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Paper Mario: TTotS - Chapter 8, Part V

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The Temple of the Sun
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The room was the shape of an enormous sphere, with a round, vaulted ceiling high above them and a curving floor far below them. The wall – the whole thing was only one big wall – was somehow gold and silver at the same time, as though it couldn't decide what it wanted to be.

The group slowly passed through the doors and entered the large chamber. After they had all made it through, they spun around in shock at the sound of the doors slamming shut behind them, then slowly and reluctantly turned back around to face what was in front of them.

There was a large, round platform in the very center of the room, somehow hovering clear off the ground. The only way onto it was by another glowing light walkway that was right in front of the entrance. Floating several feet above the round platform was a semi-transparent black sphere... and there was someone inside of it.

"Mario?" Peach cried the instant she saw him enter the room. She immediately started pounding on the inside of the sphere, desperate for him to hear her. "Mario! Up here! It's me!"

Mario looked up at where Peach was imprisoned far above their heads and felt a thrill of panic. "Peach! Hold on, we're coming!" he cried and raced across the glowing walkway without a second thought, though all the while he couldn't stop thinking She's still okay, she's okay!

"Mario, wait!" came Hanner's voice from behind him as all his partners followed after him. The group ran across the walkway and onto the platform in the center of the room...

And it was only then that Mario noticed who was waiting for them.

"Well, well, well... about time you showed yourself, Mario. I was starting to think you'd gotten lost."

King Shroude was standing there, facing away from them, but as soon as he finished talking he turned around to face them. He looked irritated to see them, but not surprised. In fact, the first thing he did was casually hold out his hand, and then suddenly the glowing walkway disintegrated behind them. The partners whipped around in panic at the sight of their only means of escape disappearing before their eyes. They were trapped.

"From the very beginning you and your friends have done nothing but get in my way, Mario... you just had to interfere with my plans at every turn. And now you've even followed me here, to the Temple of the Sun." He took a step towards Mario's group, and they all automatically stepped back. "I must admit, I've actually gotten used to it by now. I didn't really expect you to lose against the Darkstriders just now... at this point they're just buying me time."

Mario and Goomblaine were glaring at him, and the others were all staring warily; they'd never seen King Shroude before. Mario himself was starting to feel uneasy, remembering what the Master of Night had done the last time he'd seen him...

"You're right. We've beaten everything you've thrown at us," the plumber finally spoke up. "And we can beat you too. So why don't you just give up right now?"

Shroude only responded with a chuckle, as cool and charismatic as always. "You really think you can beat me? Need I remind you, Mario, that you stand before the supreme Master of Night? I don't care if your little friends are all Guardians; only the Master of Day can defeat me!"

With a cruel grin, he gestured up to the dark sphere above their heads. "And she's not in much position to help you right now."

"Mario!" Peach cried frantically, still pounding on the inside of her prison. "Mario, don't listen to him! You have to beat him! You're our only chance!"

Mario looked longingly up at Peach, then turned to glare at Shroude. "What are you doing with Peach? You let her go now! She's not even – "

"Oh please. You think I'm going to listen to your pathetic little pleas?" Shroude cut him off. "Once I've taken care of you and your friends, Mario, I'm going to complete the ritual that will eradicate her and banish her from this world for all time! Once that's happened, the world of Day will finally cease to exist - and the new world will be one of eternal Night, with me as its rightful ruler!"

Mario sighed deeply. He still didn't know the truth about Peach... and if Mario tried to tell it to him, he'd just dismiss it as a lie. They didn't have much of a reason to be honest with each other...

"Why are you doin' all this?" Goomblaine cut in angrily. "Why do you think you gotta get rid of Day? That's the stupidest evil plan I ever heard! Why don't you just go back to your world instead of takin' over ours?"

Shroude looked at him impatiently. "You know as well as I do that's not possible anymore. I know you have the seventh Sun Soul, which means you must have seen my home. A dying world where there is only suffering." He spread his arms. "No one deserves to live in a place like that... all I want is to make a new world where my minions and I can live. Why would you deny me that?"

