Toad Town was up bright and early, and so was Mario. The earliest he'd ever been up, in fact.

"Why couldn't we just a-get an eleven'o'clock ticket?" he whined. The current time was eight-thirty, and Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, Twilight, and Rarity were packed up and ready to go to the Mushroom Kingdom airport and depart for the Beanbean Kingdom.

"Where'n the almighty heavens are Pinkie'n Luigi?" Applejack asked impatiently.

"Pinkie must have woken up at the crack of dawn, because I found a note on the table that said, 'Luigi promised me he'd show me around Toad Town, so I'm probably not gonna make it to the airport, but we'll catch up, okay?" Rarity said, mimicking Pinkie's way of speaking.

Mario shook his head. "That brother'a mine," he mumbled.

Twilight started for the door. "Well, come on!" she called back. "We got places to go, things to see!" She raced out the door and down the street.

The rest followed Twilight out the door and onward to the airport. It wasn't a long walk, but the time to board sure was. While the group was waiting, Mario pulled out a map of the Beanbean Kingdom. Twilight peered over from a brochure advertising Poshley Heights and asked what Mario was doing.

"Well," Mario began, "we're gonna arrive-a here," he said pointing to the bottom of the map which depicted a landing strip, "and we wanna go here," he pointed to a large island off the coast of the Beanbean Kingdom in the lower-right.

"And that's where we'll find the secret to channeling our Link?" Twilight asked.

Mario folded the map up and placed it back in his duffelbag.

"I sure-a hope so," he said.

Five hours later, the plane had touched down at the Beanbean Airport. Twilight looked out the window to see the runway approaching fast. She turned and shook Mario, who was sleeping in the chair next to her.

"Hm...?" Mario blinked a couple times. "Eh...? Whas'a goin' on?"

Twilight pointed out the window to the runway, which was directly under the plane as it rolled in.

In a few minutes, the plane had stopped, and the passengers onboard, mostly just Toads, were disembarking. The first ones out of the plane, of course, were Mario and the girls (being in first class near the front). As they reached solid ground, Mario saw a familiar face, standing next to his preferred method of transport: a flying bean. It was none other than Prince Peasley.

"Mario! Over here, old friend!"

Mario smiled and ran over to the Prince, with the others in tow, marveling at how similar yet different the Beanbean Kingdom was to the Mushroom Kingdom.

Peasley and Mario embraced each other with pats on the back and jolly laughter. They then stepped back and Peasley said, "I was informed by the sight of a plane flying overhead that you would be arriving here, and here you are!" He reached to his blond, flowing hair and flipped it. It glided on the light breeze for a minute before falling back to the sides of his head. He looked over at the girls.

"And these must be friends of yours?" he asked.

Mario nodded. "Mm-hm. This is-a Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash, an' they hail from Equestria," he explained.

Peasley laughed gingerly, tossing his head back. "I should have guessed they weren't from around here. They're much too pretty."

The girls giggled at the bean prince's charm. Mario rolled his eyes. He's a hero, but not above-eh showing off for the ladies, he thought. He took another step forward and said, "Listen, it's-a great ta see you again, but we need to go find the Oho Oasis. But maybe we'll-a do lunch, eh?"

Peasley turned to Mario and bowed respectfully. "Of course," he said as he stood up. "I understand you're a busy bean. No doubt facing another princess crisis?"

Mario chuckled and motioned for the girls to follow him. Waving goodbye to Peasley, they headed west, to the home of the Oho Jee.

The party had walked to the Oho Ocean, but there was no time to stop. Fluttershy carried Rarity and Rainbow Dash carried Applejack. Twilight carried Mario and listened to his instructions to get to Oho Oasis, which they saw on the horizon after a few minutes. They touched down on the sandy shores of the west side and a resident of the island just so happened to wander by. Twilight was very intrigued by the small, round figure before her.

"Whoa, what is that thing?"

"That's-an Oho Jee. They live here," Mario replied. "Ya don't havta worry about them. They're-a harmless, as long as you don't set-em on fire or electrify them."

Fluttershy had bent down to talk to one and giggled. "They're so squishy," she said as she held one.

The Oho Jee responded slowly, as if it wasn't aware of its surroundings. "Hm...? I not see you before, strange lady. You not from island. You good?" it said in a surprisingly deep tone. Fluttershy wasn't expecting it to have such a deep voice and dropped it after squeaking in surprise. The rotund islander flopped down into the sand and uttered a nonchalant "Ow."

