This compilation of the Innortal-style Infinite Loops is dedicated to Satoru Iwata. Rest in peace, Iwata-san, and please understand if we shed tears.

"On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer."

Satoru Iwata
6 December 1959 - 11 July 2015

1.0

"This meeting will hereby come to order!" Zeus pontificated to the crowd of Greek Gods and Goddesses. Most of them were bored out of their skulls. It had taken Zeus an entire hour just to get to this point.

"Now, since Morpheus has managed to activate the DC Loop, we now have the capacity to activate more Loops and begin restabilizing our great home of Olympus!" he blustered.

"Didn't those Norse guys win the last election? I thought we were calling the place Yggdrasil for now?" Ares said in a bored tone, too distracted by sitting next to Aphrodite. Zeus glared at him for a second, before proceeding to ignore him.

"As such, we must begin by handing out assignments!" With that, an evil grin grew on his face. "Hephaestus, you get this lovely Loop known as the Megaverse. It has some problems, but I know you can fix it." Everybody there (except Aphrodite and Ares) read between the lines. This assignment was going to be painful.

"Knew I'd get in trouble," Hephaestus sighed.

And that was basically how the meeting went. Zeus foisted off Loops onto the members of the Greek Pantheon. But as he got to the next one in line, he surprisingly softened.

"Hecate, I'm giving you the so-called 'Nintendo Cluster'. This is a rather large set of Loops. Do you think you can handle it?" he asked.

"Of course! Leave it to me!" Hecate grinned. So many Loops meant an opportunity for her! Sure, the sheer number would be daunting, but all the more reason to pull this off! She'd show everyone just what a great job she'd do!

Later, Hecate was not in so good a mood. "So why I can't just Administrate all of them?" she asked the goddess and bunny in front of her.

Yuetu, Rabbit of the Moon and unimpressed by her glare, repeated himself for the umpteenth time. "Because there's seriously way too many Loops in the cluster for one person to deal with. Some of those are really big branches, too. That's why," he said in a bored tone.

Epona, Celtic Goddess of horses, rolled her eyes at his bluntness, but forged onwards. "Also, do you want to be as overworked as Odin and Hephaestus?" she pointed out.

Hecate grimaced at this reminder of the workload the Admins were being forced to deal with. Not only did Hephaestus have the severely buggy Megaverse to deal with, he also had a handful of normal Loops to look over. And Odin had taken on the task of managing the mind-bogglingly huge Final Fantasy branch, as well as the moderately large Digimon branch.

"Fine..." she muttered.

Yuetu sighed. "Look, I get why you want to do all of them. But still, you take all of them, you'll crash and burn. Then where would they be?" he pointed out.

"Alright, I get your point," Hecate sighed in defeat.

"Fine. Now, if you don't mind, I have a couple of Loops to look after," Yuetu said, the Pokémon and Sailor Moon admin hopping away.

"And I should go before that supervisor of mine does something dumb again. Good luck," Epona said kindly, before rushing off to prevent Susanoo from doing anything to the Zelda Loops.

Hecate glowered for a bit, before brightening up. Two Loops out of the many she still had wasn't that bad. They weren't going to take any more, right? Yeah! Time to get to work. And she'd start with that Italian man in the land of mushrooms!

1.1 (Zerorock41 & calvinball)

"What in the..."

Mario was confused at the sudden change in scenery. He had long since realized that time had been repeating, but he had never recalled being in what looked like a London train station before.

Suddenly, a small mousy-looking girl, who was followed by a red-head, walked up to him and kissed him. Mario was not that averse to quick kisses by girls, but he couldn't remember the last time he had a full-on, tongue included, make-out session.

"Ha, pay up Ron," said the girl to the redhead, who begrudgingly pulled a strange looking device from nowhere. The girl gladly took it and it disappeared in seconds.

Just as the two began walking away, Mario called out for them. The red-head spoke.

"Sorry. We're eternal time-repeaters who had to settle a bet."

Mario's eyes widened. "Wait, you two are repeating time too?"

The two children stopped walking and turned around. The girl asked, "Wait, what do you mean 'too'... Wait a minute. You're Mario!"

"That's-a me. Now, could one of you two explain-a to me what in-a the heck is going on?"

It was a long explanation that took the majority of the train ride they spent in a compartment, but by the end of it Ron and Hermione (they had, by now, gotten introductions out of the way) had explained the situation fairly thoroughly. It was all rather complicated (a tree that was also a computer that was also the multiverse that was also broken?), but Mario had dealt with some rather strange things in the past, so he decided to trust the two kids for now. Goodness knew that it was better than any other explanations he didn't have.