Mario glowered at him. He certainly was a smooth talker, not just a cackling maniac like some of the villains he'd fought before... did this mean he could be reasoned with?

"You're welcome to live in our world, Shroude... but not like this," he said firmly. "You just don't get it. You think the only way you can live in this world is by destroying Day... but you need Night and Day! You can't just get rid of one because you don't like it! It's not natural! It disrupts everything!"

And he wasn't done yet. "And how can you justify all the pain you've caused to make all this happen? First you destroyed the Guardians of Day and now you want to destroy Peach? How can this new world of yours possibly be worth it if so many people have to suffer?"

"I don't have to justify myself to you, Mario," Shroude snarled at him. "And we obviously can't see eye to eye on this, which means the only thing left for me to do is end your games."

"Yeah right!" Hanner scoffed as the whole team got into battle stances. "I don't care if you are the Master of Night! There's eight of us and one of you!"

In response to that, Shroude just lowered his head and chuckled again... and Mario suddenly got the suspicion that something was very, very wrong.

"You silly little girl... have you forgotten you're not the only Guardians in existence?"

And then, before anyone had time to react to his words, the air around him began to grow dark. Mario's team stepped backwards and watched with widened eyes, as did Peach from inside the black sphere, as the darkness surrounding Shroude coalesced into six points floating behind him. Now there was a group of amorphous black blobs hanging in the air, their only distinguishable features being their sinister glowing eyes...

Six of Mario's partners suddenly knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what they were staring at.

"It can't be..." Maizee whispered. "But it's... they're..."

"The Guardians of Night?" Dulia cried, shaking all over. "But what's wrong with them?"

Mario looked at Shroude incredulously. "You enslaved them!" he accused. "Just like you did to everything else in this temple!"

"Very good, Mario," Shroude said listlessly. "I think it's quite appropriate, don't you? The Guardians of Day versus the Guardians of Night to determine the fate of this world? Anyway, I don't imagine your friends will be able to help you much when they have this on their hands."

And just like that, the shapeless black blobs started floating toward the group and lowering to the ground... and as they did, they weren't shapeless anymore. Mario and Goomblaine stared in confusion as the Guardians of Night floated past them, but the other partners were all watching in horror as they began to grow solid, taking on forms...

The first Guardian of Night landed in front of Hanner, and she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"H-hey! What's going on here?" she cried, staggering away from it in fear. "Why... why does it look like... like..."

Hanner was staring at a pitch black copy of herself. It seemed to be glaring back at her, but it was impossible to say for sure, for apart from having her form it still had no features except for its narrowed, glowing eyes.

One by one, the other Guardians of Night landed in front of Mario's partners, each one taking the shape of the person they were confronting. Within moments, all of them were staring at shadowy, featureless doppelgangers of themselves.

"M-Mario?" Stubba whimpered, gripping his club as his dark counterpart started advancing on him menacingly.

Mario could only stare at this before turning back to Shroude. "Why?" he cried desperately. "Why are you doing this to them? This isn't right!"

"And who are you to judge me?" Shroude demanded, his voice filling up the whole room. "I am the ruler of this world! Fate is my only judge!"

He opened up his hand, and a mass of darkness materialized inside of it, taking the shape of his deadly, pitch-black sword. He held it high above his head as the entire room seemed to grow dark.

"Whichever of us be wrong... may fate now strike them down!"

Mario and Goomblaine gasped and drew together, realizing they were the only ones left to fight him. As the Master of Night advanced on them with sword in hand, Goomblaine frantically grabbed his phone and Tattled on him.

"Okay, this is the one and only King Shroude! Ruler of the Darkstriders and Master of Night! He's a real pro with that sword, and he can use it to attack both of us at once or even block our attacks! He's also got that wicked black lightning he can shoot at us, and man does that stuff hurt! Basically the only way we can land a hit on this guy is if we make him lower his guard!"

