Chapter Text
In the skies above Peach’s castle…
Mario bounced backward, dodging Bowser’s downward punch. Mario couldn’t lie, he was out of breath. That fact was made very apparent when Bowser jumped on top of him, and Mario only missed him by millimeters. He flew forward from the momentum and only just managed to stop himself from tumbling off the edge. His chest heaved, but he knew he wasn’t going to get a moment of respite. Mario, again, barely got out of the way in time as one of Bowser’s fire balls flew past him, dispersing harmlessly in the skies.
For a moment, they just stood there. Bowser looking at Mario smugly, and Mario panting, struggling to draw air into his exhausted lungs. He couldn’t go much longer, that was for sure. He locked eyes with Peach, and he could see the concern darkening her eyes as she was forced to watch the event unfold. Somehow, the sight of seeing Peach looking so concerned for him gave him the strength to straighten up and meet Bowser’s smug eyes.
Bowser chuckled darkly like a man who knew that he had the match in the bag, and looked at Mario almost pitifully. “This is the end…” he began, raising his arm and grabbing the tip of his (ridiculously big) hat. “For you!” At that, Bowser threw his hat at Mario. Mario dodged it just it time, his hat being knocked off in the process. After recovering from the initial shock, Mario raised his fists and prepared to go for round 2.
Now, Mario was an observant man. He kind of had to be, given that he was constantly saving the princess from Bowser’s clutches. However, in that moment, Mario wasn’t exactly at his peak. He was exhausted from the fight with Bowser, and his brain was tunneling on saving the princess. It is for these reasons that he failed to notice Bowser’s hat arcing in the sky instead of going straight like it should have. Mario also failed to notice the hat turning around after completing its arc and flying at his back with mach speed. Only when he heard the telltale whooshing of the hat flying through the air did he turn around, but by then it was already too late. Time seemed to slow as the hat nailed Mario in his stomach hard, then sent him flying off the ship with the force of the impact.
Princess Peach forced to watch the entire thing, outstretched her hand as if she could catch his fading silhouette. “Mario!” She shouted, her heart hoping that he survived the fall even though her brain knew that he couldn’t. Tiara watched the entire thing atop Peach’s head, wishing she could do something, anything, to remedy this horrible situation she found herself in.
Mario’s hat drifted down from the air, landing softly on the ground right in front of Bowser. Bowser stomped on it, knowing that there was no way Mario could survive that fall. He scooped up Peach, and then felt a mysterious urge to face a certain direction and tell the wind exactly what he was doing. Strange, but he gave into the urge. “Time for my wedding with Peach. Jealous, Mario?” Even though there was virtually no way Mario could hear him, he was still going to gloat. Bowser let out a roaring victorious laugh, causing Peach to flinch and cover her ears. Tipping his hat to the wind, he walked towards the front of the ship, blatantly ignoring the struggling princess in his arms. As soon as he stepped off Mario’s hat, it blew away in the wind before getting shredded by one of the propellers on the ship. “So long, Mario!”
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The goddess of Mario frowned as she watched her chosen one get yeeted off of Bowser’s ship and die as soon as he hit the ground. He supposed there was no way a mortal would survive that, but still. She was about to revive him through divine intervention when suddenly, she had an idea.
As fun as it is to play with her chosen one, it does get boring using the same one over and over. And, yeah, she could create another mortal, but what fun would that be? No, she had a better idea.
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“Hey Zeus?”
Zeus turned his attention away from the world below and turned towards the voice which asked for him. Huh. It was the goddess of that one universe with the red guy.
“Yeah?”
“Can I borrow Athena’s chosen one?”
“The one who just finished his quest? The king of Ithica?”
“Yeah, that one. I want to throw him through my quest.”
“Uhmmmmm…” Zeus thought about it. On one hand, the guy had just finished his journey about a month ago and might be a bit boring. On the other hand… it would give Zeus a chance to bug Athena. “Yeah, sure, go for it.”
