauce and pure, unadulterated stupidity.

"What... are you?" V asked, her voice dropping the murderous edge in favor of genuine confusion.

Mario stared back at her. He looked at the sharp claws, the terrifying tail, and the glowing eyes. Then, he looked at her hair. "Hey, I like your wig. Is it made of silver spaghetti?"

V blinked. The digital display on her face flickered. She had expected screaming. She had expected begging. She had even expected a desperate attempt at a counter-attack. She did not expect a compliment about her "wig."

"It’s not a wig, you organic moron," V hissed, though she didn't move to kill him. She pressed a clawed finger against his round nose. "You’re squishy. And you smell like... old cheese."

"It’s called 'musk', lady! It’s very attractive to the ladies back home," Mario shouted, trying to sit up.

V pushed him back down with one hand, her weight keeping him firmly planted in the snow. She found the way his mustache wiggled when he talked to be strangely fascinating. She had spent years hunting Worker Drones that screamed in the same monotonous frequency. This thing was different. It was loud, colorful, and seemingly lacked any survival instinct whatsoever.

"You’re not a Worker," V mused, her tail wagging slightly behind her like a cat’s. "You’re not a human, either. Humans are taller and... well, they’re dead. Mostly."

"I’m-a Mario!" he announced, as if that explained everything. "And you are being very rude! You’re lucky I don't have my fire flower, or I’d-a spicy your meatball!"

A second drone landed nearby with a soft thud. This one was taller, wearing a pilot’s hat and a long coat. Serial Designation N looked down at the scene, his eyes widening.

"Uh, V? Are we eating that, or is it a pet?" N asked, tilting his head.

V didn't look away from Mario. She reached out and poked Mario’s stomach. It jiggled. She poked it again. A small, digital blush appeared on her visor. "I don't know. It’s kind of... cute, in a pathetic, round sort of way."

"Cute?!" Mario yelled, offended. "I am a majestic stallion! I have saved the world like, fifty times! Usually for cake!"

N knelt down, peering at Mario with interest. "Wow, he talks a lot! Does he do tricks?"

"I can do this!" Mario said. He inhaled deeply and performed a perfect, high-pitched "Wahoo!" while spinning his legs in a cycle.

The two Murder Drones stared at him. V let out a short, glitched laugh. "Okay, I’m keeping him. If J asks, tell her he’s a specialized scouting unit from the company."

"I don't think J is going to fall for that, V," N said nervously. "He’s wearing overalls. And he just tried to eat his own glove."

Mario had indeed started chewing on his thumb out of boredom. He looked up at V, who was still pinning him down. "Hey, robot lady. Since we're friends now, do you have any spaghetti? Or maybe some oil-flavored spaghetti?"

V leaned in closer, her visor inches from his face. Her hunting protocols were screaming at her to terminate the anomaly, but her curiosity—and a strange sense of amusement—overrode the programming. She retracted her claws completely, her hands becoming standard robotic fingers.

"No spaghetti," V said, her voice softening just a fraction. "But we have plenty of oil. And maybe some leftover metal parts if you’re into that."

"Mama mia," Mario sighed, slumping into the snow. "This is the worst vacation ever."

V stood up, finally releasing him, but she kept her tail coiled nearby just in case he tried to bolt. Not that Mario looked like he was going anywhere. He was currently trying to make a snow angel, though he was mostly just splashing around in the grey slush.

"So, what's your name again?" N asked, offering a hand to help Mario up.

"Mario," the plumber grunted, taking the hand. N pulled him up with such force that Mario nearly did a backflip. "And who are you? The Tin Man’s cousins?"

"I’m N! And this is V. We're Disassembly Drones," N said with a cheerful wave, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his primary function was genocide. "We usually kill things, but you seem pretty chill!"

"I am very chill," Mario agreed, shivering. "In fact, I am freezing my pingas off. Can we go somewhere warm? Or somewhere with a microwave?"

V watched him, her yellow eyes tracking his every movement. She found herself strangely protective of the little red man. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn't afraid of her. Everyone was afraid of her. Even N was a little wary when she got into her 'moods'. But this... Mario... he just looked at her like she was an annoying neighbor.

"Fine," V snapped, though there was no heat in it. She grabbed Mario by the back of his overalls, lifting him off the ground like a stray kitten. "We’ll take you back to the spire. But if you touch my collection of severed heads, I’m turning you into a footstool."

"Okey-dokey!" Mario chirped, dangling helplessly in the air. "As long as there's a TV. I need to watch my stories."

As V took to the skies with Mario in tow, and N followed close behind, the plumber looked down at the desolate, frozen wasteland of Copper 9. He had no idea how he’d get home, and he was currently being kidnapped by a psychopathic robot who thought he was a pet.

"You know," Mario said, looking up at V’s metallic face as the wind whipped past them. "You have a very nice smile. Very toothy."

V paused in mid-air, her engines sputtering for a split second. A massive, bright red 'ERROR' message flashed briefly on her visor before she cleared it.

"Shut up, meat-bag," she muttered, but she held him just a little bit tighter.

Down below, the shadows of the ruined city stretched long and thin. Mario didn't know it yet, but the Mushroom Kingdom was the least of his worries. Between rogue AI, absolute fabricators, and the fact that he still hadn't had lunch, the idiot plumber was in for the ride of his life.

And somewhere, in the back of her processing core, V was already wondering if she could find a hat that matched his overalls. It was going to be a very strange apocalypse.