Mario bent down and picked the Oho Jee up and brushed the sand off of him. The Oho Jee looked up at Mario and said, "Oh! Moustache is back! Are strange ladies travelling with moustache man?"

Although initially confused with its simplistic ways of speaking, the girls nodded. The Oho Jee leaped up and exclaimed, "Travelling with red moustache smart choice! You good people, then." It scuttled away as fast as its stubby legs could carry it.

Twilight chuckled. "What fascinating little creatures," she mused.

Mario bounded ahead of the group toward the center of the island where a massive temple stood.

"C'mon! This-a way!" he called back.

The inside of the temple was cluttered with so much debris that even walking down a straight hallway was difficult. "It's-a lot different than what I a-remember," Mario commented as he shimmied in between a narrow crack in a wall. "Could be because-a all the times I fought Bowser was, eh..." he trailed off.

"Pretty damn spectacular," he said smiling at the memories.

"Ah'm guessin' ya'll caused a few earthquakes?" Applejack wheezed as she slid between piles of rubble.

Mario laughed. "On a mild day." After working through a maze of crumbled stone, the group finally happened upon an iron gate with a metal covering on the floor.

"Looks like the inner sanctum," Twilight whispered. On the other side, they could barely make out an ornate podium with a red and yellow orb in the center.

Mario pondered, "Hmm...I think-eh, if the Fire Sphere's still a-there, then that-eh means..." He went digging into a pile of stone on the left side. Rainbow Dash had to help with larger chunks, but eventually, they found a hole cleaved into the lower wall that looked like it could fit a Toad easily. Mario smiled and stood back up. He then pulled a giant mallet out of seemingly nowhere and tossed it to Applejack, who caught it with surprise. He turned around and said, "Do me a favor, an' smack me ova the head."

"Beg pardon?"

"Just a-trust me, this always works," Mario stated.

"But...Mario, isn't that gonna-" Dash tried to say before Mario cut her off.

"C'mon! We're-a losin' daylight!"

The girls looked at each other with confusion, but Applejack raised the hammer and lowered it again with force on Mario's cranium. To their complete surprise, Mario's head didn't cave in, but he did get shrunk like a wool shirt in warm water. He was now tall enough to fit in the hole without having to crawl in. He looked at himself and jumped up, exclaiming, "Yippee!" as if he had swallowed a canister of helium. He raced for the hole, but Twilight called, "Mario, where are you going?"

"Through the crack in da wall, where else?" he called back.

"But...you know we can just-" but in a second, Mario had clambered his way through the hole.

It was dark, humid, and he was pretty sure there were some nasty Shy Guy Spiders crawling around in there, but Mario made his way through the tight space, and he came out the other side, behind the metal gates.

...To find the girls standing at the foot of the steps to the shrine of the Sun God, waiting for him.

"Wha!?" he exclaimed in confusion. "How...how did a-you get through that gate so fast? I thought-"

"I tried to tell you, Mario," Twilight giggled. "I could easily just have teleported us through the grate!"

Mario raised his finger with his mouth open, but he dropped it and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Whoopsie," he chuckled. "Sorry. Luigi tells me Imma bit-eh headstrong."

"Relax, Overalls. It happens to the best of us," Dash told him. "Now come on! I want to get my Link and do some awesome stuff with it!" and she flew up the many stone steps to the shrine situated on the top. The rest of the party grinned and followed Rainbow Dash up the steps. Mario lightly nudged Applejack and gestured to his hammer, which she still held tightly. He pointed to the top of his head, to which Applejack looked back at the hammer and nodded. She swung and bashed Mario over the head again, returning him to normal size. Mario smiled and a brohoof was shared.

Upon joining the girls at the altar, Mario strode confidently up to the orb resting on its pedestal. Everyone peered over to get a look at it. It appeared to be made of glass, with tounges of red, yellow, and white fire lashing around inside the sphere. "How does it work, Mario?" Twilight whispered.

"Like this," he replied. A great fire issued forth from Mario's hand, and he grasped the Fire Sphere with it. The orb turned red-hot and spat humongous gouts of flame into the air. Poor Fluttershy nearly had a heart attack and ducked behind Applejack. As the flames subsided, a humanoid shape appeared, dressed in a white cloak. His head was similar to the normal inhabitants of the Beanbean Kingdom, green and bean-shaped, but his head had a sun symbol attached to the back. He remained motionless until the fire was gone; then he looked down at the gathered party.

