The drone charmer

The afternoon sun beat down on the colorful spires of SMG4’s brand-new castle, a sprawling monument to memes and chaos that had finally replaced the old, cursed grounds of the past. Inside the main foyer, the usual brand of lunacy was in full swing. Tari was hunkered down in a corner, her cybernetic eye glowing as she focused on a handheld gaming device. Bob and Boopkins were arguing over the merits of a particularly crusty anime figurine, and SMG4 himself was hunched over a laptop, muttering about "engagement metrics" and "algorithmic deities."

In the center of it all was Mario. The red-clad plumber was currently trying to see how many raw spaghetti noodles he could shove into his nose while balancing a plate of spaghetti on his head.

"Hey, look at me! I’m a spicy meatball-corn!" Mario announced, his voice muffled by the pasta protruding from his nostrils.

"Mario, for the love of God, we are trying to have a civilized afternoon," SMG4 sighed without looking up from his screen. "Can you go five minutes without being a biological hazard?"

Mario didn't get a chance to respond. The air in the center of the room suddenly hummed with a low, vibrating frequency that made Meggy drop her training weights. A swirling, jagged rift of violet energy tore open in the middle of the carpet. It wasn't a normal portal; it crackled with a cold, mechanical static.

"What the heck is that?" Meggy shouted, reaching for her Splatgun.

"It looks like a glitch, but… edgier!" SMG4 cried, jumping to his feet.

The vortex surged, developing a powerful gravitational pull. Furniture began to slide across the floor. Mario, being the lightest of mind and heaviest of stomach, was the first to be lifted off his feet.

"Mamaf*cker!" Mario yelled, flailing his arms as he was sucked toward the purple maw.

"Mario! Grab my hand!" Meggy lunged forward, her fingers brushing against his glove, but a bolt of purple lightning repelled her.

With a final, undignified yelp, Mario was pulled into the rift. The violet energy imploded, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the room in a stunned, terrifying silence.

Mario didn't experience the usual psychedelic tunnel of a warp pipe. Instead, he felt like he was being shoved through a frozen trash compactor. When he finally hit the ground, it wasn't with a soft thud, but with a series of metallic clangs.

"Oof! My ovaries!" Mario groaned, face-planting into something hard and cold.

He sat up, rubbing his sore head, and blinked. The sky above wasn't blue or even the chaotic rainbow of the Mushroom Kingdom. It was a dark, perpetual night, choked with swirling snow and the silhouettes of ruined skyscrapers. But it was what he was sitting on that caught his attention.

He wasn't on dirt. He was perched atop a massive, macabre mountain of metal. Thousands of white-clad robotic corpses were piled high, their digital eyes hollow and lifeless.

"Ooh, free scrap metal!" Mario chirped, completely unbothered by the mountain of death. He picked up a severed robotic arm and began using it to scratch an itch on his back. "A bit chilly, though. Could use a heater. Or a toaster. Or a toaster that makes spaghetti."

High above, perched on the jagged edge of a rusted girder, two figures watched him. They were sleek, white-plated machines with neon-yellow highlights and wings made of razor-sharp blades. Their long, fluid tails tipped with syringes of nanite acid twitched in unison.

V looked through her digital visor, her predatory grin faltering into a look of sheer confusion. "J, what is that? Is that a new type of drone? It’s… squishy."

J adjusted her pigtails, her yellow optical sensors zooming in on the red hat. "It doesn't have a serial number. It doesn't even have a chassis. It’s a biological organism, V. But look at those proportions. It’s like a fire hydrant had a baby with a gorilla."

"I kind of want to poke it," V whispered, her visor flickering with a strange, flickering heart icon for a split second before she shook it off. "It’s… strangely adorable in a pathetic sort of way."

"It’s an anomaly," J said, though she found herself unable to look away from the way the stranger was currently trying to eat a piece of frozen circuit board. "And it’s… kind of high-definition? Let’s follow it."

Mario, oblivious to the predatory gazes of the two killing machines, slid down the pile of corpses like it was a snowy hill. "Wheeeeee! Mario's gonna find a kitchen!"

He wandered through the frozen wasteland of Copper 9, whistling a jaunty tune that echoed off the hollow shells of buildings. He had been walking for ten minutes when a shadow darted across the snow.

"Stop right there, purple-thing—wait, you’re red!"

A small drone with a purple beanie and an oversized railgun jumped out from behind a rusted van. Uzi Doorman leveled her weapon at Mario’s chest, her visor displaying a "DANGER" warning.

"Identify yourself! Are you a new worker drone? Why are you wearing clothes made of fabric? That’s so inefficient!" Uzi shouted, her voice trembling slightly with a mix of angst and adrenaline.

Mario stopped, tilted his head, and stared at her. He didn't look scared. He didn't look threatened. He looked like he was wondering if her beanie was edible.

"I’m-a Mario," he said simply. "Do you have any snacks? This planet tastes like pennies."

Uzi stared into his large, vacant blue eyes. Up close, the human looked… soft. And warm. In a world of cold steel and oil, the sheer "roundness" of Mario was an assault on her senses. A faint purple blush crept across her visor.

"I… uh… snacks?" Uzi lowered the railgun. Her "angsty teen" persona was crumbling under the weight of Mario’s sheer, concentrated stupidity. "I have some oil? No, wait, you’re an organic. You eat… crackers?"

Mario didn't wait for an answer. He walked right past her, patting her on the head as he went. "Nice toaster. See ya!"

Uzi stood frozen for a second, her internal fans spinning at maximum velocity. "Wait! You can't just walk around here! The Murder Drones will eat your liver! Or whatever organics have!"

