The Chaos Trilogy ~A Super Mario Fanfic~

Part 2: A Broken Heart

Chapter 1: Game Start

Fawful

Tremors shook Castle Bleck to its core, Fawful's large teeth rattling in his mouth. He curled up on the floor, tiny fists clenched; what was going to happen to him?

A shockwave of dark energy blasted through him and all the other occupants of the castle, and Fawful was sent rolling, gripping the black floor with his fingers.

'You...WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?' Dimentio's horrified scream echoed through the room as he looked back and forth from the Chaos Heart, split into two halves, and Blumiere, who had brought his sceptre down upon the artefact to make it so. Fawful got up, his Headgear Mk. III gnashing its steel jaws, ready to attack.

The last thing he saw was one half of the Chaos Heart collide with Dimentio's chest, sending him flying.

He blacked out the moment the other half hit him.

He was nothing. All around him was blackness. He heard nothing. He felt nothing. He could think of nothing.

'Fawful...'

His mind snapped to attention and he was aware of himself looking around frantically. 'Cackletta!' he called out.

'Fawful...'

'Cackletta, your toady is here!' he yelled, though not knowing where "here" was.

'Fawful...don't let the darkness...consume you...'

A rush of white light passed over his eyes.

'CACKLETTA!' he screamed, throwing his head up.

He breathed deeply, sweating. So, it had been a dream. Looking around, he saw that he was in a very strange place. He sat on hard, beige coloured bricks, gates put up all around the section of the area, giving a closed in feeling. Houses lined the sides of the area, some made of wood, some of stone. Ancient looking grey pillars stood tall, leafy vines curling around them, making their way up to the underside of another floor. It seemed to be in a little, tan bubble, odd geometric cubes and symbols floating around here and there.

Fawful was perplexed. 'Hm...oddness. What kind of dimension is Fawful sitting in?'

'Actually,' replied a voice from behind him. Fawful spun around hastily to be met with the concerned face of Mimi. 'It's a place between dimensions.'

'M-Mimi!' Fawful exclaimed, leaping to his feet, blushing slightly. His heart felt warm and happy; an odd feeling for a villain. 'I have joy at the sighting of you, like many hungry puppies at the sighting of a juicy steak!'

'Tee hee hee!' Mimi giggled. 'It's nice to see you too Fawfie.'

'Um...Fawful is...um, that is to say...' He looked down, his heart pounding.

'Yeah?'

'I have apologies for the ignoring of your suffering, in the Castle of Bleckness.'

'Oh Fawful, it's okay!' Mimi stressed. 'Water under the bridge, ya know?'

'I HAVE MORE JOY!' Fawful screamed, his heart rising. Mimi giggled again. 'I have confusion. Where are we being?'

'Oh here? This is the place between dimensions. The Count always talked about it. It's called Flipside. He says there's a place right next to it called Flopside too, where everything is reversed.'

'I still have confusion...'

'Yeah, it's a weird thing to think about.'

A short moment of silence passed. 'So...um...what is happening with you?' he asked, desperate to say something.

'Me? I'm bushed,' she huffed. 'Battling with Dimentio really takes it out of you, even if you do have others helping.' She stopped, suddenly remembering something. 'Fawful!'

'Yes, what?' He jumped.

'You've been unconscious for a while now, so you probably have no idea what's happening!'

'No, Fawful does not.

'Well, I guess I'll explain. After fighting with Dimentio, the Count...um, I mean, Blumiere broke the Chaos Heart in half with his sceptre, and one half flew to Dimentio, and the other one flew to you. You were unconscious the second it hit you. As for Dimentio, he was still conscious, and called upon the Chaos Heart to push the Void into the dimensions.' She shuttered.

'What?' Fawful demanded, concerned. 'What is being the matter?'