"Great... a sword... he's got a sword..." Mario groaned as they both braced themselves. "I have to be honest... I'm not good at fighting against swords. They're not exactly the weapon of choice in the Mushroom Kingdom..."

Shroude flashed him a toothy grin before letting out a shout, charging at him and thrusting his sword. Mario staggered out of the way just in time and desperately swung his hammer in retaliation, but Shroude deftly held up his sword in front of himself and deflected the blow.

"That little toy of yours won't work against me, Mario," he sneered, slicing his sword in an upward arc. This time Mario couldn't get out of the way in time, crying out as he was sent tumbling across the floor.

"Just what're you tryin' to pull?" Goomblaine snapped as he ran up from the other side and threw himself into a Headbonk. In response, Shroude just spun around and blocked his attack as well, sending Goomblaine dropping to the ground in a stunned heap.

"He's strong... and smart," Mario groaned as he got back to his feet. As long as he had that sword, what was going to stop him from blocking everything they threw at him?

"Is that really the best you can pull off? I'm disappointed in you, Mario," Shroude laughed before opening his hand. Mario had just enough time to panic before the Master of Night shot a black lightning bolt out of his palm and hit him right in the chest.

"Mario!" Peach cried, forced to watch the fight from her vantage point and helpless to do a thing about it.

In the meantime, Mario's other partners weren't having any easier a time against their opponents. They were fighting desperately, knowing they had to help Mario as soon as possible... but how could they possibly win when they were fighting themselves?

"You're really starting to get on my nerves," Hanner muttered through gritted teeth as she and her shadow swung their hammers at each other, then finally rushed up and locked weapons. "And whoever told you that hairstyle was a good idea must have been blind."

"Tee hee hee... there you go, making jokes again," the dark Hanner laughed mischievously. Her voice sounded cheerful like the real Hanner's, but at the same time, much more sinister. "That's all you ever do, isn't it? Are you really that insecure?"

Hanner blinked, loosening her grip on her hammer. "What?"

"Oh please, don't play dumb. You can't hide anything from me! I'm you, after all!" the dark Hanner cackled again in her impish voice. "You only make people laugh to distract them! You're afraid of what they'll see when they stop laughing! They'll see right through you... and they'll realize how useless you really are!"

Hanner's eyes flooded with horror. "You... you... stop it! Stop it! You're lying!"

But she wasn't lying, and they both knew it. Yes, Hanner loved making her friends laugh... but sometimes she really thought that was all she was good for... heck, she'd only joined Mario in the first place because of how incompetent she was... maybe it was better to make light of her faults instead of facing them head on...

"Ha ha ha! Not so funny now, are you?" the dark Hanner giggled. "What are you without your little jokes? Nothing!"

And she threw herself at the real Hanner, who was too shaken to get out of the way.

"Go... away!" shouted Stubba as he angrily pounded on his dark counterpart. "I have to... go help Mario!"

"Yeah, right! You can't help anybody!" the dark Stubba taunted him with a cruel, wicked voice – the fact that it was also a child's voice just made it scarier. "You can't even beat me! You're so little you can't do anything right!"

Stubba stared at him, immediately getting upset. "Shut up! It doesn't matter if I'm little! Mario doesn't care!"

"Yeah he does! Everybody does! They just don't wanna hurt your feelings!" the dark Stubba jeered. "Everybody on Mario's team is big and strong and smart – except you! You're just a dumb baby an' everybody has to take care of you! They'd be way better off without you!"

Now Stubba had tears in his eyes. "Stop it! Stop lying!" he yelled, rushing at his dark self and desperately clubbing him, but he was so upset that he couldn't focus. The dark Stubba just laughed again and effortlessly forced him back.

Mario was groaning and trying to shake off the effects of Shroude's lightning, but already he felt like his strength was running low. Luckily Shroude had been so distracted with launching the attack that Goomblaine finally got the chance to throw in a good Headbonk, throwing him off balance and sending him staggering off to the side.

