Mario and Bowser: Frenemies Forever Redux

Luigi's Awesomely Ambivalent Allegory, part 2 (Chapter 20)

Disclaimer: Mario and co belong to Nintendo.

Author note: *Newly edited* Time travel is always popping open a can of worms, so let's have some fun with it!

…

In Sarasaland merchants and civilians of all social status busily took to the streets trading and purchasing to make up time lost during yesterday's wave of storms. (The purchase of of stress relieving balls sky rocketed.) Princess Daisy pulled a warm coat on, her private jet surprisingly chilly. General Ming informed her there was an emergency happening at home. She feared independently funded researchers wanted to uncover some ancient untamed part of Sarasaland and disturb the peace. Equally dreadful, their fine printed licensing agreements gave her a headache. She hoped her friends would understand considering she had no opportunity to inform anyone, only send a heartfelt card to Luigi and Peach. To them it might seem like she just vanished and she hated that it, but the last castle visitor she took lightly of course brainwashed everyone in her household and unearthed the Dark Star!

The first thing Daisy noticed was that her castle's empty visiting room wasn't empty. A middle aged toad woman was stationed at a desk where there was a phone and files laying around.

"You were the gal on the phone! You know that thing almost hurt someone when it melted to heck!"

Nass T.'s block of papers slipped from her neatly trimmed fingers. "Oh my! By the way, your secretary said code#7."

Daisy sighed, annoyed. She never needed a receptionist. (Granted no one ever called her either except Luigi.) With no time to fix that now she obeyed the code, meaning to meet at Chai's weapon bunker.

In the underground basement sized room, green vector screens displaying topography of the land spanned the length of the wall. Ming wore a neck cast but rushed to Daisy anyway before she was off the ladder down. Every calamitous switch was active from yesterday which Daisy was able to deactivate briskly.

"Think I missed anything?"

Ming nodded. "The one already in the air!"

Daisy whipped back at the screens, pressing her face against the glass at the blip she'd missed, a missile over the area of Birabuto. She gripped the control wheel to direct the radar. "Uh- uh- I'll just land it in the ocean- Oh Gods!" The slightest lean made the flying explosive dip down and almost level a heavily populated village completely. A bead of sweat rolled off her forehead. "Just a little touchy! Get me a chair!" she screamed. "This might take a moment!"

…

It was a plumber's instinct, a visceral feeling the danger wasn't over that let Luigi know they weren't done with Zoo. He charged forward and pressed the dark boo's arms down.

"Freakin' dweeb!" Zoo glared, his eye twitched, and Luigi's chest tightened and the strength was drained out of him.

Iggy suddenly took his place holding Zoo. "Halt, Diddley-san! According to our abandonment rule, you are still employed by Bowser until tomorrow at 12 pm so I order you to give us the bell!"

Zoo half smiled. "Nice try but I don't care, bro. Remember YOU and Lemmy just tried to kill me over it. Bowser got a rule on that?"

"But you're traveling around with THE Dark Star! We've totally just had this super huge and epic adventure over it in the future like the character Bell in Koopa Ball Z when the Super Plumbers were fighting a villain hidden among them the entire time disguised as Goomba-chan's bottle of foot ointment!"

With a look of 'which one of us is supposed to be the lunatic' Zoo smacked Iggy in the jaw so that he could get up finally, fingers tingling in anticipation.

"Forget dad's rules, you don't work for us if that makes you happy okay?" Lemmy sputtered. "You saw that there were two versions of us before. We're trying to keep you from dying for the future's sake. I promise!"

Zoo's eyes narrowed. "Riiiiight. More like keep me alive 'cause how else you gonna steal THE ONLY THING THAT'S EVER CAME BACK TO ME!"

Lemmy couldn't even scream as he collapsed. The circus performer curled up, tortured from head to toe by the death ray splitting his molecules.

The princess jumped forward. "Zoo! Read my mind!" In her panic she remembered a requisite of special objects, a venture but astoundingly a hit:

To Zoo squiggly words formed above Peach's head, half invisible and fading in and out.

"W E A RE FR OM T HE FU T URE."

If not boo he would have been swept off of his feet. The bell, Zoo's gift from Lou Diddley his father, that happened to be burglarized over a decade ago, the one that miraculously reappeared under his pillow two weeks ago, the one he'd abused too much the previous day due to circumstances he didn't ask for, the one that encouraged his inveterate trouble making with faint whispers? THAT one was now 'fed up' with him?

While Zoo swayed Iggy's Ultra Hand (licensed by Nintendo) seized the Doom Reverb. Everyone ran for their lives into the forest while a sparkling orange flare soared over the trees signaling the Anti-Monarchy group. Their members wandered about with flashlights in the dense vegetation. Iggy, split from others, caught an eerie sensation of being watched- like that time Ludwig had put a key logger on his gaming PC. The tall koopaling continued trampling around and ducking under low branches until a vine tripped him up. He rolled on to his back in time to witness an object float towards him.

"I still want it back. I won't do nothing bad, alright? Please. PLEASE," the voice whimpered pathetically. Zoo crept a little closer and a moon beam hit his face, revealing his actual evil expression.