'It was...so creepy. When he used the Heart, you just...hung there, in the air, like a doll. It was so terrible...' Fawful shuttered too; he couldn't remember anything after he was knocked out, but the thought wasn't pleasant. 'After it was done, you fell to the ground and Mario sent us all back here with this pipe thing.'

'The red mustache!' Fawful exclaimed, rage immediately boiling over the rest of his emotions. 'He is here?'

'Well yeah.'

'I HAVE FURY! Fawful shall wipe the floor with his mustached face!' He stomped off.

'Fawful, don't!'

He looked back. 'Fawful will be having his revenge!'

'No, please, don't...' Mimi pleaded. Something in the voice and face of that girl made his heart sink, and he halted. 'He...he wouldn't leave without you. He made Bowser go back and get you.'

Fawful was certainly surprised. 'R-really?' he asked.

'Yeah, no joke!' Mimi replied. 'He was gonna just stand there unless you came along.'

'I have regret...' Fawful muttered. 'And bother, I have much bother!'

'Huh?' Mimi sounded surprised. 'Why?'

'Now Fawful will have to be paying him back!' he snorted. 'Unless Fawful is wanting the guilt.'

'Aren't you a villain? It shouldn't matter to you.'

'Well it is mattering much to Fawful. Fawful will have much guilt if he does not help the mustache after he had the saving of Fawful. He had no need, and I am his enemy of wickedness, and he still had the saving...bah!'

'Speaking of which, I think you should go say hi to the rest of the gang.'

Fawful blinked. '"The gang?"'

'Yeah. Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, and Blumiere and the rest of us.'

'They are all being here?'

'Yep. Discussing the plan with Merlon.'

'What plan?'

'The plan to stop that.' Mimi pointed to the sky. Fawful looked up to see a black, swirling mass hovering ominously in the air. 'The Void; the thing that, if we let it get too big, will destroy all worlds, and us with them.'

'Wowing!' Fawful exclaimed. 'Fawful was underestimating that clown.' He paused. 'But only a bit of littleness.'

'Oh, Fawful...?' Mimi muttered.

Fawful's attention turned to Mimi. 'Yes?'

'Why did you save me? From Dimentio?'

'Why did Fawful...'

He remembered. He remembered Dimentio flying at Mimi. He remembered knocking Mimi out of the way, a magical blast sending copious amounts of pain through him, and Dimentio gripping him by the front of his collar.

'Fawful saved you, because he didn't want harm to befall you.' Fawful was suddenly very hot and nervous; he wished he knew more about all these...feelings.

'But why? Why did you care?'

'Because Fawful is caring about you!' he exclaimed.

Mimi stared at him, surprised. 'Um...wow...' she said.

'Fawful apologizes again...' Why couldn't he have just controlled himself?

'No, it's okay.' She smiled. 'Come on, let's go and see them. Merlon's house is just down this way.'

The door to Merlon's house opened. 'Guys, I'm back!' Mimi called.

'Oh, Mimi!' an elderly voice, which Fawful took to be Merlon's, answered. 'Come in, we're discussing something of great importance!'

Mimi entered. 'Oh,' she added, as the Beanish boy walked in. 'Fawful's awake.'

Everyone's gazes were hostile; Fawful was on good terms with no one. 'Um...' Fawful said as he followed Mimi inside. 'Fawful says hello to you all.'

'Hello Fawful,' Peach said wearily, with a forced smile. 'Finally awake?'

'Yes,' he answered.

'You aren't gonna, you know, try and blow us up or anything, right?' Luigi asked.

'I have hurt!' Fawful yelled. 'Fawful thinks that we are sharing a common enemy, yes?'

'That doesn't mean we aren't your enemies,' Mario noted.

Fawful scowled. 'You are having much correctness!' Fawful said. 'All Fawful is wanting is to be leaving you, and Fawful will pay you back for saving him with his absence!'

Mario shook his head. 'No. I can't leave you alone. Dimentio will be gunning for you, as well as us. In fact, you're probably higher up on his hit list than we are.' Fawful snorted. 'You should stay with us.'