"What in the name of...? What have we here?" he said. The Sun God lowered himself down to get a better view of the girls. "Goodness me, horses? Standing on two legs? Gee...I wonder how long I've slumbered..."

Although nervous, Twilight couldn't help but be excited at the same time. She took a tentative step forward and cleared her throat. The Sun God looked down at her. "Um, excuse us, sir, but we came here for a special reason...you see, our friend here told us about the ability to channel a Link. We came here to find our own," she explained.

The Sun God seemed mildly surprised that apparent foreigners had learned about the ability to Link, but then he noticed Mario.

"Say, is that my old friend, Mr...Mr...bah, my apologies. Faces never escape me, but I have worse luck with names," he said. Mario opened his mouth, but the Sun God interrupted, "Wait, wait, wait! Don't tell me...Pietro!"

Mario smacked his forehead. Rainbow Dash couldn't help but giggle. "Close enough," Mario muttered with an embarrassed grin.

"Oh, don't worry about it. I can just call you Mr. Moustache if you want." This was met by uproarious laughter from the ponies and Mario lowered his cap over his face, now red as a Super Mushroom.

"But you wish to channel your Link, do you?" he continued. The girls nodded. "Well, I'm afraid I can't help you with that," he said shortly.

"Say what!?" Dash yelled.

"Calm down," the Sun God told her. "I can't teach you about Links because its more of a...personal thing," he explained. Everyone listened, even Mario, as he had never learned about what the Sun God said next: "You can't learn to channel your Link unless you're around a natural element, like water ot stone. And it, more or less, comes with practice. You need to stick to what you know in order to find your own Link. Does that make sense?"

"So you're saying we all can't learn what you teach, correct?" Rarity clarified for the rest of them.

"Well, if you're around fire a lot, yes. Otherwise, I'm really not all that helpful."

Fluttershy piped up, "So, um, where do we go from here, Mr. Sun God?"

He thought a minute before saying, "I have very limited knowledge about who you should see next, but I am fairly certain that there's a place called 'Yoshi's Island' that holds two answers you may seek."

There was dead silence for a couple minutes until Mario bowed respectfully and motioned for the ponies to follow him down the steps. Fluttershy turned around and said again, "Thank you very much, sir," with a pleasant smile.

The Sun God smiled back and called, "There is one more thing you should know: you learn your ability. I could only help you unlock its full potential." With that, he disappeared in a pillar of rising fire.

Once outside everyone was greeted with an unexpected surprise: Prince Peasley was waiting for them, and with him was his flying bean, as well as six more exactly like it.

"Prince...? What are you a-doin' here?" Mario asked.

Peasley laughed and flipped his golden locks. "I assumed you might run into some complications trying to reach your objective, believe me, I know from experience. I took the liberty of bringing multiple forms of my transport system."

Twilight approached on of the bean platforms and touched it. It was pretty much a normal bean, but with wings. "I'm seriously starting to question why I don't travel more and see things like this," she said to herself.

"Well, hop on!" Peasely called, and without losing a minute, the group had clambered onto the flying beans. "So," the prince began again, "are we going anywhere specific, old bean?"

Mario raised himself to his full height on the organic platform, albeit, with more difficulty than he expected, and said to Peasley, "Eva been to Yoshi's Island?"

Peasley thought for a minute. "No, I don't believe I have," he replied. He put pressure on his back heel and his bean rose up into the air. He looked back down at the adventurers.

"Shall we?"

The vast ocean separating the Mushroom and Beanbean Kingdom seemed to go on forever, especially after Mario explained the Yoshi's Island was extremely secluded from the mainland. The use of psychology made the trip drag on and on. After many hours, Rainbow Dash spotted a small dot on the horizon that constantly got larger and larger. She shot up from a lying position on the winged bean she chose and screamed, "Land ho!" Within minutes, the party had touched down on part of the sandy beach that surrounded most of the island.

Everyone hopped off the beans that Peasley had so graciously provided them. Mario turned around and said, "Thank you so much for lettin' us fly!"

Peasley chuckled. "Don't mention it, old bean. Always happy to help a friend." With that, his flying bean rose back up into the air and with another flip of his majestic golden locks, he flew off.