"Hmph! You're stronger than a Goomba should be," he growled suspiciously, giving Goomblaine a glare. "But it makes no difference. You will fall to my strength!"

Drawing his sword again, he started advancing on Goomblaine while slicing and swinging in every direction. Goomblaine grew a panicked look and frantically started backflipping out of the way, but he quickly ran out of room to maneuver. Before long Shroude had driven him to the edge of the platform, and he yelped and scrambled to avoid falling to his doom.

"Hey! Get away from him!" Mario shouted as he came charging at Shroude, but the Master of Night just whipped around and deflected his hammer swing yet again, nearly causing him to lose his balance and fall over.

"Haven't you learned, Mario? You can't possibly defeat me the way you're going!" he taunted. Mario could only stand there panting, grimly realizing he was right...

Snatchel was locked in a fistfight with his dark self. "Look, partner, I reckon you don't know who it is you're dealin' with, so lemme spell it out for you," he growled, grabbing his opponent by the vest and slugging him in the face.

But the dark Snatchel didn't look fazed at all by the blow; he just let out a dry chuckle. "Oh, I know who you are all right," he said. "Yer that one Bandit who just had to be different from everybody else, ain't ya? You got it in yer head that just because you're different from the rest a' yer kind, that makes you better!"

Snatchel narrowed his eyes warily. "What're you gettin' at?"

"Don't you lie to me! Everybody knows how high an' mighty you think of yerself!" his dark self said accusingly. "Well I got news for ya, partner! Bein' proud ain't no better than bein' a criminal! What kinda Guardian are you when all you can think about is yerself?"

"HEY! You shut your yap, that ain't true!" Snatchel shouted at him, but there was a very clear note of desperation in his voice. In fact, when his dark counterpart let out another laugh and advanced on him again, he found himself strangely unable to fight back.

The two Dulias were zooming around the arena like a couple of airplanes, repeatedly slamming into each other in midair. Finally the dark Dulia managed to knock the real one out of the air, sending them both crashing to the ground and tumbling across the floor.

"Ha ha... just like I thought," the dark Dulia laughed mirthfully as the real one struggled to her feet. "You're just a scrawny little weakling after all, aren't you? You can't even beat yourself!"

"You are not me!" Dulia snapped back. "And I can beat you and I will!"

"Oh yeah? When was the last time you beat anything by yourself?" her dark self jeered at her. "You couldn't even beat one sorry little ringmaster before Mario came along! And even before that, you were always just hiding behind your friends! Let's face it, you're just a wimp and a coward! You can't do anything on your own and you never will!"

Dulia's heart sank as she realized her dark self was right. "No... no, stop it! I'm not listening to you!" she cried, but the damage was already done. The dark Dulia floated into the air and came careening down at her, and suddenly she was so scared and disheartened that all she could do was run away.

Shroude had forced Mario and Goomblaine together again, striking them with a barrage of black lightning from his hand. All they could do was grimace and Guard against the attack, but their opponent was so powerful it barely made a difference.

"Goomblaine, we have to attack him now!" Mario hissed at his partner as the ground around them crackled with residual lightning. "He's only vulnerable when he's not using that sword!"

"It's not gonna work... that's not enough to beat him with," Goomblaine said hopelessly. "He's gonna take us out first."

Mario sighed. "I know he is..."

Still, they knew they had no other option. Shroude prepared to thrust his opposite hand forward and continue the assault, but this time Mario and Goomblaine jumped away from the lightning and threw themselves into the air. Shroude looked up in shock as they both came down on him, pummeling him with a Power Bounce and Multibonk.

Just as Mario had feared, he responded in kind. As Mario and Goomblaine broke off their attack and tried to retreat to safety, Shroude roared in anger and he came charging after Mario, thrusting his sword forward. Mario dodged it only partially, wincing in pain as he was sliced by the blade.

"Why on earth am I wasting my time fighting you?" the dark Maizee sighed as the real one confronted her. "I might as well just let you live. No doubt you'll cause more damage than I ever could!"