"So you say that-a something has-a broken the universe itself-a?" Mario asked, just to clarify.

"Multiverse, but yes," Ron said with a shrug. "I was starting to think we'd never get the chance to tell someone else ourselves."

"You mean there are-a more of you?!" Mario asked, a little alarmed. While he had certainly understood the part about the multiverse, it was still a bit much to take in. And to think that in some universes he was fictional... Well, he'd been a painting once, actually. A video game wouldn't be so bad, really.

"Yeah. At least a handful," Hermione explained. "Who was there again? Ranma..." She seemed to think for a moment, then shrugged. "You'll meet them all eventually. Harry knows them much better. He's been through more Fused Loops than we have. You can ask him later. Right now, I think he's probably busy settling some of our other bets. Would explain why we haven't seen him."

"Fused Loops... that's what is-a going on-a right now?" Mario asked.

"Sort of," Hermione said. "Some would say you're a Visiting Looper instead. It's not terribly important, but it does help make everything more clear.

"Alright then," Mario said, nodding. "Well, I know what I-a have to do-a!" He stood up and pulled his cap down more firmly on his head (despite the wizard robes and being eleven years old, he still had it) and clenched a fist. "Point me in-a the direction of what's-a done this, and Mario will-a put a stop to it and-a fix everything!"

"Wait, what?!" Hermione and Ron almost said the words in unison. Ron continued. "Mario Jumpman Mario, you are in no position to try and 'fix everything.' Did all that talk of the multiverse not make it obvious that this is all a lot bigger than any of us?"

"No one even knows why Yggdrasil broke!" Hermione added. "There's no one who could point you in the right direction!"

"Besides, even if you did find whatever thing that might've caused this, what would you do?" Ron asked. "Actually, what could you do?"

"I could-a stomp on it-a," Mario suggested. "That has always-a worked in the past for-a me."

"Stomp on it?" Hermione asked, visibly incredulous.

"My hammer could also use the exercise," Mario added.

"A hammer?" Ron parroted.

"Or, if I get lucky enough to find a few Starmen -"

"Mario, stop." Despite being physically no more than eleven, Mario could see an older wisdom in Hermione's eyes as she cut him off, her tone of voice final and unyielding. "No one knows what damaged Yggdrasil, and whatever it was it exists on a higher plane of existence than we do. A stomp, hammer, or even a Starmen will be nothing in comparison. That's if you can even get there." Hermione shook her head, and suddenly Mario felt like a foolish child. "If it exists on a higher plane of reality, how do you expect to reach it? How are you ever going to be able to do anything about it?"

"I..." Mario was at a loss for words. Not all that rare, really, he preferred not to speak if he didn't have to, but still. "...I don't-a know."

The train compartment grew quite still save for the rumble of the train. Hermione dropped her stern expression, and her and Ron's visages seemed to reflect what Mario felt.

Powerlessness.

"We don't either, Mario," Ron said, quiet.

Rather than face his fellow "Loopers," Mario turned his gaze towards the compartment's window. Outside, the English countryside seemed to fly by. He'd never been to England before. Brooklyn, sure, but never across the sea. With a grimace, Mario realized that he couldn't actually remember if Brooklyn was truly part of his past, or if perhaps it was a part of an experience like the one he was having right now: awakening in another universe. Already he was losing his mind and his grip on the past, and if what Ron and Hermione said was true, this experience was nowhere near its conclusion.

"GWAHAHAHAHAH!" Before Mario could quite settle into sulking, though, the side of the train burst open, and Mario leapt back to try and keep away from the gaping hole in the locomotive.

"This doesn't normally happen!" Ron declared, and Mario had a feeling that what he was saying was fairly self-evident for him and Hermione. For him, though, it was all too familiar.

"Ah, Mario! How good to see you!" Clasping onto the train's outside through sheer brute force and peering into the now open compartment was Bowser, Mario's old nemesis. "I was worried I wouldn't get to show you my glorious return from death. You seem unsurprised."

"Death...?" Mario was unable to hold back the question. Bowser had never died to his memory. Or had he? His memories were a tricky thing, these days.

"Yes, death, Mario! I have conquered it!" Fortunately for appearance's sake, Bowser seemed to misinterpret Mario's confusion. "It's a state secret, though, and I'll take it to my... GWAHAHA, grave, GRAHAHAH!"

