Level 1 defeated, initial level 2 (Canonical route)

Maria exhaled sharply through her nose, the muscles in her thighs coiling as she launched herself onto the first crumbling brick platform. The Goombas barely had time to blink before her boot connected with their heads—*thwack, thwack*—sending them spinning into oblivion. A Piranha Plant lunged from its pipe, its jaws snapping at empty air as Maria vaulted over it, fingers catching the edge of the next platform just as the brick beneath her dissolved into dust. "Too slow," she muttered, swinging herself up as a fireball from a rogue Koopa singed the hem of her overalls.

By the third platform, her knuckles were raw from punching through question blocks—coins showered around her like glittering confetti, but no mushrooms, no stars. Just her own reflexes and the growing burn in her lungs as she ducked beneath a hail of Bullet Bills. One grazed her shoulder, hot metal searing fabric, but she didn’t flinch. Instead, she pivoted mid-air, using the momentum to kick off the next Bill’s nose, sending it spiraling into its own brethren in a chain reaction of explosions. The flagpole loomed ahead, its checkered banner flapping lazily as if unaware of the carnage below.

She hit the ground rolling, skidding to a stop just beneath the pole. With one last glance at the smoldering wreckage of Bowser’s minions behind her, Maria leaped, fingers curling around the smooth metal. The flag slid down with a satisfying clink, its descent punctuated by the distant, tinny fanfare of victory. But before her boots could touch the ground again, the air beside the pole rippled—a jagged tear in reality itself, edges crackling with violet energy. Maria’s stomach dropped. "Oh, come on—"

The portal swallowed her whole