Epilogue

"Gotta say, that was a sweet display last night," Sonic said, as he walked down the beach with Tails and Knuckles.

"I'll admit, it was kind of fun," Knuckles said. "I don't really get that sort of thing on Angel Island."

"Worth letting the Chaotix guard the Master Emerald, then?"

"… I'm probably going to come home to Rouge and Eggman fighting over it. Again," Knuckles sighed. "But it was nice spending time with you two."

"Thanks, Knuckles!" Tails said, smiling. "But… Does anyone else feel like we missed something?"

"Nah," Sonic said. "And if Egghead does attack? We'll just get him again. But, honestly, I'm glad for the break, with the alternate dimension and Shadow's… Crazy… I don't even know what happened on that little adventure."

"Yeah," Tails agreed. "It's nice. But still… I still get the feeling something happened."

A hundred or so feet down the beach, a pair of twin brothers was walking in the opposite direction.

"You'd think Bowser would've attacked by now," Luigi said.

"Oh, yeah, for sure," Mario agreed. "But it'd be really nice to have a vacation where he doesn't, yeah?"

"Yeah… I've just got this feeling."

"I know, bro," Mario said.

The two groups met each other as they walked, neither really recognizing the other, but feeling like they should.

"Hello," Mario said, walking forward to the blue hedgehog. "Nice day, huh?"

"Oh yeah," Sonic replied. "It's great. Shining sun, plenty of room to run, no killer robots trying to take over the world…"

"Lots of great places to jump around, climb to the top… No evil armies or anything…" Mario said, wistfully.

"Heh, seems we've both got kind of weird lives, then," Sonic said. He held out his hand to shake. "I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog. I'm a guy who loves adventure."

"Mario's the name, and adventure's my game," Mario said, shaking Sonic's hand. "Sounds like you've got your fair share of stories. I'm not doing anything, and I've always been curious about other heroes. Mind telling me a few?"

"Only if you guys tell me some!" Sonic said, laughing. "Hey, guys, introduce yourselves."

"I'm Knuckles the Echidna," Knuckles said, shaking Mario's hand. "As long as you don't try and steal anything from me, we should be fine."

"Luigi, that's me," Luigi said, waving to the new group.

"I'm Tails," Tails said. "Sonic's my big bro! Kind of. It's a long story."

Mario smiled. "Well, we've got all day. As long as Bowser doesn't attack. Again."

"Sounds like Egghead," Sonic said, laughing. "You guys sound like my kind of people!"

"Thank you," Mario said. "It's always nice to make new friends."

THE END

Final Words

So, that's it. The story I've been writing for a month and a half is over. I'd been planning for it to end this way for a long time, even if the epilogue was kind of short. Here, I'm going to try and explain some things that may not have been clear in the story proper.

Wario

Probably the biggest thing is what Wario's doing, and why he's doing it. In the beginning, Wario just wanted a Chaos Emerald to see if he could use it, and use it to get away after stealing things. He did know that both Mario and Bowser were around, and used that as an excuse. He figured that a Star Child would probably be able to use Chaos Emeralds, and was right. He wanted to ask Shadow how to use Chaos Control, without Shadow really knowing he was asking. He got that, and bailed when Mephiles showed up. He actually stuck around to watch from high up where no one could see him, and decided that he had to do something about it. Whenever something was going down, you could be sure Wario was there to spy on it. After seeing Silver battle Mario and Sonic, he followed them to Eggman's base in secret, figured out why Silver did what he did, and set out to get Daisy to befriend Silver. He brought DK because DK is also a Star Child, and Wario figured it'd be good to have him around if something went south. The robot-destroying thing was just a distraction for DK to keep him around.

Star Children

Part of the "mythology", I suppose, of the Mario universe. They're only mentioned in Yoshi's Island DS. In canon, their significance is unknown, apart from that they have extraordinary power. The seven Star Children are Mario, Luigi, Wario, Peach, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Bowser. Wario's the only one who knew all seven of them, while Peach being one was fairly common knowledge, and Eggman figured out Bowser, Mario, and Luigi. Wario said they were people with the ability to manipulate and generate energy, which, as far as this story goes, is true, but not the whole story. They are, basically, stars themselves, who exist because the world needs them.

Chaos Mario

Or, that thing that happened when Mario was fighting Iblis, and absorbed ALL of the power in the Chaos Emerald at once. This isn't because he's a Star Child he was able to do this, not entirely. It's because of Mario's natural affinity with powering himself up. What he did was use the Chaos Emerald as though it was a power-up. This infused his flames with Chaos Energy, allowing them to consume Iblis into themselves. When they dissipated, Iblis did along with them, though it didn't matter in the end because Mephiles just got past Iblis.

Super Tails

In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Tails only goes Super with the Super Emeralds. However, that was originally Hyper Tails. The original design for Super Tails finally appears in 2013 – In the iOS remake of Sonic the Hedgehog. The 'Super Shields', in Sonic Heroes, in addition, are implied to actually be Super Tails and Super Knuckles' modern designs. Also, in Tails' Adventure, Tails displays the ability to make himself stronger with the Chaos Emeralds, but only collects six, and so does not go Super. That's really all there is to this one.

This story… Man, it's been fun, and fast. I haven't felt this GOOD about writing something in a long time. Even if it's based on one of the worst Sonic games, I hope the changes I made did the story some good. Even if it didn't, I still had fun writing this, and that's what matters.

Whew. That's a long author's note. So, anyway…

'Til next time, keep on running and jumping.

~jakeroo123