Mallow & Geno
Prologue
A Battle Against An Unknown Land!
...
...
Darkness.
Hoo, wow, it was really dark.
The feeling of an intense heat... baring down on his face... like someone was cooking an omelette... and couldn't find a frying pan. The depths of confusion and despair... so warm, yet so cold! How could something so deep and complicated and overdone happen so suddenly?
And then, from the darkness... a voice. A faint whisper slicing through the void.
"Mallow."
This is the end.
"...Hey, Mallow."
"...Hello? Mallow? Wake up, I don't have time for this."
Such a cruel fate.
"Nnnn... go away... I'll learn to swim another daaaay..."
"..."
Not like this...!!
THWACK!
"---AAAAAAAA!!"
Mallow nearly threw himself over the heat-blasted dunes with how high he jumped. The fluffy, roundish nimbus person impacted a sand shortly after his senses returned to him, his face buried completely buried in the sand. In fact, his entire body would've been buried in the sand if it wasn't for the lower, trouser-laden half of his round body sticking out from sand like a ostritch. After a few muffled exclamations, Mallow forced his hands on the ground and plopped the rest of his body out from the sand, shaking the gravel out of his small, purple swirl of... hair?
The fluffy Prince Mallow of Nimbus Land rubbed his eyes and yawned grumpily, staring aimlessly in a random direction and grumbling outloud.
"Jeez, Mom, it's a weekend! I don't have to wake up early today! Also, why is there... sand in my... bed.... room??"
"...H-...Huh?"
As the blinding sunlight left the prince's eyes, the gift of sight switfly returned to him, allowing him to bask in the landscape spilled out before him. A seemingly endless desert landscape stared back, spanning out for as far as he could see and stretching over a horizon obscured by towering sand dunes and rocky mountains in the distance. Mallow blinked a few times, his small eyes widening like plates. He rubbed him a few times. No dice.
"...W-wha?!" the prince shrieked, stumbling up on his stubby feet and spinning around, looking around himself and seeing nothing but sand. Sand here, sand there, sand everywhere. A few distant voices echoed in the distance, but they were like white noise against the sheer terror that began to build up in the diminutive fluff ball.
"
Where... where am I?! MOOOM?! DAAAD?!" Mallow called out into the desert, which answered back with an echo. His teeth chattered louder than his will to completely break down, which manifested in him raising his hands to his head and shaking profusely.
"This... this has to be dream. Yeah! I'm just dreaming! Maybe if I... smack myself in the face again or click my heels or something, I can--"
"I'm afraid this isn't a dream, Sir Prince."
"EEEEEE!!"
Mallow shrieked like a small animal, spinning around to the source of the voice and instinctively pointing whatever was clutched in his hand. In this case, it happened to be a long, wooden staff with the head of a frog decorated on the end. A figure stood atop one of the dunes, looking out over the desert landscape. It was diminutive in stature, but carried a presence that could be described as 'otherworldly', with the wind kicking up his cerulean cloak and having it dramatically wave. He gazed a short distance away, toward a group of stangers that began to gather - some awake, some not.
The figure crossed his arms and directed his gaze down to Mallow.
"Funny... I'm the realest person you're going to meet on this trip."
Mallow's jaw nearly sank to the core of the Earth. The shattering hysteria and fear of this sudden nightmare was replaced with utter disassociation.
"...G-...Geno...?"
Geno coolly slid off the sand dune, keeping his arms crossed and his eyes closed as he expertly drifted down to the base of the dune and halted a foot away from Mallow, unintentionally (?) splashing another dose of sand into Mallow's gaping mouth. Mallow frantically spit the sand out and shook his head, rubbed his eyes, did anything to assert that what he was seeing was real. Sure enough, it was. The prince lowered the Froggie Stick and stuttered out his next words.
"G-Geno... what are you doing here!? It's been years! I thought after we gathered the last Star Piece, you left and..." Mallow's voice trailed off, sounding a bit melancholy for a moment before picking up again
"Wait, nonono, this has to be some kind of dream! I remember going to bed pretty late last night because I was hoping to nab some food from the royal kitchen and then... I went to bed, and then something hit me in the face and now we're in a desert and YOU'RE here and... I... whaaaa??" Mallow huffed, scratching his head and looking to the old companion of his, whom he hasn't seen in who-knows-how-long.
"Well, I can assure you this is no dream. I could smack you again if it'll prove anything."
"So it was you that woke me up! This really isn't a dream, is it? I-I mean--" Mallow cut himself off, slowly gathering his wits and looking to Geno with some semblance of a smile,
"I'm happy you're back, Geno, but... if you're here, that usually means someone is up to no good."
The figure, whom had been revealed as Geno, shook his head in a sagely manner, the wood in his body creaking slightly with every movement.
"It is good to see you again after so long, my fluffy little friend... but, I did not return for pleasure, nor on divine intervention. I had no intentions of being here."
"Eeh?! I thought having everything planned out was your thing! You don't know anything?"
"Ha ha ha... yes, normally I would have figured out the issue here, but it seems as if we are a long ways away from the light of the Star Road. My... 'superiors' cannot contact me in this desert, nor can I contact them." Geno spoke somberly, looking up at the empty sky hanging over the desert and shaking his head. He wasn't in the best of moods over this dilemma, it seems.
"Yikes... that's no good. I thought the Starway-- I mean -- Star Road had a connection everywhere. If you can't even contact it... where the heck are we?"
"That's what I've been trying to figure out. I woke up here in my old puppet body a little while ago, and heard those voices over there," he gestured over in the direction where everyone else stood,
"I meant to go investigate over there, but I found you lying in the sand here."
"Hm... that's weird. Seems like a big coincidence, dont'cha think? If you and I showed up here, do you think... Mario might be around here somewhere?"
Geno stood silent for a moment, before shaking his head.
"No... if Mario were close, I would've sensed him. King Bowser and Princess Peach would've been around as well, but they haven't shown up either. Looks like it's just you and me, Mallow."
The prince didn't seem exactly thrilled by the proposition, but that was only because of the confusion of the situation at hand. It seemed as if everything was coming at him way too fast for him to even recollect what he was doing prior to this whole mess, but based on what Geno was saying, that stuff probably didn't matter so much. Mallow put on his usual concerned, slightly-afraid face as he turned in the direction that Geno gestured to.
"I-I guess we should see what's going on over there. Maybe we'll find some friends?"
"Or enemies," the puppet spat, taking lead as he began trudging up the dunes towards the rest of the group, with Mallow frantically grabbing his Froggie Stick and rushing after him.
No time for exposition. A new battle was already underway, and this one was going to be interesting.
In the middle of the commotion going on between the awakened strangers, two new figures waddled over the dunes and made themselves known with their footsteps; a pair of short, goofy-looking characters that looked like something out of a cartoon or video game. One of them appeared to be a... walking, talking wooden puppet of some kind, and the other one looked like a big marshmallow with a face and a wooden staff.
Geno and Mallow stopped like statues, beholding the strangers before them. A bunch of tall... gangly looking people that appeared very, very... 'different'. Uncomfortably detailed.
"Eeee...th-these guys look really creepy! And really tall!" the marshmallow stammered to the puppet.
"They aren't as threatening as they look," the puppet responded coolly.
The living marshmallow waddled forward slightly, taking in a deep breath and putting on a wide smile.
"U-uh... hello, everyone! My name is Mallow, and this is my friend, Geno! We're... u-uh... tourists!"
"You're terrible at this."
"Sh-shut up!"
@Alex Azure @Hahli Nuva @Ver @Crow @Draco Shadowdragon @Others