Bowser was sitting down, thinking about his plans. "Hmm... maybe I'll attack the spice kingdom next. Nah! I'll let them stir a bit before attacking!" He said with a laugh. Then Blinky appeared. "Ahh, there you are. We have to get the prisoners to the castle. I'll make sure they'll never break another block again." He said.

5 hours later.

Margarito and Tony were locked in a cell deep in Bowser's dungeon. That is when Margarito woke up. He stood up and rubbed his head. "Ahh... my head." He said. He had a light headache, but that did not stop him from noticing he was inside a cell. He instantly went over to Tony and tried to shake him awake. "Tony! Wake up!" He said.

Tony's eyes opened and he regained consciousness.

"Bowser!" he exclaimed and started looking around. "Where... are we?"

---

Blinky sat in a chair in front of her office desk. It was a wooden chair with one leg missing. She had spent the last fifteen minutes carefully planning out what she was going to say to the 'New Mario Brothers'. It was then that she heard a knock on the door. With a sigh, she got up from the chair and walked over to the door. She didn't even get to open it. She had to admit, the goomba's strength was admirable. But then again, this door wasn't very sturdy.

Anyway, Redd the Goomba broke down the door and rushed into the room so he could spend more time with his idol! He didn't care that he was on guard duty and was supposed to watch the prisoners. After all, that koopa had it covered, right?

Blinky had almost been crushed by the door. Well, she doubted it would have actually crushed her.

"What do you think you're doing, soldier?" she asked in an irritated tone.

"Oh, uh... I wanted to speak with you, General," the goomba stated politely and did a strange goomba-salute. "You see, I really like you!"

Blinky sighed. "Look, just because you admire me, it doesn't mean you get to ignore your duties! Tell me, what's you job?"

"I'm on guard duty, sir!" This earned a groan from Blinky. "I'm sorry, ma'm! I didn't mean to call you sir!"

"Say, could you relay a message for me?" she said after a short, awkward bit of silence. She also used her magic to put the door back up.

"Anything for you sir! I mean ma'm!"

"Tell the prisoners this: 'It's not over yet.'"

"At once sir!" the goomba exclaimed and ran off. Well, that was easy. Blinky then got back to work on her plans.

Margarito stopped shaking Tony when he woke up. "I don't know. Some kind of cell I guess." He replied. He knew that no one was going to help, so they had to get themselves out. He turned to the bars of the cell and started punching them, but they did not give in. The only thing they did was make his hands hurt and his headache worse. "Ow!" He exclaimed as he pulled his hands back. He then looked up. "Hey Tony, see if you can break those blocks in the ceiling. I'd do it myself, but... I have a headache." He said. He just hoped nothing would happen to them.

"Alright, I guess," Tony said hesitantly. He had heard horror stories of these blocks actually being mushroom people, and every time you break one, you kill an innocent soul. But then again, what were the chances that Bowser had constructed his castle using souls instead of actual stone blocks? The mere thought of it sounded ridiculous. Bracing for impact, Tony leapt up in the air and punched the ceiling with all his might. The block shattered. A nearby koopa guard was alerted.

---

Redd marched through a corridor with a grin on his face. He had just gotten his first quest from General Blinky! And it was a delivery quest! All he had to do was go to the dungeon, locate the prisoners, and deliver the message: "It's a clover bet," he said out loud. Wait, that sounded wrong. What was it again? Redd turned around and headed bck to General Blinky's office to get a reminder on what to say.

The classic sound of the brick breaking awoke a sleeping koopa guard. He shook his head and looked up at Tony and Margarito's cell. "Wah... the prisoners are escaping!" He said. And with that he ran off to sound the alarm. "The prisoners are escaping!" He shouted as he ran past other koopas and goombas, including Redd. Soon the koopa reached the alarm and pressed the button, causing a loud alarm to ring.

Margarito gave a light shout of pain and held his head when he heard the alarm. "This is bad! Not only do they know we are bearking out, this stupid alarm is making my headache worse!" He said. He knew that it could not get any worse, so he too started jumping up and breaking the blocks, a thing he done for fun in his past.

Tony eventually noticed a slight problem.

---

A koopa ran past Redd, screaming "The prisoners are escaping!" Red was going to reply, but Jeff was out of view before he had a chance to. The door to General Blinky's office was just around the corner. Just as he was about to knock down the door again, General Blinky opened it in his face. He flew out of the way in a comical fashion, and Blinky rushed to the dungeon, presumably to stop the prisoners from escaping.

He got back up and walked back towards the dungeon.

Margarito looked up and also noticed the problem. "Aw dang it! We need a shell to break those blocks! We could go though the floor but I'm too little to spin jump." He said. The pain in his head was almost to much, he was to rest. He sat down on the ground and applied pressure to his head with help from the brick wall.

Spin jumping in this situation could be dangerous. Once a spin jump started, there was no easy way to stop it. In an area where the only solid surface are blocks that a pin jump can break, one would be stuck spin jumping throughout the entire level! Was this a design flaw, or just a really clever decision on Bowser's part? And that's when Tony had a flashback.



"Do we still have the mushrooms?" Tony suddenly asked and started digging through his pockets.

---

Blinky was flying on her broom through the halls of the dungeon, looking for the prisoners. Admittedly, she was lost. She had never actually traversed this place, and it was basically a big labyrinth with extremely vague signs. It was kinda hard to tell the difference between the "WC" sign and the "Prison" sign, considering they were all just crappy illustrations. She was too embarassed about this to ask any of the minions she passed by for directions.

