Chapter 1 Inception

Under Mario's lead, Brother Jue and Xiao Tan hurried through a large room resembling a warehouse. Along the way, a lit desk lamp appeared every so often. Looking up, they could see... many toys standing on the surrounding shelves as well. It seemed the Classic faction was quite strong; in a way, it could indeed be called an army.

When Feng Bujue opened the shoebox lid earlier, he thought the overhead was the pitch-black sky, but that wasn't the case. Directly above them was naturally the ceiling of the supermarket's first floor. It was just that... because he and Xiao Tan had both been shrunk to about seven centimeters in size, and the desk lamps shone diagonally downwards, they couldn't see the "distant" ceiling when they looked up; they could only see darkness.

Several minutes later, Mario brought them to a huge door. Of course, "huge" was only relative...

"Uh... are we going out?" Feng Bujue asked from behind Mario, "We can't squeeze through the crack in the door, and we can't exactly push it open..." Although he wasn't sure how strong the toys in this script were, he didn't think that this five-centimeter-tall Mario toy could push open a door meant for normal humans.

Xiao Tan then made another obviously unreliable guess: "Maybe there's a mouse hole nearby or something?"

"Looks like you two really aren't spies," Mario said, adjusting his hat. "Just a couple of clueless idiots." As he spoke, he walked up to the door crack and took out a pipe wrench from his overalls pocket, tapping the door panel three times, pausing for two seconds, then tapping it twice.

Then, Mario took a few steps back, as if waiting for something.

Before long, a strange black shadow slid over from the crack in the door.

This black shadow looked like a sticker; from the side, it was just a line, but from the front, it was a black stick figure with a large nose.

"Mr. Game & Watch?" Feng Bujue actually recognized this silhouette-style 2D character.

"Who are these two? New recruits?" Mr. Game & Watch ignored Feng Bujue and chatted with Mario in a casual tone.

"Optimus Prime ordered them to be the vanguard tonight," Mario replied.

"Ha..." Mr. Game & Watch chuckled drily. "Good luck to you." With that, he went back through the crack in the door.

About a minute later, there was some movement from above; it was the sound of the doorknob turning.

At the same time, they could faintly hear someone shouting from the other side of the door, "Rotation fixed, ready to push!"

"Back up, rookies," Mario immediately told the two players, gesturing for them to retreat.

Eee—

Accompanied by the sound of the door hinges slowly turning, the huge door panel slowly moved towards Brother Jue and the others.

Feng Bujue and Xiao Tan both tilted their heads and peered at the crack in the door, wondering what exactly was pushing the door from the other side. In their minds, it had to be a big, bulky toy at least fifty centimeters tall and weighing over three kilograms.

Unexpectedly, all that appeared before them was a plastic figure that wasn't even ten centimeters tall.

"Look at these two little guys," Bowser (the first video game villain with an independent image, Mario's nemesis) stopped pushing the door and stood there, saying, "With those little bodies, I could knock them over with a fart."

Feng Bujue didn't mind Bowser's crude words and simply asked, "How did you push this door?"

"Pushed it with my claws, gotta use the strength of your waist and legs," Bowser replied in his deep, passionate voice. "But you two better not try to imitate me."

"Alright, maybe you won't even see them after tonight," Mario replied to Bowser, then waved, signaling the players to follow.

Feng Bujue looked at Xiao Tan, shrugged, and the two continued to follow Mario through the door that Bowser had pushed open (actually, he only pushed it a few centimeters, but that gap was enough for them to pass through).

"Alright, from here on out, it's neutral territory," Mario explained to the two behind him. "Our sphere of influence is mainly in the southeast corner. We control the sports brands, kitchenware, and half of the food section." He pointed. "Tonight's battle will still take place in the frozen food section."

The players looked in the direction Mario was pointing, and the scenery in the distance... resembled dark canyons, with only vague, towering outlines visible; they had no idea what it would be like when they got closer.

"As you can see, we can't set up too many lighting fixtures in this larger area outside," Mario continued. "The night security guard patrols every three hours, and if we move too many lamps out here, we might not have time to turn them all off, which could cause big trouble. Therefore, battles are usually fought near the frozen food shelves, where there are lights on twenty-four hours a day." He suddenly turned back. "Do you two have any glowing parts on your bodies?"

Xiao Tan hesitated for a few seconds, then simply turned on the light on his miner's helmet.

Feng Bujue then took out his flashlight. "I have one too."

