Hallo, fink-rats! Have you readiness for a new fanfic? I'd assume so, since you clicked on it and all. Well anyway, this is a nice little Fawful-centric story. It contains major spoilers for Superstar Saga, so if you haven't finished it and you don't want the ending given away, please don't read. It won't be my fault if you do. Neener neener.

Oh man though. Oho Jees are so hard to write dialogue for. Fawful is one thing, since his grammar is weird but he still makes sense. Oho Jees are just... ugh, I don't know. I think this will be the only chapter with them so that I won't have to mess with them any more xX;;

Rating may be subject to change. I'm going to try to keep this at the same level as the game, though, so I don't think it will go beyond K+ if the rating does change.

Chapter one: The chapter in where Cackletta is being no where to be found.

Fawful hit the water with a splash. He thrashed and swam and tried to stay afloat, but he sank like a thing weighted down by many heavy things. He watched the surface fall away from him as he continued to flounder around fruitlessly. A small school of fish scattered and separated as they passed by his fumbling form, and he suddenly remembered that he had various gadgets of a mechanical nature on his person that were probably weighing him down. Feeling stupid for not having realized this immediately, he set about pulling every last little machine out of all of the hidden pockets on his clothes. Meanwhile, he continued to sink and his lungs quickly ran out of oxygen. His chest hurt from holding his breath. By the time he fell down a hole into an underwater cave he felt as though his lungs might burst. He wished he could turn off his body's need to breathe. He pulled off one of his heavy shoes. It was taking every ounce of his being just holding back the instinct to breathe in. He ripped off the other shoe. Home free! He had achieved neutral buoyancy, and that was enough. He lifted his arms to swim back up, but his strained respiratory system got the best of him and, without thinking, he opened his mouth and took in a breath full of water. His eyes widened—what had he done!

He noticed that he felt better, rather than feeling like he was drowning.

He looked around. How, how… oh! Of course! The Mario brothers had done this as well; they had had their own underwater adventures. It seemed that some portions of the Oho Ocean's bottom had some strange form of water that was breathable to lung-bearing animals. What luck that he would fall into one of these places! He grinned, now full of calm and renewed fury, and swam back up.

He gasped and coughed upon breaching the surface. Suddenly breathing air into water-filled lungs was not pleasant. He coughed and hacked for a while before looking up at the sky at Bowletta's castle, flying high in the sky. He squinted in the bright sunlight, and saw some little dots flying out of the castle. He squinted more. The first was… Prince Peasley, maybe? And the other looked like Mario and Luigi hanging from Blahblanadon. He grinned more. The great Cackletta had them on the run! Any moment now, she'd fly out in pursuit and…

and…

And that's when the castle exploded.

His jaw dropped and he gaped on in horror, watching as bits of the castle flew out in every direction before falling to the ocean below.

He hadn't seen her fly out. Cackletta was still in there.

He screamed. "Cackletta! I am coming there for you!"

He swam as fast as his tiny limbs allowed, ignoring his own fatigue, and made his way to where the debris had fallen. The water was hot here and the air was choked with steam from the impact between the lava from the castle and the water of the ocean. Mangled hunks of wood, stone, and lighter metals floated on the waves, along with a huge amount of small, round, porous igneous rocks that had cooled and hardened in mid-air. He held onto a mass of wood to stay afloat while he rested. He looked around, but couldn't see anything in the searing mist.

"Cackletta!"

No answer but the crashing of waves and the hissing of lava on water.

"O great Cackletta! I who is Fawful am calling out so that you may know the direction in which you should have swimming!"

Still nothing.

"Your faithful apprentice would have much appreciation if you would say something to let him know you are being okay!"

He strained his ears. He couldn't hear her.

"Cackletta!" he screamed as loud as he could.

When no answer came, he dunked himself into the scalding water. He looked around, fighting the pain in his eyes caused by the hot salt water, but saw nothing but sinking debris. No sign of his mistress. He returned to the surface and climbed up on top of the wood pile

"Cackletta! I am fearing that you may have death! I am having hope that I may be full of much incorrectness! Please be calling out to Fawful!"

A seagull squawked. No other living thing made a sound.

Fawful swallowed a lump in his throat and sat down, finding himself suddenly speechless for the first time in his life. He pulled his knees to his chest.

Could it be that his mistress, the great and powerful Cackletta, greatest witch in the Beanbean Kingdom was… dead? Really and truly, in every sense of the word, dead?

He didn't want to give in to that possibility, but the idea wouldn't leave his head. He saw that explosion. And there was no way she would have let Mario and Luigi leave if she wasn't… no! What was he thinking? His mistress was alive in this searing sea somewhere, probably needing help, and here he was just letting himself think that she was already dead!

He jumped back into the water and swam from chunk of wreckage to chunk of wreckage, looking for Cackletta. He scoured the surface and, when that proved fruitless, he dove down to the seabed and searched the wreckage. Nothing, nothing, nothing! No trace of her at all!

Not even a body…

Eventually he found himself sitting on a mass of wood again with his head in his hands. She was gone. She was gone.

He felt so very alone. He'd never been without his mistress. She'd taken him in as her apprentice when he was barely out of diapers. She'd been there since before he could remember, always telling him what to do, where to go, what to steal. He'd never been like this before. He'd never been alone.

He didn't have her anymore. Who was going to order him around now? Who would come up with all the brilliant plans? Who would shoot lightning at him when he messed up?

Who would guide him now?

Something red and tattered floated up against his perch. He picked it up. It was none other than his cloak, the one he had thrown off before fighting those accursed brothers. He held it against his face, trying to give his skin a reprieve from the burning water vapors all around him. The water that was soaked into the fabric was just barely cooler than his surroundings.

He and his raft slowly floated away from the scene of the crash.

Night had fallen when he awoke from a fatigue-induced sleep. He had washed up onto shore. He climbed off of the debris, pulling his red cloak onto his shoulders, and looked around at where he had landed.

Oho Oasis.

He sighed. Of course he had to wash up here in the middle of nowhere.

Well, at least he didn't have to worry about Beanbean soldiers chasing him here.

He sat down in the sand, leaning on a palm tree. He watched a couple of red and blue Oho Jees walking about nearby as he tried to contemplate what he was supposed to do now.

"The sky is exploding today," an Oho Jee said, its voice distant and unintelligent.

"I am one starfish in the clouds," said another.

"Fish is the loneliest number," replied the first.

A third one strolled up. "Even when fish are gone I still eat."

Fawful blinked. Of course these idiots didn't make any sense, but for some reason this inane little exchange had clicked something in his mind. He stood up and walked back to the shore. He looked out to the ocean, then up at the sky.

"O great Cackletta!" he cried out to the heavens, "I am knowing what I must presently do now!"

He grinned, baring his teeth. "I will have the loyalty forever! Fawful will always be your toady! You may now be full of the deadly deceasedness, but I will be continuing to serve you despite your being gone and not around any more! I will continue to assemble the sandwich of your desires! I, Fawful, who is being your apprentice, will take the world and conquer it with evil and rage, all in your amazing name! I will be making you have pride!"

Birds awoke and flew off in terror and the island nearly shook with the force of Fawful's intensity as he cried out one last statement.

"I HAVE FURY!"