“Thank you!”
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In the skies above Peach’s castle…
Odysseus’ eyes snapped open, only to find himself on… a ship? What? It was of fine craftsmanship, that was for sure. The floor was made of wooden planks, polished to a sheen. Royal purple flags and banners were all over the ship, flowing in the breeze. The ship was also decorated with… mutant plant monsters??????? They looked like plants, but the end looked like a head, and it had teeth?!?!? What the heck?!?!? And the ship was… flying. In the air. Above a castle. Odysseus’ brain hurt.
Odysseus turned around, only to find… a giant turtle in a white wedding suit. And someone with golden hair, a pink, dress, and a tiara on her head. Said tiara bounced slightly and grew eyes?!?!?!?? They were all looking at him like he just shapeshifted, in which he would argue that they were literally on a flying ship with weird plant mutant things and there was a giant turtle in a wedding suit and a tiara which could grow eyes. He was not the weird thing here.
The giant turtle man was the first to regain their composure, growling. “I don’t know what you just did, but it’s not going to work on me, Mario!” Odysseus didn’t have any time to process the fact that A: the giant turtle man could talk and B: the giant turtle man thought he was someone named ‘Mario’, because the giant turtle man ran up to him with surprising speed and punched him. Fortunately, having survived a decade in the Trojan war, Odysseus was able to deftly dodge his punch and skirt backwards. The giant turtle man jumped up in the air, planning to pound Odysseus, and Odysseus again dodged him. He delivered a swift kick to the giant turtle man’s lower area before running to the opposite end of the ship to gain some distance. The giant turtle man’s then launched a fireball from his mouth at Odysseus, and Odysseus almost didn’t move out of the way in time because his brain was trying to process the absurdity of the situation. The fireball disappeared into the sky, and the giant turtle man seemed to finally stop his attack temporarily, giving Odysseus’s brain time to catch up.
The gods must be playing with him again. That was the only reasonable explanation Odysseus could think of. Raising his hands placatingly, he began to talk as slowly and non-threateningly as possible. “Okay, it appears we have gotten off on the wrong foot. Would you permit me the chance to name myself?” The giant turtle man didn’t back down, but he also didn’t attack Odysseus, so he took that as confirmation to keep going. “I have no idea who you are or what this place is, and I know I just appeared out of thin air, but I am not your enemy. I am but a confused and lost soul, and I assure you I mean no harm.”
The giant turtle man stars at Odysseus for a bit before breaking into laughter. “Okay, I’ll admit Mario, this is quite the clever disguise, but do you really think I’m that dumb?” Odysseus rushed to say more, but the giant turtle man cut him off. “This is the end…” the giant turtle man grabbed the tip of his hat. “For you!” He threw it at Odysseus, who easily dodged it. “Really. You throw your hat at me? That’s your way to get rid of me?” Odysseus let out a deranged laugh, still reeling from whatever the heck had just happened in the past few minutes. The giant turtle man raised an eyebrow. “Behind you.”
Odysseus turned around just in time to see the hat flying towards him at mach speed before it hit him directly in his stomach. Ow. It sent Odysseus flying overboard from the impact, and in a desperate attempt to not die Odysseus grabbed one of the purple banners flowing from the ship. To his dismay, it tore easily and he plummeted to the ground. In a last ditch effort, Odysseus fanned out the torn fabric over his head and attempted to use it as a parachute. Miraculously, it seemed to be slowing his fall, though he was still flying towards the ground. It looked… dark? Odysseus could see tiny black buildings, though they looked wrecked.
Odysseus went back to the task at hand, and he could see that the ground was much closer than before. He fanned out the torn fabric over his head again, hoping that it would slow his descent enough to at least not kill him. The last thing he did was pray to Athena that he would survive this and see Penelope again before he hit the ground and everything went black.
Little did Odysseus know, he was in a land where even Athena couldn’t hear his call.