"Whatever you're trying, it won't work," Maizee said firmly. "I know I've made mistakes in the past, but I've moved on from that."

The dark Maizee just gave her a wicked sneer. "You've moved on? How can you possibly be so dense? You honestly think you can move on from what you've done? You think your friends will ever completely forgive you? That they trust you?"

"Of course I do! Mario is a good person! They all are!" Maizee shot back, quickly losing her temper.

"Maybe they are, but you certainly aren't," her dark self scoffed. "You think that just because of your sad little attempts to do good, you can just forget all the suffering you caused? You can never undo what you did! If you really loved your son, you would have found a way to save him yourself, instead of trying to destroy his only chance!"

"I had no choice! It was the only way!" Maizee cried desperately, but her words sounded feeble and pathetic. Her dark self just laughed and effortlessly shoved her to the ground, assaulting her with a painful song as she fought back tears.

"Listen, dude, I've got no beef with you," said Ferdinand, raising up his flippers and backing away from his opponent. "Can't we just chill instead of duking it out like this?"

"Aw, what's wrong, dude? You scared?" the dark Ferdinand taunted him. "No wait, let me guess – you just don't feel like fighting, do you? Because it's not fun enough for you, is it, man?"

Ferdinand glared at him. "Hey man, that's a low blow. I'll fight you if I have to!"

"Sure you will, dude – right after you throw a beach party right here in the Temple!" his dark self laughed. "I dunno if you noticed, man, but you're still a total joke in your little group! Even when you're fighting to save the whole world, the best advice you can give Mario-dude is to chill out and not worry?" He scoffed. "Dude, look where you are! Are you ever gonna start taking stuff seriously? It's time to get your head out of the clouds!"

Ferdinand quickly felt his confidence start to falter. "Hey! I don't have to listen to this, man!" he protested, but his dark self just kept on laughing at him, which just shot him down even more. Then the dark Ferdinand leapt into the air, and the real one found that all he could do was wince as he was knocked to the ground.

Mario and Goomblaine were ready to collapse. They had given it their all, but Shroude was an utterly relentless fighter. He was toying with them now, slowly approaching them as he laughed, knowing they couldn't get away, then striking them with another lightning blast.

If only they could use Shine Down... but they were so weak, it would hurt them more than it would him...

"So you see, Mario," he said smugly. "No power can overcome mine. I am the strongest there has ever been; I was meant to rule over your world."

He looked at something behind Mario and chuckled. "It seems even your friends understand that now."

Despite almost toppling over in exhaustion, Mario gasped and spun around.

All of his partners were lying defeated under their dark selves, who were grinning down at them with glints in their eyes. Mario stared in disbelief. His friends didn't even look badly beaten up, but they all looked miserable... as though they'd given up.

"Guys!" he cried. "What's going on?"

Hanner lifted up her head. "Mario – " she began, but her dark self immediately smacked her across the face with her hammer, making her flinch and fall silent.

Mario was horrified, but more than that, he was confused. He'd never seen his partners like this before!

"What did you do to them?!" he shouted at Shroude.

"I didn't do anything," Shroude replied, sounding very satisfied with himself. "They were the tools to their own destruction, Mario. All they did was hear the truth."

He drew his sword and stalked toward Mario. "However, I'll be more than happy to finish you off myself."

And without warning, he surged toward Mario and started hacking at him with his sword. Mario cried out and tried to defend himself, but Shroude was moving so quickly that Mario had no time to react. He couldn't even get away.

Peach was watching the whole thing with a look of horror. "Mario!" she screamed, tears springing to her eyes. "Stop it, stop it, you monster!"

Goomblaine grew a furious look and tried to Headbonk Shroude out of the way, but he just deflected the Goomba's attack with ease before continuing to slash at Mario. The plumber had collapsed to the ground, too weak and disoriented to get back up. Anyway, Shroude was attacking him too fiercely to even let him try.

He started to panic. No... I can't go out like this... not now... not when we were so close...