Applejack had walked up part of the beach to face a dense forest of palm trees that gave way to birch and pine after a few feet.

"Looks mighty peaceful," she said to herself.

"Meh. Looks boring," Dash retorted.

"Oh, it's-a not even close to boring," Mario said as he strode into the flora. "C'mon!"

The ponies looked at each other, nodded, and ran after Mario. Pretty soon, they were all in a lush field with lavender grass. As soon as Twilight noticed, she went a little haywire, freaking out over how "grass is definitely not supposed to be this color." The others calmed her down enough for Mario to lead on.

"If ya can't handle purple grass, I suggest ya close yer eyes when I show-a you tha denizens of the island," Mario cautioned.

"Why is that?" Twilight asked.

Mario put on something akin to a guilty smile and motioned through a grove of trees. The girls cautiously pushed through the foliage and found a village on the other side. There appeared to be things roaming around the crudely built thatched houses, and their outlines suggested they weren't human. Before any of them could walk any further, Mario burst from the trees and ran a couple more steps forward before sticking his fingers in his mouth and whistling shrilly. The sound bounced across the valley and one of the figures in the town turned in their direction. It seemed to stand there staring before hopping back in surprise and jumping up and down joyfully. Suddenly, the being took off in their direction.

Rarity squinted, trying to discern what was coming up the hill towards them. "Mario, dear, may I ask just what is barreling at us right now?"

Her question was answered as a green dinosaur, about as tall as Mario himself, charged into view. The girls were taken by complete surprise and before they could react, the dinosaur had tackled Mario to the ground and was licking his face like a dog.

"Ah! Yoshi...!" Mario laughed as Yoshi kept slurping at his face, "A'right, a'right! Ha-ha! I missed ya too, ya big-a drool bucket!"

Mario gently pushed Yoshi off his chest as the girls stared at the strange dinosaur, confused and amazed at the same time. Yoshi only stood in the same spot, looking around at random things and completely oblivious to being the center of attention.

"What...is that?" Twilight said after a long pause. Mario explained, in length, that Yoshi was a miniature vegetarian dinosaur (although he would still try to eat anything smaller than a household stove). Yoshi saved Mario when he was still just a baby. Baby Mario had been separated from Baby Luigi years back, and Yoshi took it upon himself to return the siblings to each other. He also had the help of the entire Yoshi tribe, which lived on Yoshi's island.

"Wow. So those dinosaurs are that smart?" Dash asked.

Mario nodded. "Mm-hm. If it wasn' for Yoshi, tha Mushroom Kingdom might'a turned out differently." The girls kept staring at the strange little reptile, who was busy amusing himself by trying to catch a wandering butterfly with his unnaturally long tongue. Mario, however, was gazing at Yoshi with what could be considered the look of a proud father. He turned back around when he heard a gentle cough, and noticed Fluttershy was shifting uncomfortably.

"Somethin' a-wrong, Flutters?" Mario asked.

Fluttershy looked up at Mario suddenly, but looked away again and whispered, "Um, no." Mario only crossed his arms and his expression told everyone he knew something was up. "Well," Fluttershy began when she saw Mario's face, "I was just wondering, if it isn't any trouble for you, would you mind...letting me pet Yoshi?"

Mario laughed. "A'course not! Yoshi loves tha attention!" Fluttershy stared back at Yoshi, who had caught the butterfly and was gazing intently at it as it reclined on his tongue. She glanced back at Mario, who ushered her on. Fluttershy gulped and cautiously strode forward. Her light footsteps in the grass were enough to catch Yoshi's attention, because the dinosaur was now staring at Fluttershy as she came closer and slowly reached out with her hand. She gently touched Yoshi's round, bulbous nose and Yoshi immediately let out a lightly punctuated sneeze.

Fluttershy jumped back a little in surprise and Yoshi shook his head to clear it. Fluttershy didn't move, fearing she may have hurt the dinosaur. Yoshi blinked a couple times and focused on Fluttershy again. He inched his way over to her and stared up at her face. Neither one moved until Fluttershy cautiously reached out and stroked Yoshi's chin. The little dinosaur was obviously enjoying it, because his eyes were closed and his foot was twitching like a dog's leg when their belly is rubbed. After a solid two minutes, Yoshi shook his head again to brush Fluttershy's hand away and to everyone's surprise, he licked her face and exclaimed, "Yoshi!"