'How are you knowing that Fawful will not have the killing of you in your sleep?' the boy asked?

'Because, we share a common enemy, as you said, and you and I both know that we need all the help we can get.' When Fawful just snorted again, he added, 'And I trust you.'

Fawful choked on his own spit. 'Wh...what did you have saying?' he sputtered.

'I trust you,' the plumber repeated.

Fawful was absolutely speechless. Mario? Trust him? Fawful? Fawful was his enemy! Why would Mario trust him?

'Mario is right,' Blumiere said, adjusting his monocle. 'You're in a lot of danger, and it would be wrong to just leave you.'

'Fawful is a villain,' the Bean reminded them.

'Are you really?' Blumiere questioned. 'Or are you just a good person who hasn't found his way yet? You're young. You have a lot of life left in you. You could change.'

Fawful snorted, but he was slightly moved by this display. 'Fining,' he spat. 'Fawful will be accompanying you fink-rats.'

'Hey, listen buddy!' Bowser snarled.

'Bowser!' Peach exclaimed.

'QUIET!' Everyone went quiet and looked at Nastasia. 'This argument is over! Now all of you will shut up and listen to Merlon, K?' Everyone turned to Merlon.

'Uh...' he said, open-mouthed. 'AHERM!' He cleared his throat. 'Well, you see, the Void is in the sky once more, and we need to stop it.'

'Yeah, we kinda figured that one out,' Bowser said sarcastically.

'And, more specifically, we need to find a way to stop it.'

'Well, what about the Pure Hearts?' Luigi suggested. 'They worked the first time, why not now?' Merlon was silent. 'Well? Don't we already have them all?'

'Erm...well...' Merlon muttered.

'What? What is it?' Timpani demanded.

'Well...you see...'

'Out with it you old coot!' Bowser growled.

Merlon gave a start. 'Well w-we don't have them here!' he stuttered.

Silence.

'What do you mean we "don't have them here?"' Mario questioned slowly.

'In that last incident involving the Chaos Heart, we used the Pure Hearts to banish it, erasing it from existence. Unfortunately...' He gulped. 'We also banished the Pure Hearts in the process. They no longer exist.'

The entire house went into an uproar.

'WHAT?' Mario exclaimed.

'How can they be gone?' Luigi yelled.

''Ow are we goin' teh stop tha' crazy jester now?' O'Chunks shouted.

'QUIEEEEET!' Nastasia screamed. Everyone was quiet once more, and Fawful, who had put his hands to his ears, slowly let his arms down.

'Thank you Nastasia,' Blumiere said. He eyed everyone in the room, and Fawful shivered as his gaze passed over him. He looked at Merlon. 'What do you mean, the Pure Hearts are gone? Even today I saw one in a Heart Pillar.'

'Ah, yes...' the Ancient puffed. 'The Pillars that are the keys to open the doors to the Pure Hearts' dimensions. Well, I was confused as well, but it seems the "Pure Hearts" in the pillars are simply...er, "impressions" of the Hearts, as you will. They left some of the power of the Hearts in the Pillars, which keep the doors on Flipside and Flopside Tower there, but the Pure Hearts themselves are gone.'

Silence again. Fawful felt very left out of the conversation; not only did he know very little about the Chaos Heart, but he knew absolutely nothing about everything else they were talking about.

'I see...' Blumiere replied. 'That makes sense to me.'

'So you see, we have no way of stopping the Chaos Heart,' Merlon concluded sadly.

'Wait,' Mario offered. 'Couldn't we—'

'Excusing me,' Fawful cut in. Everyone looked at him. 'Fawful is wanting to know what these Hearts of Pureness are.'