"Mario!" Another voice that Mario felt was all too familiar cut through the air, and Mario felt himself tense up and panic.

"Peach!" Mario cried out and searched for her - there! Clutched in Bowser's free hand was a young Peach, wearing a wizard's robe and a pink witch's hat. Was she a student at this Hogwarts, too?

"I'm going to need your little friend here, Mario," Bowser said with a conniving grin. "Has to do with my own medical condition, really. 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away,' but if I'm right, Peaches stop the Reaper! So long, Mario! GWAHAHAHAHAHAH!" And with those final words, Bowser leapt into the sky. Mario followed his path with his eyes, only to see the Koopa King reach a Clown Car hovering in the air and fly away.

Ron and Hermione, in the meantime, had fallen silent. Hermione's expression looked incredulous, but Ron seemed to only barely be keeping laughter at bay.

"Mario," Ron squeaked out, grinning from ear to ear. "Check your Loop Memories."

"My Loop Memor - oh, those-a!" Mario recalled what Ron and Hermione had said while telling him about the Loops. Something about getting cue memories from his Unawake self...

"My name is-a Mario Jumpman Potter?!" Mario cried out, astonished. "Does this-a mean that -"

"Harry would seem to be elsewhere for now," Hermione confirmed. "And that overgrown lizard is the dreaded wizard... Bowsermort." Hermione seemed to have difficulty forcing herself to say the name. Mario had to admit, the names sounded rather absurd put together.

"Mario!" Yet another familiar voice reached Mario's ears, and he smiled as he ran to the compartment door and opened it.

"Luigi!" he said as he enveloped his brother in a hug. He was somewhat concerned that Luigi wouldn't be here, since he was replacing the "Harry Potter" Ron and Hermione had mentioned. However, it seemed that in this particular Loop they were, together, the "Boys who Lived." Eventually, they broke the hug, and Mario could see that the now-young Luigi was terrified.

"Mario, thank-a goodness!" Luigi said. "I didn't-a know where you'd-a gone, and then-a Bowsermort -" Ron snickered. Mario ignored him. "- somehow broke into the train and-a kidnapped Peach Toadstool!"

"We have to do-a something, bro!" Mario said without hesitation, feeling himself prepare to fight his old nemesis, even in a new world.

"Mario," Ron said, interrupting his train of thought. "You don't have to go after him. I mean, you're a kid right now, what can you do?"

"But I-a have to go and-a stop him!" Mario said, insistent. "If I-a don't-a, who will?"

"No one really needs to, Mario," Hermione said with a shrug. "She'll be fine by the end of the Loop, won't she?"

Mario stopped for a moment. They... had a sort of point there. It was impossible for her to come to harm, because at some point everything would reset back to before anything bad had happened. If he fought Bowser, would anything really change...?

"Mario? What are-a they talking about-a?" Luigi asked. "I-a don't understand it-a, but all I-a know is that Peach-a needs our help-a right now!"

Mario didn't hesitate any longer.

"Maybe it won't-a change what happens in the future," Mario said, not to anyone in particular. "But I know what I-a need to do to change things at least right-a now."

With that, he and Luigi jumped into action.

Even as eleven year old kids in England, they still had what it took.

1.2

Hecate leaned back in her chair, a satisfied smirk on her lips. There. That wasn't so hard, now was it? She could do this, no problem! Just then, the door to her office opened, and a certain Greek Pantheon Head poked his head in through the door.

"Well, you've certainly been busy. I see you've activated your first Loop," he commented.

"Of course! It's not that complicated!" Hecate declared loftily.

"Good, good. Incidentally, did you know that you were the first person to activate a new Loop over the whole of...ugh, Yggdrasil after Morpheus did his thing?" Zeus slyly commented.

Hecate blinked in confusion. "I did?" she said in surprise.

"Yes! That just proves to show that electing that one-handed idiot in charge was a mistake. Well, I'd better leave you to your work. Take care," Zeus said, before leaving. No doubt, to rub it in that it was a Greek God who had started the first of the new era of Loops.

Hecate blinked some more for a few moments, before an arrogant smirk crossed her face. Ha! This was too easy! Still, better get on task. There was still a lot more to do. With nary a thought, she split into three aspects, and all three of them started looking through for the next Loop in the Cluster to activate. That gorilla seemed to be the best option, as no matter what the variant, the Italian's Loop crossed with it...