Before Fluttershy could react, Yoshi ducked between her legs and stood up quickly, giving Fluttershy a seat on his back. This caused Fluttershy to yelp in scared surprise. "What...?" Twilight hesitantly asked to no one in particular.

Mario whistled in surprise. "Wowie. Yoshi mus' think Fluttershy's somethin' special if-eh he wants ta give her a piggyback ride already. But then..."

"...Fluttershy is quite good with animals," Rarity finished for him.

"So...he likes me?" Fluttershy squeaked.

Mario nodded and Fluttershy looked back down at Yoshi, who eagerly licked her face again. Everyone giggled and Mario strode up to his little friend. "Hey, Yoshi," he said, bending down to Yoshi's eye level. "Are a-there any ancient temples 'round here we a-never explored?" Yoshi looked up to the sky for a minute before he straightened up and pivoted around quickly and pointed with his body, one leg raised in the air and looking in the direction he wanted the others to follow him. In a few seconds, he took off at breakneck speeds, causing Fluttershy to cry out in fear. The girls were taken back by the sudden burst of speed, but Mario quickly spoke up, "Quick! Folla' that dinosaur!"

The sun was lowering in the western sky, and the party had been walking up steep foothills all day, their only rest was two breaks for food and water and switching turns riding on Yoshi. It was apparent, however, that even he was beginning to tire, as he kept sagging behind the group more and more with each passing minute. Mario hopped up onto a jagged rock that obscured any vision beyond. He looked out and called back, "Hey, hey! I think-a we got somethin' here!"

The girls and Yoshi were leaning on the porous rocks that comprised the mountain they were walking up, but Applejack still had enough strength left in her to get off a boulder she was lying down on and trudge over to Mario. He hoisted her up and onto a foothold so she could see across the rock.

Wherever they were on the island, the landscape was shaped like a bowl. A great forest with vines draping the trees and a few open spots here and there, surrounded by jagged mountains on all sides. The setting sun glinted off the sides of the rocky peaks and the glare was so bright it almost concealed a stone statue of an ancient creature that could be likened to a golem, obviously on top of a hidden temple. Applejack whistled. "Well, stick reigns in mah mouth'n a saddle on mah back."

Mario tipped his cap lower to shield his eyes from the sun's glare. "And' I'mma pretty sure what we a-need is in that temple."

Twilight came over and glided up and looked over the edge of the rock barrier to realize that the drop was hundreds of feet deep and almost vertical. "Mario?" she asked. He turned to look at her. "How are we going to get down without anypony without wings breaking every single bone in their body?"

Mario only grinned and waved his finger, pulling out a small yellow feather. He closed his fist on it and a majestic cape of gold materialized and unfurled behind his neck. He then pulled out three more and tossed them to Rarity, Applejack, and Yoshi. Yoshi immediately sucked the feather into his mouth with his tongue, sprouting a pair of wings. Applejack and Rarity received capes just like Mario. Twilight only stared at him wide-eyed, as every law of physics had been ripped apart in front of her. "You are full of surprises," she said breathlessly. Mario only shrugged, a naive grin on his face. He stepped onto the edge of the precipice and, spreading his arms out like an Olympic swimmer, he dove off the side, falling gracefully for a few seconds, before snatching the corners of his cape, backflipping, and pulling up to shoot upward even higher than his friends who were still on the ground. He hung in the air like an angel, staring down at the ponies for awhile until he smiled and motioned for everyone to follow him. Yoshi did so eagerly and gracefully, flapping his wings as if he was born with them. Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight followed soon after. Applejack and Rarity, however, were haphazardly flying in all directions, not used to having any means to fly aside from Twilight's spells. Mario had to rush to Rarity's rescue twice, but Applejack insisted she would be fine piloting herself with a cape. It was a half-truth, but she didn't crash, and soon enough they had arrived at the temple entrance.

The doorway was blocked with crumbling stone boulders, but Mario walked up to them and started knocking on them in random places trying to discern their weak point. None of the girls understood what he was doing, of course. "Uh...hey, Overalls...?" Dash called.

"Yeah?" Mario said as he looked back at her.

"I don't think knocking on boulders and expecting them to let you in is going to get us anywhere."

"Relax," Mario said. "I'll have-a this open in no time." He resumed knocking on the boulders.

Dash turned around and whispered, "I think he might be a little crazier than I expected."

