Unexpected visitor(s) at the Mario Bros. Cottage

Mario walked down the quiet streets of Toad Town, his steps feeling lighter than air. It was hard to think that just half a day ago, he was feeling beaten and frustrated, thinking of **** against Peach. How quickly things had turned around! And it was all thanks to the Grimoire Fantasia.

He thanked the Star Spirits that it had fallen in the place that it did, when it did. Who knows what could’ve happened if someone else had found it? The Peach from before would’ve given it to Toadsworth, and he would have kept it locked up. Luigi would’ve done something similar to what Mario had and immediately gotten caught. Bowser would’ve used it to subjugate everyone. Yes, it was much better that Mario had found it than anyone else.

Mario sighed contently as he approached his cottage. When it was first built, the house was surrounded by acres of untamed pasture, but now it stood just outside the borders of Toad Town. It was just more evidence to him how much time had passed him on by. Mario knew he didn’t look like it on the outside, but in his heart of hearts he knew that he was old. He was already approaching middle age when he first stumbled into the Kingdom, full of aches and pains from the encroaching of time. But all of that swiftly disappeared shortly after he had arrived.

At first he thought it was because the Mushroom Kingdom had lower gravity than Earth, but that hypothesis was quickly debunked when he revisited his old planet Earth and felt no change. When he asked Professor E. Gadd about it, that’s when he learned the truth: Mario was no longer fully human. By breathing in the spores of the Mushroom People, eating a steady diet of the native fungi, and exposing himself to magical radiation, Mario’s genetic composition had mutated, granting him prolonged youth and greater physical prowess. It was no immortality potion, but after many, many decades of not even so much as seeing a gray hair, it might as well as been the next best thing. Mario was stronger, faster, and his mind was just as quick and witty as it had been in his teens, but his spirit was weary.

Or at least, it was until today.

Mario checked his mailbox on his way through the front gate, but didn’t find anything in it. Weird, maybe someone had brought it in? Mario thought as he opened the door to the cottage and was greeted by a familiar, robotic voice, “Welcome home, Master Mario.”

“Good to be home, Tip,” Mario addressed the metallic rainbow-colored butterfly perched near the door in a bird cage that had been left open. He had long since given up on getting her to drop the “Master” honorific.

Tiptron was one of many adventuring partners that he had had over the years. Unlike most of the others, she (Mario refused to use “it”) and the other Pixls like her didn’t have a home to return to after the adventure was over, so Mario simply invited them to stay with him. Where else were they going to go? Back into the storage chests he found them in? Not a chance, especially after Mario had learned that they were essentially androids imbued with the souls of the deceased to grant them false life. They were people, and deserved to be treated at such. Tiptron was perhaps the sole exception, built from scratch by a nerdy chameleon named Francis who had modeled her after a similar Pixl that had given her life to save the multiverse. He had sold her to Mario after deeming her a failure and immediately began work on the second model. Sometimes Mario wondered if Tiptron had ever gotten over that.

Mario shook his head, a different problem for different day, “How is everyone?”

“They’ve retired for the night,” Tipron replied. Pixls didn’t need to sleep, but after one too many shenanigans, Mario had to lay down some house rules. One of which being that they had to entertain themselves quietly during the night. Read a book, draw something, if you turn on the television, make sure the volume’s turned down. Those sorts of things. “Your brother came over to visit this afternoon.”

“Oh, really?” Mario smiled, “He missed a hell of a party up at Toadstool Castle.”

“I heard from the town,” Tiptron wiggled her robotic antennae, “Is it true that you had sexual intercourse with Peach during an orgy following her coronation as queen?”

“Yes,” Mario blushed at the bluntness of the question.

“...Congratulations, Master,” There was something in Tiptron’s voice that Mario couldn’t identify, “It is strange, though. This behavior does not follow Queen Toadstool’s normal patterns. Are you certain she isn’t an impostor?”

“Very,” Mario replied, “Stress has a way of eating at people, and I suppose it just took too much from her.”

“That is… logical,” Tiptron relented, “Will you be retiring as well, Master Mario?”

“I’m just picking up a few things before heading back to the castle,” Mario told her, “The Queen has invited me to share her bed.”

“...I see,” was all Tiptron said.

“Is there… anything bothering you, Tip?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

It didn’t sound like nothing, but Mario supposed that, again, it was really a different problem for a different day. “I asked Parakarry to deliver something home earlier, but it wasn’t in the mailbox. Did somebody bring it in?”

“Yes,” Tiptron announced, “At approximately thirty-three minutes after the exodus of Toad Town, Parakarry arrived to drop off a hastily-packaged envelope. Luigi picked it up and brought it inside. Judging from how he was acting, I suspect he thought you had ordered adult magazines again.”

“Did he now?” Mario laughed to hide his panic and fear. What if Luigi found out about the Tome of Fantasies? Mario's plans could be ruined before they actually began! “Where did he go?”

“I believe he took the package into the basement,” Tiptron informed him, referring to an illegal expansion that Luigi had made to the house once to hide his diary from Mario. Mario found out about it, and they used it for storage ever since. It must be cluttered in there, as Mario hadn’t touched anything down there ever since Luigi moved out to his mansion.

“Thanks, Tip,” Mario said, not waiting for a reply as he walked in the direction of the secret trapdoor. Why did Luigi have to visit today of all days? Why did he always have to be so nosy with Mario’s mail? Why didn’t Mario just hold on to the damn thing? Mario silently prayed to the Star Spirits that he could somehow fix this.