1.3 (crossoverpairinglover with edits by myself)

98

Jumping into the air, Mario felt the satisfying bounce only landing on a Goomba could give you, causing a coin to fly out and into his hand.

99

Running at maximum speed, Mario jumped the gap. Avoiding the bottomless chasm below, he flew through the air and managed to grab the airborne coin.

100

With the hundredth coin in hand, Mario skipped to a stop, as time itself froze. The Goomba that was just about to race at him lay fixed, as all around him obtained a darker tinge.

A shadowy figure then descended from above, a dark being cloaked in a black hood. A scythe lay in one hand, and a money bag in the other.

Death himself landed before Mario and held his bag out. Mario proceed to hand over all 100 of his coins.

"That bought you your 5th redo," Death informed him. "Pleasure doing business with you. Please collect 100 more coins for further life."

Death proceeded to float back into the air and out of sight, as the darkness lifted and time resumed. The Goomba charged at him, but he idly jumped over it and landed right back on it.

'I don't think I'll ever get used to how 1-UPs work in this, uh, Variant,' Mario thought to himself, scratching the back of his head.

1.4

Luigi grinned in triumph. He'd finally conquered his fear of ghosts by defeating King Boo and rescuing Mario for the second time. Now he even had a little ghost puppy to look after, and Mario had called him number one. Everything was looking Luigi-

Then everything shifted, and Luigi found himself standing in the middle of a grassy field, surrounded by Koopas.

"Huh?" He had only a few seconds to react, before that horde of Koopas fell on him.

Luigi fought as hard as he could. But he was disorientated, and felt weak. He got smacked all over the place, culminating in a Koopa shell to the head that knocked him clean across the field.

Dazed, Luigi could only wonder what was going on.

"Wa-hoo!" A familiar voice rang out, and a blur of red jumped over Luigi, batting away the Koopa horde. Rubbing his head, Luigi got off the ground just in time to see Mario punt the last Koopa into the sky with his hammer.

"Mario?" he asked.

Mario turned around, and gave him a grin. "Luigi!"

Luigi knew his brother well. Something was different about Mario than he remembered. But he could tell; it was Mario. The two brothers looked at each other for a while. No words needed to be said between them. No matter what had just happened, Luigi would always follow his brother to the ends of the earth.

"Let's-a go!" Mario declared.

"Okey-dokey!" Luigi nodded.

1.5 (Lord Circe)

Wario chuckled as he hoisted his sack. It wasn't often that he broke into a place with a sack full of stuff, but the things he was carrying weren't anything he considered treasure. However, if that weird book he found in Mario's house was correct, they might just be a ticket to getting some real treasure, though.

He snuck quietly through the dark castle, dodging patrolling guards, and jumping a few pit traps, until he came to the royal bedroom. He carefully snuck into the room and crept over to the bed.

"WAWAWAWAWAWA!"

"ARGH!" With a loud shout, Bowser jumped out of his bed, eyes wild, at the unexpected laughter. He only had a moment to recognize Mario's crazy cousin, before Wario pulled open the large sack he was carrying and dumped a mountain of green vegetables all over Bowser, burying him up to his neck.

"WAWAWA! I brought you cucumbers, now you-a give me a fortune!"

Bowser stared blankly, at a moment, before growling, smoke pouring out of his mouth and nostrils. "I'M A KOOPA, NOT A KAPPA! I DON'T EVEN LIKE CUCUMBERS!"

Mario chuckled as he watched a burst of flame shoot out of Bowser's window, chasing after the fleeing form of Wario. "Who-a knew? Pranking is fun, especially when you can-a get two at once."

1.6 (ThanosCradik)

Princess Peach Toadstool immediately noticed something was off when she saw that she was much younger than yesterday. Looking at a calendar revealed that she was in the past, so she could write off some sort of 'fountain of youth' shenanigans. There was something about today's date that she was trying to remember as she had some tea in the castle garden when the castle shuddered.

"That's right! Today is the day that Bowser first kidnapped me!" As an adult anyway.

She turned and noticed a few Koopa Troopas already surrounding her, having snuck up on her as she was talking to herself.

"Oh."

One Troopa came up and said, "Come with us, Princess, and we won't resort to the hard way."

After thinking for a moment, Peach threw her teacup at the Troopa's face, immediately taking off toward the castle's main halls as he recoiled. The shocked Koopas stood there for a bit until the lead Troopa yelled out, "Get her!"