"Don't worry, Rainbow Dash," Twilight replied. "I have a plan to get those boulders out of the way."

"How?"

"Well, I'm guessing, since they're not magically locked and they collapsed over time, I can easily levitate them out of the way, but of course, there's no telling what will happen if I move one, as even more could collapse. So, I'm going to need a few vines to construct a pulley and use it to winch..." she trailed off as she stared at the temple entrance.

"Twilight...? Is there something wrong?" Rarity asked. Her question was answered when everyone heard a loud *CRACK!* come from the temple entrance a split-second later. They all turned around to see Mario standing in a combat stance and his fist firmly connected with one of the boulders. His head was down and he was breathing heavily, and there was a small crevice clearly visible in the stone he had punched.

"Did he just...?" Dash never got to finish her question as Mario wound up his right arm again and drove it forward into the same boulder, shattering it into thousands of shards and unleashing a deafening roar as the stones around it flew away from the entrance in a burst of wind. After the commotion died down, everyone was staring at Mario in front of the entryway, breathing between his teeth and shaking his fist to rid it of the pain. He blew on his knuckles a couple times as well.

Nobody could believe they just saw a fat, Italian plumber bash in a metric ton of stone with his bare fist. Rainbow Dash rushed to Mario's side and yelled, "How the hay did you do that!?"

"I've-a punched harder things," Mario said between puffs of air across his knuckles. "An' lemme tell ya, having gloves on does not help ease-a tha impact."

Twilight slowly released her breath in astonishment. "Well, there goes that plan," she muttered to herself.

Mario hopped up onto the cold stone floor of the entryway and called, "Come on! We gotta go an' get this ova' with! I'mma hungry!"

In seconds, the party had all filed into the temple. It was not as large as the temple in Oho Oasis, being possibly only one or two rooms, but it was taller, the ceiling reaching up multiple floors, and crumbling stone balconies were visible in the dimly lit shell of what could have once been a majestic piece of architecture. One half of the room was covered in ivy, moss, and other invasive plant life and the other half retained it's stone base. But there was something off about the entire setup.

"That's weird," Twilight said as she bent down to study the temple floor for anything of interest.

Applejack, Mario, and Fluttershy walked over to her. "What is?" Applejack questioned her.

"Look the vine formations on the floor and walls," Twilight said. "Notice how they just kind of stop at the halfway point of the temple? And yes, I know it's the halfway point. Believe me, I measured it already."

"Well, I guess it makes sense," Fluttershy said softly. "The vines couldn't support growing any longer with no sunlight ever coming in here."

"No, but that's the thing. They just stop halfway through this room," Twilight said as she pointed to the ivy on the floor. The vines almost made a visible straight line separating one half of the temple hall from the other. "And they stop way to abruptly to be natural."

"Yeah, dis rickety ol' ruin's still got some nifty secrets to keep, see?"

Twilight looked up at her friends immediately next to her. "Did somepony say something?"

"Didn' sound like any-a us," Applejack said as she stood up, searching for the disembodied voice.

"Yeh...I did, see!?" the voice said again, this time clearly from a ruined balcony on the second floor. Everyone looked up to see a small figure surrounded in shadows. He seemed to be holding a sack over his shoulder. The mysterious thing proceeded to vault off the ledge and gracefully corckscrew-somersault over the party, landing at a shrine in the center of the temple. Mario took one look at him and stared at the intruder as if there were daggers coming out of his eyes.

"You," he seethed.

The thing standing in front of the party was definitely Beanish in race, a beret laid upon his head and he wore a striped shirt colored in purple and white. He also wore a bandit's mask with holes cut out for his beady yellow eyes.

The stranger looked down at Mario and paused in thought before saying, "Oi...I remember you. You's da sorry sack'a lip hair dat foiled my plans not once, not twice, but four, yeh, four times in a row!" he said in a New York Mafia-style accent.

"I got'ta name, ya know," Mario replied indignantly.

"Yeh, an' I do, too." He looked past Mario and at the ponies. "I'm guessin' these be-eautiful young ladies don't know, so allow me to introduce myself." The bandit spun around and bowed down after crossing his legs with extreme bravado and showmanship. "You's can call me Popple, da Brilliant Thief."

A cricket sung its song quietly somewhere outside.

"...Who?" Rainbow Dash said quizzically.

