Oh boy oh boy.

Heh, the prolific part of me is happy about putting this chapter out so quickly, but then the devious part of me is kind of sad that I didn't make you all wait a little longer.

Heh heh. Oh well.

I'm very happy with this ending and I hope you all like it! More author notes will follow at the end of the chapter, okay.

…

Chapter nineteen: The chapter in which Fawful has fury.

His entire body ached.

He groaned, and opened his eyes to see a big blur.

He felt around the ground near him until he found his glasses, which he promptly put onto his head.

Above him was an unfamiliar ceiling. He looked around, seeing that he was in some sort of prison cell.

He sat up, gasping as pain shot through his body. He started to remember what had happened, his terrible defeat…

He slammed a fist into the ground and screamed, fury filling his tiny body, and then proceeded to mutter angrily to himself, seething.

A voice came from the cell adjacent to his, echoing slightly in the stone-block building.

"Finally awake, huh?"

Fawful growled. "I say to you yes I am having the waking, O great nanny."

"I'm not a nanny." Kamek replied, defensive.

"So you keeping say," Fawful paused, looking around again to see a passed-out Bowser in a cell a ways away from him. He took note of the fact that his own cell seemed much more heavy-duty than the others around him. "What had transpiration?"

"You got your butt handed to you," Kamek sounded quite pleased as he said this.

"I have awareness of that," Fawful snapped, putting a hand to his sore side. "I am asking of afterwards."

Kamek's voice lost its joviality. "We tried to finish Mario off, but he apparently ate some mushrooms or something he had brought with him while we were taking care of you. So he beat us."

Fawful frowned. "So the Red one is still having life?"

"He's got a few broken bones, but he's not dead yet."

Fawful crossed his arms, displeased. "You are bearing the fault for all of this!"

"Me? You're the one who started this whole mess!"

"If you had not had the freeing of yourself and the wakening of the Bowser, my plan would have had the succeeding!"

"If you hadn't stupidly sent me to fight Mario, none of that would have happened!"

"It is not being my fault that you are having no use!"

"I'm not the useless one, you are!"

"Fink-rat!"

"Stupid freak!"

Fawful growled and kicked the wall.

The two fell silent for a moment, until Kamek spoke again.

"You should feel pretty special," he said, his voice a combination of amusement and annoyance, "They usually reserve that cell of your for Bowser, since it's got the strongest walls and all. You must've really scared Mario and the Princess."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

Fawful felt a little happy with that. He pulled himself to his feet and limped over to the far wall, the one with a window in it, through which he could see the outside world.

"I guess I should be pleased," Kamek said casually, "His sleepiness shouldn't have much trouble busting out of a normal cell, once he finally wakes up. And naturally he'll break me out too." He chuckled, "You can fend for yourself."

Naturally, Fawful's Headgear was gone. Probably locked up somewhere where he'd never get to it—not without another Headgear, in any case.

He began rummaging through his pockets, looking for anything of use. There was nothing; they must have searched him and confiscated anything he had hidden. He took off his shoes and looked to see if there was anything there, but it seemed that they had thought to remove the lockpick he had hidden there. He put his shoes back on and then removed his glasses. He held them to his ear and shook them, producing a light rattling sound. He smiled.

Fawful opened a small compartment in the thick frame of his glasses. He held it upside down and a small tube with a string sticking out of it fell out. He opened another compartment on the other side and produced from it a match.

He couldn't remember what he had been thinking when he hid those in there, but he was glad for it now. After all, you never knew when you'd need a discrete stick of dynamite. Particularly since this was a very potent form of TNT that could pack quite a whallop into a stick only two inches long.

Kamek continued talking, unaware of Fawful's plotting. "Hm? You're not going to rant at me about how I'm a stupid 'fink-rat' and how you'll 'have destroying of' me if I leave you here, or something?" Kamek laughed.

"Fink rat, I will have destroying of you," Fawful said with humor, wedging the dynamite stick into a crack in the window frame.

Kamek detected the mirth in Fawful's voice. "What're you so happy about?"

"You will have seeing," Fawful said, lighting the match. "Or hearing. Ever of which."

Fawful lit the fuse, then ran to the other end of the cell and crouched over, plugging his ears with his fingers. The TNT exploded loudly, filling the cell with smoke and dust. Fawful got back up and looked at the damage, coughing in the fresh smoke.

"What was that!" Kamek yelled from his cell.

Fawful smiled as he saw light filtering in from a new hole in the wall. "I think I will have leaving now," Fawful said, "I suppose I will have the seeing of you at some later timing."

Fawful then proceeded to climb out of the hole and out into the sunlight.

He made a run for it, running in the only direction that he didn't see any other buildings. Luckily no one was nearby—it looked to be morning, only a little bit after sunrise, so most of the kingdom was probably still asleep. He turned and looked back to see Kamek looking through his window at him. Fawful grinned and waved mockingly at the trapped Magikoopa before once again turning away and running off.

So he had failed. That was horrible, sure, but he was still alive! He had been sure, when those Koopas had him, that he would never again see another day. But here he was! Free, alive—very sore, but that would pass.

And perhaps his failure wasn't such a bad thing. Though he had failed to take over the world and kill Mario, he had put Mario through an unpleasant ordeal. When he thought about it, that really wasn't so bad. If Mario had broken bones, he'd be suffering for months. Perhaps failing was almost as good as succeeding, if it meant causing Mario so much suffering. He was sure that Cackletta would be just as pleased to see her killer be tortured over long periods of time as she would to see him be killed outright.

What's more—he was more feared than Bowser now! If they were so willing to risk the Koopa King escaping just in hopes of containing one little bean, then that meant that they realized exactly how powerful and dangerous Fawful really was.

He was a big-time villain now. Once word got around, he might even be the most infamous bad guy in the kingdom—nay, the world!

He ran off into the bright morning. He may have been defeated, but he wasn't down for the count quite yet! He'd just given Mario a taste of the horrible fate that was in store for him, and he was free to continue his scheming. The next time, Mario wouldn't be so lucky.

The next time Fawful struck, the whole world would know his fury!

…

Ohhhh snap!

And I'm going to say it now: no, the open ending is not a precursor to a sequel (as tempting as it may be, but I've learned my lesson from previous excursions into the realm of sequels), it's just that I really like open endings because then you have the freedom to draw your own conclusions. Will Fawful ever take over the world? Will he ever avenge Cackletta? That's up to you.

I love endings like that.

Also, there was the matter of Fawful's appearance in Partners in Time. That's what really made this ending tough for me; even though I didn't follow canon perfect, I didn't want to disregard it completely. I had to leave room for his appearing as a shopkeeper in PiT. That was so hard figuring out how to pull this off. I'm still not completely sure what would lead him to that, but I do have some ideas. For instance, in an earlier chapter I mentioned in passing that Fawful's machines were powered by a certain type of bean. Perhaps his bean business was to collect a power source? Or, more realistically, perhaps he is collecting those beans so he can take them to the Starbeans Café and boost his stats? Heh heh. See, he's still up to evil. He's just biding his time.

So uh… buu, that was a tangent. Anyway, I hope this ending was enjoyable and that the fic as a whole was a good thing! Since I don't know when I'll write Fawful again, I really wanted this one to count for something.

Thank you all very much for reading, and even bigger thanks to all those who reviewed, faved, and so on. The amount of reviews, and the huge amount of hits the fic has gotten (nearing 2000 at the time of this writing) has been well above my expectations. Thanks bunches, everyone. It means so much to me.