As she ran down the halls, Peach realized that her younger self wasn't quite as fit as her future self was, so she would need to finish this quick. Turning around, she decided to make a stand right there.

As the first Koopa made a dive for her, she jumped out of the way and fell down on its shell, causing the turtle to shoot out backwards knocking into some of the other Koopas. She then kicked the shell down the narrow hall, beating all the Koopas in a row. Nodding to herself, she continued her way down the hall until she made it to the main hall, where more Koopas were waiting.

Before anyone could say or do anything, one of the windows broke as a familiar red & blue plumber crashed through it. Mario landed on one of the Koopas, and continued to jump on all of their heads as Peach smiled to herself.

"Leave it to Mario to come and save the day."

After the Koopas retreated, Peach turned to Mario and asked, "How did you make it through the window?"

"Erm… I-a wanted to try-a something new this-a time, so we-a used a catapult." Mario hadn't realized his slip, but Peach did.

"'This time'? Did you go back into the past as well?"

Shocked, Mario asked her, "Are you-a Looping as well?"

"I… suppose so. Could you explain that to me?"

And so, Mario told her about Yggdrasil and how the multiverse was broken and was restarting time periodically. As she listened, she came to the conclusion that it would be alright with Mario at her side.

1.7

Donkey Kong was enraged. He and Diddy had gotten those stupid Tikis off of DK Island, and he had decided to take a well-deserved rest. And of course, while he was asleep, K. Rool had decided to attack and steal his Banana Hoard again!

The only puzzling thing was that he had somehow also managed to catch Diddy again. Diddy had gotten plenty of experience with the Kremlings over the years, so there was no way he could have been kidnapped again. The only reason the Tikis had was because they hypnotized him. Strange...

It was at that point that DK found the Barrel that Diddy had been stuffed into. Funnily enough, it looked like it was the place he had first found it, back when K. Rool had first attacked the Island. DK then busted it open, causing Diddy to tumble out of it.

"You all right, little buddy?" he asked his close friend (But why did some of his memories say that Diddy was his nephew though?).

"I'm fine, Donkey Kong! But those nasty Kremlings stole the Banana Hoard!" Diddy reported.

"I know, little buddy, and we're going to put a stop to them! Whip out your jetpack, and let's go!" DK declared.

"Yeah! ...Say, Donkey Kong, what's a jetpack?" Diddy questioned.

"...Huh?" Donkey Kong was confused. Why didn't Diddy know what a jetpack is? DK may have been a simple ape, but even he could tell that something weird was going on.

DK's suspicions were confirmed as they traversed DK Island in an attempt to get back the Banana Hoard, and culminated when he saw the Gangplank Galleon, no longer the wreck that it used to be. Somehow, he'd gone back in time to K. Rool's first attack on the Island.

The only question is, why was he the only one who remembered? The only person who'd attempt to turn back time was K. Rool, but he didn't know anything about it when DK clobbered him all over again.

Suddenly, DK heard a familiar sound. He turned, spotting a Warp Pipe rising from the ground, and a familiar figure leaping out.

What was Mario doing here? DK didn't actually meet him until the first Mario Kart tournament (Although why did some of his memories say that he had tried to save Cranky from Mario back when Cranky was Donkey Kong?), so...

"Hey-a, DK. How've you-a been?" Mario greeted.

"Uh...fine. Hey, you wouldn't happen to know what's going on, would you, Mario?" Donkey Kong questioned.

"What about?" Mario asked, confused, before a thought struck him. "Oh! I-a know! Did you-a go back in-a time, DK?"

The King of Swing's eyes widened. How did Mario know about that? Mario chuckled, before saying, "This'll take some-a time. I'm-a still not sure about what's-a going on. But this is-a what Mario knows..."

1.8 (crossoverpairinglover with edits by myself)

A red flower lay before the great and legendary ape as Cranky eyed it uneasily.

"A Fire Flower? Those don't normally grow here, do they? Well, back in my day they didn't. Now, I suppose even you can figure out how to use the thing if that darn plumber can..."

Donkey Kong, the legendary ape of Nintendo, looked at it questioningly. He'd never used one of these before. 'How does Mario normally use them anyway?' he thought to himself. ...Well, it was a flower. Maybe…

He ate the flower, then steam started emitting from his ears. Yowling in pain, he began running around, fire bursting from his mouth as if he had eaten some really spicy curry.