Popple got annoyed real fast with that remark as he jumped back up and started ranting, "Popple! Da thief dat flawlessly stole a replica'a Beanbean Castle from WooHoo Hooniversity, plundered Chateau de Chucklehuck an' imitated da late tightwad owner..."

"Not ver-eh well, mind-a you," Mario whispered to Rainbow Dash.

Popple carried on, unaware of Mario's revelation. "...gracefully conned da fashion designer Harhall inta handin' over millions, even goin' so far as to pull such a fast one on the Beanbean guards at da Beanbean castle itself, dat dey din't even suspect a thing had breached da castle 'til I was forty an' one quarter-inch miles away, see!"

"I think I did'eh hear about that in tha news," Mario commented. "He planned to get fifty miles away, but they'a caught him at forty-an'-a-half." Applejack and Rainbow Dash chuckled. And Popple lost it.

"Why, how dare ya!" Popple screamed. "Ya keep talkin' as if I'm da same pushover ya fought all dose years ago. Well, I got news fer ya, see? I'm a brand-spankin' new bandit; hard'a, bett'a, fast'a, an' a thousand times strong'a!"

Mario grinned cockily and tilted his cap forward before striking his signature fighting stance. Popple stared for a minute then smirked and motioned for Mario to bring it on, which he gladly obliged. Mario charged forward and issued a battle cry as he swung his fist at the Beanish bandit. Popple casually caught Mario's fist and swung his sack of stolen treasures he always had handy in hammerspace. It hit Mario square in the jaw and he stumbled back a few steps, trying to block out the pain.

"What...what in tha world do you-a have in there?" Mario panted.

Popple smiled maliciously and reached into the sack. He pulled out some kind of glowing orb. It seemed to be made of glass and sparks of green and tan ethereal energy were jumping from the center to the inside surface and back to the center again. "You chumps wouldn't believe da crap I found lyin' around in da back room'a dis here temple, see? I been scourin' da crypt alone fer hours."

"Wait, if you've been here for hours, then how come we didn't see you before now?" Twilight asked.

"I took da back door, see?"

"Ah don' think there's a back door in here..." Applejack muttered.

Popple looked at her with surprise, but it slowly turned into a devious smile as he pulled out a Bob-omb. "Dere is now," he said. Without warning, he chucked the Bob-omb straight at the party. Everyone's eyes widened as they saw the small sphere of death approaching, but thankfully, Twilight was on top of her game and used her magical telekinesis to stop the bomb and send it hurdling straight back at Popple.

The Bob-omb hit Popple in the chest and it flashed red and exploded a second later, sending him careening backward and into the solid stone wall. He gasped on impact and shook his head to get his vision in order. It was a terrifying sight to see Mario charging straight at him, screaming his lungs out. Mario jumped up and brought his fist down hard into Popple's chest, which made and audible cracking sound. Twilight winced, hoping, for once, that Mario had punched Popple so hard the wall behind him had fractured and it wasn't his ribs buckling under Mario's fist instead.

Mario vaulted backward and made a ten-point landing a few feet away, a few feet in front of the girls. Popple fell forward limply and faceplanted into the ground, gasping air down to keep himself from vomiting. He staggered up to his feet and choked, "Damn. Yer tougher than last time, too, lip-hair. An' ya got help from a posse. Dat ain't very fair now, in'nit?"

"Say-a tha guy who had Bowser's help once," Mario commented, breathing heavily.

"Bah! Rookie was a chump, an' ya know it," Popple shot back. He stopped gasping and a wicked smile formed on his lips again. "I'm thinkin' we gotta even da playin' field." He then drew out his sack and whipped out the orb again, holding it up over his head dramatically. He gripped it tightly and yelled, causing the sparks inside to fly out and wind and twist their way around his body before they grew thicker and brighter and enveloped him in tan and green light. When the blinding lights died down again and the group removed their hands from across their eyes, they saw Popple was slightly taller than before, as well has having lost his beret to reveal an unsurprisingly bald green head with a few oval lumps on top to signify his hair. The biggest difference was that he now had glowing orbs of green and brown circling him, as well as having heterochromia of the same colors. He grinned maliciously again.

"How's about round two?"

Author's Note

Oh. My God. I sincerely apologize it's taken me this freaking long to get one chapter up, and considering this is my most popular story, that's a real turn-off to most people.

But here it is. I doubt it will have been worth the wait, but I aim to make that up to you, my dear readers, in the next couple chapters. Thank you for your patience.