'Oh, you don't know?' Merlon asked, surprised. 'I would have thought Dimentio would have told you.' Fawful shook his head; the jester had never told him anything of the sort. 'Well then, I'll start from the beginning:

'Thousands of years ago...about 4000-3000 years, in that time range, there existed a civilization known as the Tribe of the Ancients, which prided itself in its magical abilities and citizens of the pure of heart. All our magic centred around the good, pure feelings of the heart, and we were romanticised as sages who could do anything, although that was a little bit of a stretch. That would mean we could bring back the dead, which is next to impossible.'

'1up Mushrooms can do that,' Luigi cut in.

'Yeah,' Bowser added. 'How do you think I keep coming back to steal Peach?'

'MAKE WITH THE UP SHUT!' Fawful shouted. 'FAWFUL IS LEARNING.'

'Er...ahem!' Merlon coughed. 'So, where was I...?

'In any case, even in a civilization such as ours, there ours always bad seeds, going against society. Nothing too bad, usually, but still, there was always something. Eventually, however, an anonymous individual wrote a book known as the "Dark Prognosticus." One person visited our kingdom with the book, saying it held grand visions of the future. People, their curiosity piqued by these words, read the book, wanting to know their futures. They didn't read anything they liked. The book held horrifying secrets, dark power and visions of destruction and despair. Most people of pure heart touched the book once, or read one passage, and left it well enough alone, but those who meddled in dark magic, the black sheep of the people, read it in detail, basking in the magic, however terrible the visions were. These people found the traveller who came to the kingdom, and demanded he tell them the meaning of these visions. He told them that it was destiny that the worlds be destroyed, and in their place, a new, perfect world would be created. These people took delight in his words, and he told them that they could be independent, publically using their preferred brands of magic without fear of the other people. Word spread, and all those who wanted to left the Tribe of the Ancients with this individual, who called himself "Esteban." Together, they formed the "Tribe of Darkness," with Esteban as their king.'

Fawful was listening intently. He adjusted his glasses. 'Fawful has understanding,' he said. 'The one who is being called Esteban is also the one who is called "Ganter," yes?'

'That is correct,' Merlon answered. 'Dimentio freed Ganter, and after a lot of searching, found the Tribe of Ancients. He instructed Ganter to go in with the book and show it to the citizens, knowing full well that those who had evil in their hearts would take the bait and follow him. It was at that time that he used the alias Esteban to hide his identity. Dimentio promised him a place as the king of a perfect race, and a king he was.'

'Fawful is seeing...'

'Now, to continue...

'The Dark Prognosticus had been read...or, skimmed, really, in full by some of pure hearts, and thought it foretold very dire things. It said that the marriage of a fair princess and a monster king would create the Chaos Heart. The Dark One would use the Chaos Heart's power to bring forth the Void, which would bring about the destruction of all worlds. Four Heroes would rise to stop the Dark One, but one of the Heroes, a "neutral force," if you will, would succumb to the Chaos Heart's power and bring darkness to all, destroying the worlds. These four Heroes were Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and King Bowser.' Fawful smirked; he was in no way surprised. Peach and Bowser would have been the princess and monster king...and he guessed that Luigi would be the neutral force. Mario seemed like the kind to just fight and win, so he couldn't be it. 'Fearing that this outcome was true, the Tribe of Ancients called upon their most powerful sorcerers, who banded together and wrote an equally powerful prophecy known as the "Light Prognosticus," to counter the dark one. It foretold that the marriage of a fair princess and monster king would bring forth the Chaos Heart, just like the dark one, but it said that the Heroes would defeat the Dark One and banish the Chaos Heart, despite there still being a neutral force in the party. They would do this by using an artefact known as the "Purity Heart," which was a powerful item made with the power of love and light magic, as opposed to the Chaos Heart, which was made from hatred and negative emotions, and dark magic. So, we created the Purity Heart with our powers, and split it into eight pieces and hid them, so that evil forces could not find them. We called these pieces the eight Pure Hearts. Time passed and—'

'Merlon,' Blumiere cut in.

Merlon turned around and looked at him. 'Yes?'

'I believe that I am better suited to tell this next part of the tale.'