Cranky shook his head in exasperation. Why on earth did his idiot grandson just eat a Fire Flower?

1.9 (Awesomedude17)

This was the last straw.

This loop, King K. Rool had not just stolen his banana hoard, but had made it into a variety of banana based food from banana bread to banana pudding to banana cream pie to plantains.

Regardless, Donkey Kong punched through the door leading to Rool's throne room.

"Ah, Donkey Kong! Are you here for the-"

Donkey Kong punched King K. Rool so hard, the crocodile flew into space.

Then he turned to see that his own banana hoard was intact, with Donkey Kong's family standing near it with shocked faces.

And the banner proudly proclaiming 'Happy birthday, DK!' clearly made it all too clear what happened.

"Oops."

1.10 (ThanosCradik)

Blinking as everything came into focus again, Diddy was once again back in the past. The first time it had happened he tripped and ended up landing on his head, and then a Kremling got him and… he shuddered as he remembered.

This time he seemed to be stuck in a barrel again, and he had no intentions of staying in it.

By the time he noticed that he was missing his gear, the barrel suddenly lurched and crashed over a rock. He instantly knew what had caused it when he heard a very familiar voice say, "Oops."

"Ouch. Can we not do that again?"

"Heh, yeah. Sorry about that, little buddy." Picking the monkey up off the ground, Donkey Kong continued, "You ready to kick these Kremlings off the island?"

"You bet, but… have you seen my things? I don't have them anymo-" Whatever else he was going to say was lost as D.K. swept him up in a one-armed hug, spinning him around.

"Whoo Hoo! You're Looping now!"

"Whoa whoa whoa, what are you talking about!? And put me down before you let go again!"

After he was let back down, Diddy was told about the Loops. That had blown his mind a bit. Trying to imagine time repeating for such a long time already, and then continuing to do so for even longer was almost too much. But, his big buddy would have to go through that even longer than he would. So, mustering his bluster, he turned to D.K. and said, "What are we waiting for?! We've got some Kremling tail to kick off our island!" He wasn't going to let him be lonely so long as he could help it.

Donkey Kong chuckled, seeing what Diddy was trying to do. Reaching into his Subspace Pocket, he pulled out somethings. "I think you'll be needing these, then."

When he saw his Popguns and Rocketbarrel, Diddy let out a cheer. "Whoa! How did you do that?!"

"I'll teach you how to do that yourself, but I'll hang on to these until then. You ready, little buddy?"

Twirling his popguns, Diddy replied, "Ready, big buddy!"

And not a single Kremling tail remained unkicked.

1.11 (Lord Circe)

"Hey-a Mario! You have a letter from Princess Peach!"

Mario groaned softly to himself. "Again? I just rescued her yesterday from the whole crazy deal with Bowser Jr. posing as me." Louder, he called back to Luigi. "What does it say?"

"Um, let me check. Uh-huh. Looks like she is inviting you to a party."

Mario rubbed his face. "Just a party. No Festival of Stars or Celebration of Mothra's Defeat?"

"Who?" His Unawake brother called back.

"Nevermind. Well, I guess we better get ready and go to that party."

Mario smiled at one of the Toads as he accepted a glass of something bubbly that was being handed out. He sniffed experimentally, but couldn't smell anything obviously magical or transformative. Taking a sip, he took a moment to enjoy the fruity flavor, then took his time to glance around.

Peach was up on the dais, talking to a few dignitaries from some neighboring kingdoms (none of whom had captured Peach before, to his memory). Several Toads and other Mushroom kingdom guests were milling about, with a three-dimensional Madam Flurrie floating off to the side, singing some low jazzy tune, accompanied by the band.

Discretely, Mario slid up to each of the windows and scanned the sky for signs of Bowser's airship. Nothing to the east or west. He would have to take the time to slip out and head up to one of the towers to do a full panoramic search. He had slid down to the dungeon earlier, but other than a couple of Goomba playing poker, he hadn't found anything particularly alarming, not even a few Boo looking for a few cheap scares.

All in all, it seemed like a perfectly nice party. Which was making Mario just a bit paranoid about where the inevitable attack was going to come from. Maybe a temporal attack? He'd need to see about scanning for any disruptions in the palace later. Maybe he should check out the dignitaries rooms, see if there was anything incriminating laying around...