Redd watched General Blinky fly in circles like an idiot. Then he yelled "DO YOU NEED HELP?!?!" General Blinky jumped off her broom in surprise, landing on her back, and startling a koopa she almost landed on. The broom disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Wait, let me check." Margarito said. He then got up and dug around in his pocket as well. After a bit of digging he pulled out the same red mushroom he got back home. "Yes! They must have just tossed us in here and did not bother to chek our pockets!" He said happily. He then chowed down on the mushroom quite quickly. Not only did it grow him back to his normal size, as well as playing the classic mushroom get sound from the first NES Mario game, it got rid of his headache. "Hooray, I'm big! And my headache is gone as well. Who needs pain killers when you can just break a few blocks and get a mushroom." He said. With the pain in his head gone, he could now figgure out how to get away. After a bit of thinking he figgured out all he needed was a koopa shell.

Tony did not find his own mushroom. Perhaps it had been lost at some point? Maybe he had forgotten to pack it at all? His memory was a little fuzzy on that. In fact, he had no recollection of what had happened at all, except that Bowser had attacked, and appearently captured them.

"So... quick recap of what happened while I was out?"

---

"Yes, I need some help in locating the prisoners." Blinky had to swallow some pride in order to utter that sentence.

"Right this way, sir!" the goomba yelled and started marching down the hallway. Blinky followed him.

"I'm not a 'sir'," she said. "Get it right."

"I am sorry ma'm! I keep forgetting about it!"

"And don't yell like that. It's kind of annoying."

"Well, I got hit by one of Bowser's fireballs so a landed in the Doom Ship. Once inside I thought a bunch of goombas and koopas, battling them for both of our lives. Then I got caught in a cage, then I broke out. Then I battled even more goombas and koopas. Then I got hit in the head with an anvil and got knocked out." Margarito said. He sat down and waited for the chance to get away, and soon it came in the form of Blinky, Redd, and a few koopas that came in from another hallway. "Hey, that's the girl who knocked me out! I'd like to kick her into a lava pit." Margarito said as he pointed to Blinky.

"There's no way a girl beat you up with an anvil," Tony commented, earing a glare from the girl that had supposedly beat up Margarito with an anvil.

This seemed to get the goomba excited. "Oh, you should have seen it! She was all like 'sweet dreams', and he was all like '*gets knocked out*', and I was all like 'cool!'... I think."

"Yes, quite," Blinky said stoically. "I was informed that the prisoners were escaping, yet here you are," she pointed out.

Tony frowned. "Yeah, funny thing about that..."

"It was a magic anvil that appeared out of thin air! Ahhhgh! She's magic or something." Margarito said loudly. He gave a growl of anger to Blinky and punched the bars of the cell, making a loud clang sound across the hall. The koopas soon reached the cell to find it was still holding them. "What the... you better not be playing any funny stuff." The one in front said. "Oh, once I get out of here I'll be doing more than funny stuff." Margarito said in a creepy voice with hints of anger.

"That isn't happening anytime soon," Blinky reassured the two brothers cousins. "Now, I would like some time with the prisoners, alone. And turn off that alarm already, it's giving me a headache."

"At once sir!" Redd yelled and ran off.

"Hey, that anvil gave me a bigger one. You need to watch who you do your spells, you could cause unwanted effects." Margarito said. His eyes were almost flaming with anger, something that was very rare for him. All the koopas leave after Margarito spoke, knowing Blinky had it covered.

"I'll have you know, I made precautions to avoid permanent damage," Blinky said, tensing up a little.

"Uh, so what did you want to talk about," Tony interjected to stop the dispute from getting out of hand.

"Right. Do you remember that message you got from me earier?"

Tony gave Blinky a puzzled look. He did not remember getting a message during his brief time in this prison.

"What message? What are you talking about?" Margarito asked. He paced in his cell, getting very sick of all this. He wanted to stomp Blinky so badly, it was not funny. "Why are you even bothering to talk to us?" He asked.

The alarm was now turned off. Redd now marched back towards the prison cells. After all, he was still on guard duty. Although, General Blinky had asked to speak with the prisoners in private, but Redd was sure she wouldn't mind if he popped in to say 'Hi!'.

---

"I have a favor to ask of you," Blinky said. "You see, I'm not your enemy. Bowser is."

"Well, you are his underling," Tony pointed out.

"I'm not anyone's underling!" Blinky exclaimed, offended. "In fact, I hate King Bowser! I say we work together to take him down once and for all!"

When Redd heard this, he almost gasped, but he managed to stay hidden behind a corner, where he could safely hear the rest of the conversation, undetected.

Margarito almost gasped as well. "What? What are you talking about? What even is this deal, anyway? Do you have some plan of betrayal at the end? I know your evil kind." He said. While he did want to take Bowser down, he wanted to do it with only good people, like his family.

"Look, we don't have to do it now," Blinky said. "However, you need to get out of here as fast as possible. There's no telling when King Bowser might decide to execute you." Blinky didn't know much about King Bowser's actual plans with these prisoners, but execution did seem like something he would do.

"You mean like, he's going to kill us?" Tony asked horrified.

"Yes, kid. He's going to kill you if you don't escape soon," Blinky confirmed.

Nearby, Redd was deep in thought. King Bowser didn't usually execute prisoners. Then again, King Bowser usually imprisoned people for actual reasons, like... the wide variety of reasons he kept taking Princess Peach. 'I'm lonely!', 'I'm bored!', 'We didn't finish that game of chess last time!', 'She didn't invite me to that birthday party!', 'I need someone to rule the entire universe with!' This time, however, they had been imprisoned because they were in the way. And keeping prisoners wasn't all that cheap, so King Bowser would probably want to get rid of them as fast as possible.

Redd completely failed to realise that General Blinky was going behind King Bowser's back. Well, he had un-realised it, and was now lost in thought about King Bowser's prisoner policy.