She scrambled after him, her protective instincts suddenly flaring up to an irrational degree. She found herself walking right beside him, her hand hovering near her gun, glancing at every shadow as if ready to vaporize anything that breathed—or hummed—near her new "pet" human.

Mario’s phone, tucked into his overalls, suddenly blared with a loud, distorted version of the Mario theme. He pulled it out to see SMG4’s face on the screen.

"Mario! Thank God! The tracking signal finally locked on!" SMG4’s voice screamed through the speaker. "Stay where you are! We’re opening a return portal, but it’s unstable! We’re coming to get you!"

Uzi’s eyes turned into hollow circles. She lunged at the phone, her claws out. "Who is that?! Who are you talking to?! Are they trying to take you away?"

"It’s just my friend, Mr. Meme-Man," Mario said, trying to push her away. "He’s-a gonna take me home to the spaghetti."

"No!" Uzi hissed, her visor flickering with a "PROPERTY OF UZI" error message that she quickly swiped away. "You’re staying here! It’s safe here! Well, it’s not, but I’ll make it safe! I’ll kill everyone else!"

Suddenly, the air above them exploded. V and J slammed into the ground, kicking up a cloud of snow and ice. Their wings retracted, and they stepped toward Mario, ignoring Uzi entirely.

"Back off, toaster," J snapped at Uzi, her eyes fixed on Mario. "This specimen is under Disassembly Drone jurisdiction. He’s coming with us to the spire. We have… questions. And maybe a small hat for him."

"Over my dead motherboard!" Uzi yelled, stepping in front of Mario and leveling her railgun at J’s head. "He’s mine! I found him! He’s the only thing on this planet that doesn't make me want to scream into a pillow!"

V giggled, her tongue lolling out in a manic, yet strangely smitten way. "Oh, I’ll make you scream, kid. But the tubby human is definitely coming with us. He looks like he gives great hugs. And I want to see if he squeaks when I squeeze him."

Mario, bored of the drama, started picking his nose. "Can we go now? I think I left the stove on. And by stove, I mean I put a Bob-omb in the toaster."

The sky ripped open again. The purple vortex reappeared, but this time, a giant golden hook on a rope dropped out of it, followed by the screaming forms of Meggy, SMG4, and Saiko.

"Get the Italian!" SMG4 yelled.

The hook snagged Mario’s overalls. "Oof! Here we go again!"

"No!" Uzi screamed, grabbing onto Mario’s leg.

"Not happening!" V and J shouted in unison, lunging forward and grabbing onto Mario’s arms just as the hook began to retract at high velocity.

The SMG4 crew, hanging onto the rope, suddenly felt a massive increase in weight.

"Why is it so heavy?!" Meggy shouted, looking down. "Mario, who are those robots?!"

"They’re my new fan club!" Mario yelled back as they were all jerked upward into the rift.

The trip back was a chaotic blur of screaming, mechanical screeching, and Mario complaining that his nipples were being chafed by the harness. With a final, violent lurch, the entire group was spat out onto the carpet of the Mushroom Kingdom castle.

Mario landed on the sofa with a soft *pffft* sound. He immediately sank into the cushions, letting out a long, weary sigh.

"Ah… home sweet home. Now, where’s my—"

He stopped. He couldn't move.

Uzi was currently wrapped around his left leg like a disgruntled koala, her visor displaying a "PROTECTIVE MODE: ACTIVE" warning. She was glaring at everyone in the room with a look of pure, unadulterated malice.

V was draped over his shoulders, her bladed wings tucked in but her sharp chin resting on top of his head. She was purring—a low, mechanical hum that vibrated through Mario’s skull.

J was sitting primly on his right, her hand firmly gripping his arm, her eyes scanning the room as if looking for any reason to start a massacre.

"Touch him and you die," Uzi whispered to a terrified Boopkins.

"He is corporate property now," J added, her voice cold and professional despite the way she was leaning into Mario’s side. "Any attempt to reclaim him will result in immediate termination of your life privileges."

V just licked Mario’s cheek with a metallic tongue. "He tastes like oregano and poor life choices. I love him."

SMG4 stood in the middle of the room, his jaw hitting the floor. Meggy had her hand on her forehead, feeling a migraine coming on.

"Mario," SMG4 said slowly. "Who… what… why are there three killer robots attached to you?"

Mario reached out with his one free hand, grabbed a stray bag of chips from the coffee table, and popped one into his mouth.

"I don't know, SMG4," Mario said, muffled by the crunching. "But they’re warm, and they haven't tried to kick me in the pingas yet. So, they can stay for dinner."

"We are not having killer robots for dinner!" SMG4 shrieked.

Uzi’s railgun began to glow a menacing purple. "I’d watch your tone, meme-man. Mario is tired. Mario needs his rest. And if any of you NPCs try to move him, I’m turning this castle into a crater."

Mario leaned back, the weight of the three drones actually acting like a very effective weighted blanket. He closed his eyes, a small smile appearing under his mustache.

"Wake me up when the pizza gets here," Mario muttered.

The SMG4 crew stood in a semi-circle, watching in horror as the three most dangerous entities from another dimension began to argue over who got to hold Mario’s hand while he napped.

"I give it twenty minutes before they kill us all," Saiko remarked, crossing her arms.

"I give it ten," Meggy sighed.

But for Mario, it was just another Tuesday. He drifted off to sleep, surrounded by the scent of ozone, oil, and the terrifyingly intense devotion of his new robotic harem.