"AHHHH. That's the stuff." Bowser slid down, sinking into the boiling hot water of the Lava Lotus Hot Spring Resorts signature hot springs. Flexing his claws, Bowser stretched out, before crossing them behind his head. "Yeah, relaxation time."

"Honestly! Lazing about here, when you have the perfect opening to grab Princess Peach. She's hosting her little gala, and you're here, doing nothing at all!" Bowser winced as Kamek's grating voice cut across his calm. He cracked his eyes open to glare up at floating wizard, hovering over the water on his broomstick.

"I've been trying to get reservations here for months. This is the only place around that keeps the water hot enough for me to actually feel, plus their Shell Scrubber Massage really gets rid of the knots I build up fighting that pesky plumber. Though, now that I think about it, I don't know if he even is a plumber. I mean, he's got the outfit, but..."

"THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT!" Kamek screeched. "You wouldn't have knots if you were actually competent and won for once!"

Bowser glared at Kamek for a moment, debating the merits of trying ignite the broomstick with a good fireball, before smirking and leaning back, letting his eyes slide shut. "Yeah, yeah. Hey, ya know this place just got the E. Gadd Massage-O-Matic installed? Supposed to make anyone feel divine..."

Bowser trailed off at the fwooping sound of Kamek's teleport, followed by a few distant explosions as Kamek made a "reservation" to use the device. Bowser chuckled lightly to himself and slid deeper into the water. It was good to relax once in a while.

One person in a Loop, often the main character, is an Anchor. They are the person who first starts time looping.

There is always at least one Anchor present in a given Time Loop snippet, though it may not be the local one, and they may not always be a part of the snippet itself.

The standard pattern for a loop is that the Anchor (and whoever else is Looping there) come to awareness in a loop at a particular point in the story. From there, events will play out as influenced by the Loopers present, acting with the benefit of their foreknowledge, until either a predetermined end point is reached or all the Loopers have copped it.

To be Awake is to be aware of the time loops (that is, to have gone back in time this time.)

The Anchor is the only character guaranteed to be Awake. Even after others have started looping, it is mostly random as to whether they will be Awake this particular loop.

Crossovers, fusions, and alternate pasts can also take place. It is perfectly possible, for example, to have the characters Awaken into a loop which conforms to a fanfic universe rather than reality.

Loops do not have to be in chronological order, but it is strongly preferred that they not require a mutually contradictory order (where A must be before B and B must be before A.)

Just about every Looper is very, very stir crazy.

The Loops covered in this story are the ones for every single Nintendo Franchise, except for Pokémon (which I also run), and Zelda (which is run by Lord Circe).

1.0 - Let's be honest, the sheer amount of stuff Nintendo has made over the years is kind of daunting.

1.1 - Mario gets the Multiverse Speech from Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

I like to think that his comments were a bit of a kick in the pants for (most of) the Loopers of the Original Seven Loops, and got them out of their Innortal-era mindset and closer back to their canon personalities.

1.2 - When the Loops first started, there were only seven: Ranma One-Half, Naruto, Harry Potter, Evangelion, Sailor Moon, Slayers, and Bleach. Don't think too hard about why most of them are Anime (It's Innortal's fault). Later, Morpheus and Thor were able to activate the DC and Marvel Comics Loops, letting the rest of the multiverse Loop. Mario led the charge as the tenth Loop to go active.

1.3 - Apparently crossoverpairinglover's head-canon on how extra lives work. Just how did Mario make a deal with Death in the first place?

1.4 - Luigi's First Loop. Sibling bonds can't be tarnished by such small things like Time Loops.

1.5 - Oh dear. If Mario is pranking people, we're all doomed.

1.6 - Peach's First Loop. People seem to forget that Peach is perfectly capable of kicking butts.

1.7 - He's the leader of the bunch, you know him well! He's finally back to kick some tail! Donkey Kong's Loop goes active.

How did Mario appear during the first one? You're looking at one of the first examples of a Tandem Run, where two Loops intersect in baseline. DK's confused memories are because until recently, we weren't sure if he was Donkey Kong Jr. or Donkey Kong III (Thanks a lot, Rare...).

1.8 - OCP: Outside Context Power-Up.

1.9 - Brawl in the Family comic strips are basically typical Looping shenanigans.

1.10 - He can fly real high with his jetpack on! But Kremlings beware 'cause he's after you! Diddy's First, well, Second Loop.

1.11 - Even villains have to relax. But I'm surprised Bowser didn't try to go after Peach anyway. Hm...I wonder what that could mean?