"You and your friends have fallen, Mario," Shroude's voice came from above him. "Now you will know the punishment... for defying my power!"

From where she was lying on the floor, Hanner suddenly felt a surge of terror. "MARIO!"

And before she knew what she was doing, she'd jumped to her feet, grabbed her hammer, and smacked her shadowy self so hard that she spun around a hundred and eighty degrees and collapsed to the ground.

Everyone was so shocked that even Shroude stopped what he was doing and stared, leaving Mario curled up on the ground and groaning.

"H-hey! What gives?" the dark Hanner cried from on the floor, trying to shuffle away from the real Hanner. "You're not supposed to fight back! I just took all the fight out of you, you dummy!"

"Get real! I don't care what you think about me!" Hanner snarled. She certainly wasn't joking around now; she was angry. "You're not my friend! But Mario is, and HE NEEDS US!"

The other partners stared at her as she started wailing on her dark self, who was suddenly so shocked she could barely fight back, and gradually the scales seemed to fall from their eyes.

"Yeah! Mario needs us!" Stubba shouted, swinging his club and whacking his dark self right out of the way. One by one, the others grew determined looks on their faces and rose up against their opponents. Suddenly they were fighting with an incredible blaze of fury, and their shadowy selves started to panic.

"What are you trying to pull?" the dark Dulia gasped as the real one headbutted her in the stomach. "You can't just ignore me! Everything I said is true! You know it!"

"Maybe it is," said Dulia, "but that doesn't mean I can just abandon Mario when he needs me!"

"All of us have made mistakes, but Mario always had faith in us, and now we must do the same for him!" Maizee shouted as she threw her dark self to the ground.

"What they said, man!" Ferdinand cheered as he flapped over to his opponent and started unleashing a barrage of Beak Jabs.

Mario was still lying on the floor as he watched all this, his eyes wide. They were doing all this for him? He had no idea he'd inspired them that much...

"Guys... you're all... fighting back... for me..."

"So we'd better make sure it's not for nothin'!" Goomblaine snapped, nudging him in the side. Alerted, Mario glanced over his shoulder and yelped, rolling out of the way just as an enraged Shroude fired another bolt of lightning at him.

"This is sickening," the Master of Night snarled. "Just what is it going to take to make you all go down and stay down? What do I have to do?!"

"I think it's time we found out," Mario said as he got back to his feet. "Goomblaine, I have an idea. He can guard against one of us, but I'll bet you anything he can't guard against both of us together."

"Yeah? This plan of yours better work!" Goomblaine shot back as Shroude drew his sword and charged them again, bellowing out a horrible war cry. Goomblaine responded by flipping into the air and delivering a Headbonk, which Shroude blocked effortlessly... but he was so busy doing that, his guard was lowered against Mario, who ran up right behind Goomblaine and whacked Shroude with a mighty Power Smash.

"AAAARGH!" Shroude roared in rage, spinning around and hacking at Mario with his sword. Mario grimaced in pain, but inwardly grinned in triumph as he countered Shroude's attack with another blow from his hammer. Just as he'd expected, Shroude threw up his sword and blocked it, but in doing so lowered his guard against Goomblaine, who delivered a Headbonk so powerful it knocked the wind out of him and drove him to the ground.

"And stay down, ya freak!" Goomblaine spat at him.

Shroude wearily lifted his head up and stared at him. How could one Goomba possibly be so strong?

"What are you...?"

The other partners were laying a beatdown on their dark counterparts. Their opponents had kept trying to force them back by taunting them, much more desperately now, but they refused to let it work on them again. Mario was fighting for them, and they couldn't let him down.

"Looks like I just beat you – all by myself!" Dulia snapped as she delivered the deciding blow against her dark self. The dark Dulia let out a wail of pain as she fell to the ground, and then her shape seemed to collapse right before Dulia's eyes. Her shadowy body lost its form and she reverted back to a shapeless, nondescript blob of darkness.

Dulia stared at it and shuddered. "That was creepy..."