Mario walked over and took a closer look. "You actually have such sophisticated components..." He sized the two up with a suspicious look. "What's the power source? A wind-up spring? A pull ring? Or do you have lithium batteries hidden in your bellies?"

"Uh... solar power..." Feng Bujue's talent for spouting nonsense was something else. "Our shells are made of a special material that can accumulate energy when exposed to sunlight."

"Oh, I see, like the solar power peripheral for the GBA (Nintendo's notorious peripheral, released with the GBA game *Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand*. Players could only play the GBA during the day with direct sunlight to recharge the character's ammo)," Mario replied.

"Yeah, that's the one," Feng Bujue replied, seizing the opportunity.

"So it's nothing special after all," Mario seemed to believe it; he immediately turned around and led the two forward.

After passing through a relatively dark area, they arrived at a space surrounded on three sides by miscellaneous boxes.

The ground here was covered with a Nintendo blanket (another notorious peripheral, but it can be regarded as the ancestor of the dance mat), and in the corner was a lit flashlight (normal size). On the blanket stood twenty or thirty Nintendo-exclusive or related characters; most of them were plastic toys, and only a few had metal and electronic components.

"Who-are-these-two-guys?" The one who said this was a robot-shaped toy; every word it uttered was in the first tone.

"Eh? Are you WALL-E (a fictional robot character created by Pixar)?" Xiao Tan asked, looking at it.

Indeed, this robot looked very similar to WALL-E, but its color was grayish-white instead of yellow-black; another difference was that WALL-E had tracks on both sides of its chassis, but this robot's chassis seemed only capable of keeping it "standing."

"You-die-now!" The robot suddenly went berserk; even though it had no mobile components, it actually jumped up and somehow produced a top-like thing, throwing it at Xiao Tan.

This robot was slightly larger than the players, so the top it threw looked about the size of an umbrella to Xiao Tan. But the plastic top spun at high speed, its edges approaching like a circular saw, looking like it was about to cut Xiao Tan in half.

Sizzle—poof—

After two strange sounds, a tall, strong figure flashed past, caught the top with one hand, and stood in front of the two players.

"Ooh-hoo, ooh-hoo..." Donkey Kong, who first appeared in the 1981 arcade game *Donkey Kong*, caught the attack for Xiao Tan, tugging at the red tie around his neck with one hand and gesturing with the other, finally pounding his chest a few times with both fists. "Goo... hoo... goo-roo..."

Feng Bujue looked at the scene before him with a pained expression, thinking, "At least this method of communication is more advanced than Ultraman's..."

"Listen, kid, because you didn't know the rules, I'll forgive you this time," a humanoid toy wearing golden mechanical armor, an orange-red helmet, and a blaster on its right arm said to Xiao Tan. "R.O.B hates it when people mention that name in front of it, you better remember that." The voice under the helmet was clearly a woman's. It seemed that the one speaking was the legendary intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran, the protagonist of the *Metroid* series and one of the earliest female protagonists in video games.

"Heh... hehe... sorry." Watching the soaring terror value in the menu gradually fall back, Xiao Tan apologized with a look of cold sweat, although he didn't even know what he had done wrong.

"So it's R.O.B. (Nintendo's most notorious peripheral, comparable to the Speedboard)..." The corners of Feng Bujue's mouth twitched twice. "I knew it looked familiar."

"Alright, never mind these two rookies," Mario said, looking at the two. "They haven't gained Optimus Prime's trust yet, and they might not even survive tonight's battle." He said loudly, "Let's get down to business, let's assign our respective combat missions first."

…………

On the other side, the Novel faction.

In a "fortress" made of tablet computers and mechanical parts, hundreds of... exquisitely crafted figurines, perfectly assembled models, and remote-controlled electronic pets stood neatly lined up according to their type.

Saber (Artoria Pendragon prototype), Bayonetta (combat leather outfit), and Saeko Busujima (school uniform with sword) stood on the platform in the center, slightly higher than the surroundings.

Behind them stood a giant figurine thirty centimeters tall...

Its feet rested on a black circular skull base, and around the base was a circle of wavy, solidified ice decorations. It was covered in black armor, with a faint blue light shining through the armor.

It was the limited edition figurine with a pre-sale price of $350 – the Lich King Arthas.

"Travelers from another world..." The voice beneath the helmet was like the sound of death, its unblinking eyes staring at Like Rain and Sorrowful Spirit below. "I will temporarily entrust my army to you, I hope... you will not disappoint me."