Merlon nodded. 'Very well, you may take it from here.'

'Okay then,' Blumiere said. 'Where to start...?

'Time passed from when Esteban had established a kingdom. Thousands of years, to be more specific. Our kingdom thrived, and life was good. In that time, he chose a queen, and had a single child. He named it...Blumiere. Me.' Fawful raised his eyebrows, but he wasn't surprised much. He simply continued listening. 'For my entire life, I was fed prejudice lies about the humans living in the village across from our kingdom. At this point, we had "evolved" from humans under the Dark Prognosticus' power, which was kept in a room in our castle, and we had grown to look as I do today. We were no longer human. After a dispute with my father, I went for a walk around the outskirts of my kingdom, to walk off some frustration. I was standing on the edge of a cliff, enjoying the view, when a human girl ran up to me and told me to be careful. Irritated, I ignored her. Unfortunately, this was a bad decision as the ground under my feet broke off and I was sent tumbling down to the valley below. When I woke up later, the human girl, was caring for me. Her name was Timpani, and is the fine lady you see here with me.' Timpani blushed and giggled. 'As time passed, we developed a relationship. My father found out.' He sighed. 'He sent her away to another dimension, to wander it forever. In my grief and rage, I took the Dark Prognosticus and destroyed the dimension, and my father with it, and became Count Bleck, the Destroyer of Worlds. In my travels, I found Nastasia, Mimi, and O'Chunks, and they were to help me in my plan. I told them I was going to destroy all worlds and make perfect new ones...but I lied. My plan was to leave it all in ruin. I was...a fool.'

'So, the Heroes had the stopping of you?' Fawful asked?

'They did, and they showed much bravery,' Blumiere replied.

'Waiting...' Fawful remembered something. 'When did the jester of stupid come in?'

'Dimentio was to be my final minion, though I didn't know it yet. He found me himself, and told me that I needed his services. I said no, and turned him away. Later, I read a very specific passage in the Prognosticus that spoke of a person very similar, if not exactly, to him. So I found him and demanded that he join. He did, without a second thought. In the end, he betrayed me and took the Chaos Heart, using Luigi, the neutral force, and himself to try and kill us. He was defeated by the Heroes, and died. We banished the Chaos Heart with the Pure Hearts, and they were all erased from existence, and Timpani and I were brought to another dimension, just us two. When you and Dimentio came back to life, the shock in the dimensions was enough to bring us to the Heroes' dimension. Now, it turns out Dimentio wrote the Prognosticus...and now the rest is happening as we speak.'

There was a moment of silence as everyone let the little Bean absorb this information. 'Fawful sees. Fawful has understanding.' This was so much to comprehend, and he was right in the middle of it. His head spun just thinking about it.

'So you see, it is of much importance that you join us, as we need as much help as possible,' Merlon said.

'Fawful has already told you, he will be joining you,' he spat, slightly irritated at repeating himself.

'So, now that he's caught up, what should we do?' Luigi asked.

'Well, I was thinking,' Mario offered, 'that we should create another Purity Heart.'

'Create another one?' Merlon repeated, mouth open. 'It took enough work the first time! A few of us nearly died! Where will we find the people to create it?'

'Well, the Mushroom Kingdom has a lot of powerful objects and people. We should start there.'

'It sounds like a plan,' Peach said, a determined look on her face.

'I'll transport you there,' Merlon said. 'Unfortunately, I am unable to bring you to a specific location, as I have never been there, but it's a start.'

'Well what are we waiting for?' Bowser snorted. 'Come on, gramps! Make with the transporting!'

'Hmph!' Merlon huffed. 'And here I thought people respected their elders!' He waved his hands in the air. Fawful gulped; what had he gotten himself into? 'Farewell Heroes!' Merlon beamed. 'May your travels yield results!'

A 2D box surrounded each of them and they flipped out of Flipside and into the Mushroom World.

A new adventure had begun.