The Forgotten Chronicles of Dysfunctional X-Nauts - A Paper Mario Story

Of Course I'm Not Lonely

"Hey, Lin! I'm going on break! Can you come over and grab this little guy?"

She looked down at the young child that was clinging to her. He cried out in the manner that many two-year-olds do - frustrated, screaming, and unable to articulate his thoughts in any sort of productive way whatsoever.

"Addddeeeeellllllllllleeeee, deeeeeeeeeeeeeellll! Noooooooooooooooo!" he screeched, his lower half draped across the floor. She was tempted to stay and continue playing with him, but they'd already been at it for quite a while. Her lunch break was supposed to start long ago.

"Ooooh, come here. She'll be back, it's okay... shhhhh..." Thankfully, one of the other ladies working in the nursery came to the rescue. The young worker scooped him up off the floor and held him in her arms. "Why don't you come back over here and play with the others? You're gonna be fine, shhhhhh, shhhhh..."

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, the X-Naut named Adele slipped out into the hallway. She had one more task to complete before she could relax. She made her way along the curved walkway, stopping to peek into one of the rooms along the way. The kids inside had lit up the floor panels in a specific pattern and were watching intently as a bag was tossed into one of the squares. Hop, skip, jump - one of the children made his way along the spaces as he approached the object.

One kid in particular looked up as she waved from the entrance. Acting disinterested, he gave a small wave back and then refocused on the game that was taking place in front of him. ...Really, that was typical for a child of his age. Too cool to come over and say a proper hello to his big sis. Regardless, that was good enough for her. She continued down the hall towards her real objective.

The electronic doors to the hatchery slid open before her.

Calling it the "hatchery" seemed a bit misleading, but the whole dome was referred to as the "nursery" so she'd heard nobody could really agree on what else to call it. Calling it the "baby room" wouldn't have worked either - after all, she just came from that room. ...She guessed it could be sort of said that they were hatching? There were eggs involved, but they didn't really hatch in the traditional sense. Rather, the beings in these tanks would grow until they were of a suitable age to survive in the outside world, then would be released, sterilized, and moved to the baby room where they would be socialized. They would then move up through the ranks of rooms, until eventually they'd begin their training and enter adult society.

She looked over the female tank first. Since there was only one, it was a quick task. The male tanks took a bit more time. She was happy to see that all fifteen were in stable condition. She focused extra attention on one in particular - that one contained one of her own eggs, after all. She'd yet to think of a perfect name for him.

Her task completed, she exited out into the hallway once more and made her way towards the locker room. She found her locker and pulled it open - inside were her treasures, including items like star charts, a cute drawing of her from Jack's toddler days, and a few books filled with fairy tales and old legends. She picked her favorite anthology from the small collection and grabbed one of the nutrient bars that she had stashed away. All set.

The next order of business was to head to her favorite reading spot and get some R&R. Out into the lobby she went. As always, she was the only one here at this time. She chose a space facing the windowed wall and plopped down as she unwrapped a nutrient bar and shoved it into her mouth. ...It was as tasteless as always.

Reading in front of the window always helped set the mood. Tonight the sky was clear, and the stars twinkled with a heavenly glow. The shine of the icy landscape beneath the light of the heavens was bewitching.

Perfect!

And so, she set in on her story. She'd read it plenty of times before, but she still loved it every time. The illustrations were her favorite part. Though pages were ragged and fading, the images within could still be made out well enough. It wove a tale of a beautiful princess and her knight as they traveled throughout her verdant kingdom, solving the troubles of the locals and making plenty of friends along the way.