Once he saw that had happened, Snatchel broke into a grin and punched his dark self square in the face, causing him to stagger backwards and fall to the ground, splattering into a shadowy blob as he hit.

"Yee-haw! Why don't ya bring yer A-Game next time, partner?"

Slowly but surely, working together, Mario and Goomblaine turned the tide against Shroude. Just like Mario had guessed, Shroude couldn't defend against both of them in a row, and when he blocked one of their attacks it just left him completely defenseless against the other person.

"Still think this thing is a toy?" Mario taunted him as he whacked him again with his hammer, landing a heavy blow. Finally Shroude seemed to realize his tactic wasn't working and just resorted to shooting lightning at them, but when he did that, he had no way of blocking their attacks at all. As Mario and Goomblaine deftly dodged one of his lightning strikes and then came charging at him, he grew a horrified look as he seemed to realize he was done for.

"Now take your stupid hair and get outta our world!" Goomblaine shouted as he threw himself into the air, pummeling Shroude with a Multibonk. The Master of Night was too weak to shake off his attacker, and then finally he was too weak to support his own weight. Letting out a loud moan of despair, his sword dropped from his hands and he collapsed to his knees.

Mario and Goomblaine watched as he sat there panting heavily, gradually realizing that he wasn't getting back up.

"That's it... we did it," Mario said quietly. "We won."

"Eh, that wasn't so hard," Goomblaine said gruffly.

Peach sighed and leaned against the inside of the sphere. "Thank goodness..."

"Mario! We're here to save you!" Hanner declared valiantly as she and the other partners all suddenly came running up next to him. Mario looked at them in surprise, then looked behind them and realized they had all just finished defeating the Guardians of Night, leaving them as weak and flickering balls of darkness on the other side of the platform.

"Oh... well, thanks guys, but we just beat him."

Hanner turned to look at Shroude and seemed to grow a disappointed look. "Oh... well, that's good, I guess."

Everyone on Mario's team cautiously drew up and gazed at Shroude. He was still panting and clutching at himself, but his eyes were blazing with fury.

"This... this is impossible," he hissed. "How... how could the likes of you possibly defeat me? It can't be done! It can't!" His voice was rising. "I am the Master of Night! Only the Master of Day can defeat me!"

Mario raised an eyebrow at him. "And how do you know that's not exactly what happened?"

Shroude looked at him as though he were an idiot. "The Master of Day is here! She has no power over me without her Sun Soul!" he snarled. "I joined her halves together myself, and I imprisoned her here! She can't do a thing!"

Despite the gravity of the situation, Mario couldn't help but break into a sly grin.

"You joined her halves together?" he repeated. "Now why would you need to do that? You know not even the Guardians can be split in half, right? Don't you think, if she really were the Master of Day, she would have joined together all by herself?"

A wary looked suddenly crossed Shroude's face and his eyes widened. "What... what are you saying?"

"I'm saying you've got the wrong person," Mario said smugly, relishing this moment quite a bit. He stepped to the side and looked at Goomblaine, who gave the wide-eyed Shroude an innocent smile and shrugged.

Shroude stared back at him. "Wait a minute – what?" he cried, suddenly losing his composure even more. "You – you're lying! You have to be!" He started looking frantic. "A Goomba? The Master of Day, the one true equal to my power... is a GOOMBA?!"

Goomblaine snickered. "Yeah, funny how life works out, i'n't it?"

Shroude leapt to his feet, a desperate look in his eyes. "But this – it can't be! You're telling me that Princess Peach, the legendary maiden of purity – was just some random girl with no bearing on my plans whatsoever?!"

"Certainly looks that way, doesn't it?" Mario said with a very amused grin.

Peach had been listening to all of this. "Really? You mean the villain didn't even need me at all this time?" she said, looking thrilled. "I feel so liberated!"

"What made you think it was Peach anyway?" asked Hanner.

Shroude was coming more undone by the second. "Well I – I – why wouldn't I think that?" he demanded, sounding defensive. "I mean, you always need a fair and pure maiden for this sort of thing! ALWAYS!"

