Idk

The morning at the new Showgrounds was, by all accounts, completely normal. Which is to say, it was absolute chaos. SMG4 was hunched over a laptop, his eyes bloodshot as he tried to render a meme before the deadline. Meggy was practicing backflips off the balcony, Tari was busy teaching a rubber duck how to play Bluey on the Switch, and Bob was trying to sell "authentic" dragon scales that were clearly painted cardboard.

In the center of it all was Mario. He was currently trying to see how many plates of spaghetti he could balance on his head while walking across a tightrope made of dental floss.

"Ooh, look at me! I’m-a the king of the balance!" Mario cheered, his tongue poking out the side of his mouth.

"Mario, get down from there before you break the floor again!" SMG4 yelled without looking up from his screen.

"Mamaf—"

Mario didn't get to finish his insult. The air in the center of the courtyard suddenly curdled, turning a bruised shade of violet. A swirling vortex, crackling with dark energy and smelling faintly of ozone and burnt toast, tore open the fabric of reality right beneath Mario’s feet.

"Wha—? Holy ravioli!" Mario shrieked as his feet left the floss.

"Mario!" Meggy dropped from the balcony, sprinting toward him.

The vacuum of the portal was immense. SMG4, Tari, and even Bob lunged forward, grabbing at Mario’s gloved hands and his iconic red overalls.

"Don't let go, big guy!" Tari cried, her cybernetic arm whirring as she tried to gain traction.

"I’ve got you, you fat sack of—!" SMG4 strained, but the purple light intensified, a deafening roar drowning out his voice. With a final, violent jerk, the vortex imploded. Mario was yanked inward like a noodle being slurped into a mouth, and with a pop that sounded like a burst balloon, he was gone.

The courtyard fell silent. Only a single, stray piece of spaghetti remained, drifting slowly to the floor.

Mario didn't feel the transition. One moment he was being pulled by his friends, and the next, he felt like he was falling through a giant bowl of cold soup. He hit the ground with a wet, metallic *thud*.

"Oof! My ovaries!" Mario groaned, rubbing his backside.

He opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn't. He wasn't on grass, or even the cold stone of the castle. He was sitting on a mountain. But it wasn't a mountain of dirt—it was a heap of cold, grey metal limbs, cracked visors, and tangled wires. He was perched atop a pile of dead drones, their hollow eyes staring blankly into a sky blocked by a ringed planet and falling snow.

"Is this-a the junkyard?" Mario asked the silence. He picked up a severed robotic arm and poked his own nose with it. "Hello? Is anybody home? I’d like to order one large pizza with extra everything, including the box."

High above, perched on the rusted girders of a crumbling skyscraper, two silhouettes shifted. They were sleek, white-plated, and bore large, bladed wings that glittered in the dim light. Their visors flickered with yellow digital eyes.

"What is... that?" one of the Murder Drones whispered, her voice a melodic hum of synthesized curiosity. She tilted her head, her "X" sensors momentarily flickering into wide, expressive circles.

"It’s organic," the second one replied, her tail—tipped with a glowing syringe of nanite acid—twitching rhythmically. "But it doesn't look like an inhabitant of Copper 9. It’s... round. And vibrant."

"It’s kind of cute," the first one giggled, a glitchy, distorted sound. "Look at the way it’s poking that corpse. It has no fear. I like that in a snack. Or a pet."

Mario, oblivious to the predatory gaze of the Disassembly Drones, slid down the pile of bodies like it was a playground slide. "Wooohoo! Mario's gonna find some treasure!"

He landed in the snow with a soft crunch and began to wander. The planet was a frozen wasteland of gothic architecture and discarded technology, but to Mario, it was just a giant playground. He kicked a stray head like a soccer ball and hummed a distorted version of his own theme song.

He had been walking for about ten minutes, occasionally stopping to try and eat a piece of scrap metal (and immediately spitting it out), when a sharp *click-clack* echoed through the alleyway.

"Halt! Who goes there?"

Mario stopped and blinked. Standing before him was a small drone with a purple beanie and a very large, very glowing green railgun. Her digital eyes were narrowed in a fierce glare, her visor displaying a focused "X" as she leveled the weapon at his chest.

"I’m-a Mario!" he announced, spreading his arms wide. "Are you the welcoming committee? Because your snacks suck."

Uzi Doorman blinked. She had expected a human in a suit, or perhaps a new type of Disassembly Drone. She had not expected a short, stout man in red overalls with a mustache that looked like it had a life of its own. As she stared at him, the "Warning" symbols on her visor began to flicker. Her cooling fans kicked into a higher gear. There was something about the sheer, chaotic energy radiating off him—the absolute lack of common sense—that sent a strange spark through her motherboard.

A faint pink hue crept onto her digital screen. "I... I’m the one who asks the questions! Are you a corporate spy? A new experiment?"

Mario didn't answer. He didn't even seem to notice the weapon capable of vaporizing him. Instead, he walked right up to her, his large nose nearly touching her visor.

"Ooh, you have a shiny light," Mario muttered.

"Hey! Stay back! I’m dangerous!" Uzi squeaked, her voice cracking.

Mario reached out. He didn't grab the gun. Instead, he began to poke and prod at Uzi’s chassis with the curiosity of a toddler. He squeezed her shoulders, then reached up and started fiddling with the sensors on the side of her head.

"Is this how you turn on the TV?" Mario asked, twisting a small dial behind her "ear" plate.

"Stop! That’s—ah! Re-routing... system... error!" Uzi’s visor began to strobe. The physical contact from an organic being, combined with his unpredictable movements, was overloading her social and tactical processors simultaneously.

Mario, finding a loose wire near her neck casing, gave it a playful tug. "Boop!"

Uzi’s eyes turned into a giant, yellow "FATAL ERROR" sign. Her limbs went completely limp, and her railgun clattered to the snow. She slumped forward, her head resting against Mario’s stomach as her systems entered an emergency reboot.

"Oh no, I broke the toaster," Mario sighed.

He looked around. He was tired of walking. Seeing a discarded, headless worker drone torso nearby, he dragged it over and sat on it like a stool. Then, he reached down and grabbed Uzi by her ankles, dragging her limp body toward him.

For the next few minutes, Mario sat in the middle of the frozen wasteland, humming to himself. He held Uzi up like a ragdoll, examining her boots. He began to weave her feet in between his fingers, moving her legs back and forth as if she were a puppet.

"And-a then the princess said, 'Mario, you are so handsome! Have some spaghetti!'" Mario voiced in a high-pitched squeak, moving Uzi’s legs to emphasize the "Princess's" words. "And Mario said, 'Oh boy!'"

High above, the two Disassembly Drones watched in stunned silence.

"Did he just... lobotomize a worker drone by poking her?" the first one asked, her wings fluttering in agitation.

"I think I’m in love," the second one whispered, her claws digging into the metal perch.

Mario continued to play, blissfully unaware that he was currently the most interesting—and terrifying—thing on the planet. He lifted Uzi’s limp arm and used it to scratch an itch on his back.

"This place is great," Mario decided, looking up at the ringed planet. "But it really needs a taco bell."