So… Yeah. Here's another one. I know, I'm terrible about finishing stories. I'm still hoping to finish that Mario AU story with my sister, but it is a bit difficult to find time both of us can and want to write. But, other than that, my only completed stories are either Mario/Sonic crossover novelizations, or that one oneshot.

This one is the former. Unlike my other two, though, I haven't played this game. At all. And I have no intentions of fully preserving the story. The basics will still be there, but it's not going to be the same.

Honestly, I hope I do better with this than those. I like to think my writing has improved in the last few years. Since I haven't played this game, I'm also not going to try to truly adapt the levels to text. This story should be somewhat shorter than those, but hopefully better.

Honestly, I'm not too sure how much of Shadow's or Silver's story we'll see. It probably depends on how much the Mario crew interact with them.

With that out of the way... Onwards we go.

Chapter 1

Dear Princess Peach Toadstool,

In two weeks, the Festival of the Sun will commence. I invite you and your friends to participate in the festivities, as a gesture of good will between our nations. I hope that you will accept the invitation, as our countries have been apart far too long.

I also believe you will find it to be great fun, and it will hopefully give you a small break from your constant issues with King Bowser. I do not understand how you deal with it, but I admire that you can handle such a thing on a near-weekly basis.

Sincerely,

Princess Elise III of Soleanna

Two weeks later, Princess Peach and her companions arrived late in the afternoon of the day of the festival.

As Peach exited the airport, she looked around in amazement. This place… It was so much bigger than Toad Town. The Mushroom Kingdom wasn't a terribly developed place, with only a few villages here and there. Toad Town was the largest town in the country, and it wasn't a quarter the size of this place.

"What do you guys think?" Peach asked. "Amazing, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's cool!" said a raspy, high-pitched voice next to her. The voice belonged to an odd mushroom creature, merely three feet tall. He wore a red vest and red-spotted mushroom cap with a headlamp, and a bulky backpack upon his back. He was Toad, or Captain Toad, the leader of the Toad Brigade and an accomplished treasure hunter. While not the most capable of the guard, he was, without a doubt, a born leader.

Following him were the rest of his team: Banktoad, a green Toad who was the treasurer of the Toad Brigade. He was also a bit of treasure hunter, but didn't have the leadership skills of Toad. Next came Mailtoad, who was Peach's personal mailman, and preferred purple as his color. Out of all the Toad Brigade, he was the least likely to see any action, but it didn't bother him in the least. He enjoyed his job, and was even better at it than the Paratroopas who traditionally ran the mail system.

Last but not least, Yvan and Wolley followed. Yvan and Wolley were brothers, twins even. Yvan had a blue cap and vest, while Wolley's was yellow. Out of all of the Toad Brigade, the two brothers were by far the most capable. They were apprentices to the Mario Brothers themselves, and had already been taught many of the Mario Brother's tricks. Yvan was an excellent strategist, and was the brains behind both the Toad Brigade and Mario's own team. Wolley was rather scatterbrained, and fell asleep even easier than Luigi did. He was, in a way, the heart of both teams. When the going got tough, he made things easier.

"Where did Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi go?" Peach asked, looking around for them.

"They landed the Sky Pop on the beach," Yvan said. "They don't really like big cities all that much."

"That's true…" Peach admitted. "Well, they'll be fine. Let's go have some fun!"

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, a bipedal blue hedgehog ran and blinding speeds.

"Sure is nice to have a bit of fun without any eggheads messing it up, huh, Tails?" Sonic asked.

"Yeah," Tails agreed. He was a small golden fox, with the unique attribute of having an extra tail. He could use these tails to fly, and could even fly fast enough to keep pace with Sonic, the fastest runner in the world.

"There's gonna be a big firework show in a few minutes. Fun, right?"

"Oh, yeah!" Tails agreed. "… But… do you think we should've slowed down for Knuckles? I mean, he doesn't take a lot of vacations… I think he was really looking forward to spending time with us."

"Nah, ol' knucklehead won't mind." Sonic said, waving a hand. "Race ya to the fireworks!"

"You're on!" Tails grinned.

As usual, both of them were going too fast to really tell (or care, for that matter) who won, and both collapsed in laughter once they reached the center of town where a gigantic torch was about to be lit by the country's princess. After a minute of this, they got up to see a rather angry-looking red echidna staring at them.

"Yeah, thanks, guys," the echidna said. "Real funny. 'Let's run ahead of our best friend at supersonic speed! He'll catch up'."

"Well, ya did, knucklehead" Sonic pointed out.

"… My point still stands! And it's Knuckles!" The echidna fumed. "You know it's Knuckles!"

"Just messin' with ya. Chill out."

Knuckles sighed. "You're right… I'm on vacation. I hope that Vector can handle it, though…"

"Let's just watch the show. Relax a bit," Tails suggested. Knuckles and Sonic were both quick to agree, and watched as the fireworks lit the sky. The princess of Soleanna, recognizable by her tiara and white dress, held up a torch to light a gigantic bonfire.

At that moment, explosions began appearing all around the platform the princess stood on. In the sky, a large metal airship became apparent, dropping robots around the princess.

Within seconds, two blurs of blue were shooting off towards the scene. Tails and Knuckles could only watch as Sonic faced off with Eggman's robots once again.

When the robots came, Yvan acted on instinct. He pulled out one of his emergency Ice Flowers, and dashed off towards the spectacle. He barely registered the other blue blur as he froze robots left and right, throwing them into the river the platform was situated above. Only when the robots were gone did he really register that he hadn't been alone. Next to him was a strange, spiky blue creature, that almost looked like a Harry Hedgehog apart from the fact that it stood on two legs and wore shoes and gloves.

"What's up, Eggman!" the creature yelled.

"You! You… HORRID LITTLE HEDGEHOG!" a new voice yelled. Startled, Yvan looked up to see an immensely fat human riding in a hovercraft of some sort. He was completely bald, wearing a red jumpsuit and sporting a spectacular mustache. Maybe even better than those of the Mario Bros. themselves. "If you must know, I was just about to take the princess here, but since you –"

That was all Yvan needed to hear. "WOLLEY!" he yelled over the weird man. "Take the Princess and go! I'll catch up to you!" Without delay, he saw something yellow and pink moving at a moderately quick pace out of there. He turned back to the fat man. "What do you want with Princess Peach?!" He yelled.

"Peach? Who is… I'm talking about Elise, who's right there!" Eggman yelled, pointing at where the princcess was standing.

"I won't let you hurt her either!" Yvan yelled.

"I agree with Mr. Mushhead!" the blue hedgehog yelled. "See ya, Eggman!" He lifted Elise in his arms, bridal-style, and dashed off.

"ATTACK!" Eggman yelled, pointing at the retreating figure.

Yvan didn't give him the chance. He jumped down to the river, freezing it with his ice powers so he could skate off after the hedgehog, providing cover and freezing all the missiles that the man shot at him.

Even skating, though, he couldn't keep up with the blue hedgehog, despite being the speediest member of Mario's team. As soon as Sonic was out of sight, the missiles stopped, and Yvan hopped back up to the city streets. As he stared after the blue hedgehog, he wondered how anyone could move that fast. He almost missed the white hedgehog standing on a roof, staring after the same hedgehog he was. "I've finally found him – The Iblis Trigger!"

The white creature then flew off, leaving Yvan alone in the streets.

"… I need to find the Mario Bros," Yvan said to himself, turning tail and dashing towards where he thought the beach was.