"I guess that has been true the last few times," Mario admitted.

"Well, I say traditions like that were meant to be broken!" Maizee said with a chuckle.

Shroude's eyes were bulging. This couldn't be happening to him! It couldn't! He'd planned it all so carefully, so thoroughly... his plan was flawless! How could he have been wrong all along? Wrong about everything? He'd been so sure... and yet now all he could do was watch as his entire life's work came unraveled before him...

Finally he bowed his head and started laughing. It was a low laugh and hard to hear, but Mario and his friends immediately tensed up as they heard it. Something wasn't right...

"Fine then. If you are the Master of Day, then I'll just end your game instead! Better yet – I'll end all of your games in one fell swoop! You've humiliated me... for the last time!"

He raised up his hand, and suddenly the black sphere that held Peach vanished into thin air, leaving her hovering above his head. Peach screamed as, without touching her, Shroude hurled her through the air with some invisible force, disgusted with her uselessness, intent on sending her over the edge and out of his sight for good...

"WOAH! Hang on, Princess!" Ferdinand cried, throwing himself off the platform and catching her in midair. Peach gasped and scrabbled to cling onto his foot as he frantically flapped his arms, trying to carry them up to the others.

"Peach!" Mario cried, but his attention was suddenly drawn away from her and onto the Guardians of Night... or what remained of them. Some tangible but invisible force was pulling them across the floor and over to Shroude, like a magnet. Shroude was still laughing like a maniac as the ground around him crackled with black lightning; it seemed like he had lost all control over it.

"Mario? What's he doing?" Stubba whimpered, edging behind the plumber. The other partners were backing away as well, watching as the bodiless Guardians of Night were drawn inexorably toward their Master...

And then shadowy tendrils came shooting out from his body, each one latching onto one of the Guardians of Night, who were nothing more than little round balls now. The tendrils pulled them into him so that there were three on either side of him, the ones on each side lined up on top of each other. Then the tendrils formed together to create the illusion that Shroude suddenly had a pair of enormous black butterfly wings, each one tipped with three balls of darkness...

Mario and the others had no words for what they were witnessing. They could only stare silently, mouths hanging open, drawing together in complete terror as Shroude flapped his wings and rose into the air, still laughing madly as he absorbed the Guardians' power into himself, an aura of black fire blazing up around him.

"I will have my world of Night... and I'll destroy you all before I let you get in my way!"
Well it has been a long time coming indeed, but here at last is this most important update of Paper Mario: The Temple of the Sun, wherein Mario beats the Stage 1 of the final boss, only to royally screw up and instigate Stage 2.  Oops.

Fun Facts: So, I will be the first to admit that SPM has way better villains than this fic. *weeps forever over Count Bleck* I didn't have much of Shroude's specific motivations in mind when I first started writing, and it wasn't until later that I came up with the idea that his home world was destroyed and he needed to find a new one.  I probably will go back and fix the story proper (I keep telling myself that) to establish this little tidbit much earlier on, when he's first talking to Peach.  I have him in mind as sort of a Social Darwinist; he's pissed off that his own world is destroyed, but since he considers himself the strongest person in both worlds, there's no reason why he shouldn't take over this one; he's just taking what's owed to him.

On the other hand, his character as it is sort of works for the purposes of the story, since he's an overly generic Mario villain who assumes he's in an equally generic Mario game where Princess Peach is of course the one necessary for his plans.  Oh, how wrong he is.

So how would this scene play out in a real game?  Probably much differently.  For one, you (Mario) would fight all six Guardians of Night in succession (though they'd still be impersonating your partners and have the same stats as their Ultra Ranked selves) and then fight Shroude.  Much more of a boss gauntlet that way, isn't it?  Though for the story to make any sense, Goomblaine would probably be the only one of your partners who could damage him.
    
© 2015 - 2024 SlargTheGnome
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One of my favorite parts. No offense, but Shroude getting butterfly wings seems kind of narmy?