Iggy shook his head and brought the bell closer. "Noooo!"

"Fine then! Game over, bro!" Zoo charged for him when there was a popping noise. The dark boo jolted and bringing his stubby arm closer he saw the tip, his 'fingers' blown clean off. He screamed.

"This way Iggy! As we know Wendy's colleges The Anti-Monarchy Adolescent Faction and I state their ridiculous full name to disgrace them further, would never find this passageway with their lack of experience outdoors and away from internet." Ludwig scooped his brother up and to his feet, slinging him around over rocks and plants and thick tree trunks with an orange zapper holstered on his hip. They arrived at the lip of a metal hatch behind an old stump. A ladder lead down to an iron tube with blue lights that traveled forward a few paces then made a turn into the unknown. They stood at the bottom and caught their breath.

"I am not prone to mental lapses, but all I remember is us attempting to find Zoo's place of residence," Ludwig continued. "And now here we are being chased by internet mobs. Whatever has the world come to?"

Iggy couldn't answer, feeling faint. Glancing at Past Ludwig in the light made an eidetic image flash in his mind. He witnessed the glint of a pickaxe spinning and impaling his brother before they time traveled!

"What?" Ludwig shook him out of it, making the Nintendo toy and the bell inch slightly out of Iggy's pocket. A familiar crazed look stretched across Ludwig's visage. "Iggy, I command you to have that over!"

Iggy dodged from his grasp. "How about totally not? It's too much to explain Luddy-sama!"

He fled deeper down the metal tube as a bad stench, even for someone who forgot to shower often, struck his nostrils. Water climbed up to his knees and after another bend there was a metal grate. Holding his breath, the eighteen year old skillfully used his multi-tool to pop it off and get out of the sewers into a square area with thin ventilation slits carved in stone walls. He was then in Bowser Castle, Dark Land's most famous pimple on the landscape. He flicked through somber red carpeted hallways like a beached cheep-cheep and paused in a four way junction before going to the front door. The castle had an intercom Ludwig once irritatingly used to arrange family meetings. Since everyone, even mooks with no hands or fingers, had a cellphone in present times it was caked in cobwebs. On that note, Iggy texted Lemmy where ever he was to come to the front of the castle; it was a good thing he'd charged it in the airship.

"Everyone up up up! Fire! Pizza delivery! Koopa-Scouts cookies! Mario is around here! Bowser's giving you a raise!" the intercom blared.

The castle floors rumbled. Before Iggy could move a muscle the sea of koopas, and goombas, dry bones, hammer bros, and other baddies in pajamas swallowed him rushing to the designated meeting spot outside and carping about whatever they understood. Once the dust cleared Iggy found himself butt on the carpet with a sprang ankle. He wished he'd thought that through a little more as someone in a blazer was strolling towards him.

"Oh, this sucks!" Iggy groaned.

Outside: The 'Anti-Ma' gang pursued Luigi, Peach, and Lemmy out of the forest into the waste land that constituted Bowser's front yard and the lone road called Dark Drive. The grumbling Koopa Troop was waiting for them.

"Babe, let's get out of here!" The boomerang bro in a trilby begged Raven, the goth like Goomba girl beside him. The Anti-Ma were intimidated by the numbers and backed away. Bested, some Koopa Troop members even chased them off.

The Koopa King, red spotted sleeping cap bouncing around with each stomp, broke off from his minions alone. His family for the most part were still tucked in bed due to disabling the intercom in their bedrooms ages ago. He'd be with them if Kamek, half naked, hadn't banged his door down. "What the heck was that about, why was Wendy's brat college friends here, why is Green Mario here, Kamek why don't you have pants, and why are there two Peaches?!"

Peach gasped catching sight of the blonde in the crowd obscured by a whomp. The minion waddled aside to reveal a husk in a pink frilly dress matching the Princess's normal attire. The monster's face hosting an insidious smirk, long claws unsheathed through its white gloves. 'Peach' sprung over the heads of a dozen Koopa Troop forcing the real Peach to throw herself down and scuff up her elbows, missing the attack by a hair. Before Luigi could react, it was Bowser who apprehended Past Peach in his claws. The monster flailed its equally razor sharp claws, scratching deeply into Bowser's thick scales. With a growl he slung the monster ten meters away and blasted super heated fire in that direction. All that was left was a burning fabric of the dress and chunky black and flammable ooze.

Bowser panted for a moment before glancing over his shoulder at the wide eyed onlookers. "Erm.. who thinks we're still dreaming?"

All of his soldiers rose their hands, trickling back inside the castle.

Kamek turned to Bowser. "Lord Bowser, the reality is that the real princess was already outside the castle!"

Bowser snapped awake again. "Hey that's right! Grrrrrr!"

"King Dad! We- well- he- she..." Lemmy gave up trying to explain and just hugged his father, coincidentally making him miss what was happening while Bowser soldiers retreat in the castle. Ludwig and Iggy were fighting over the Doom Reverb on the downed draw bridge. Ludwig held wooden handle and Iggy the bronze and yellow bell in a back and forth tug-o-war fashion.

"Iggy, I only want to research its acoustic properties!" Ludwig dragged Iggy around and around, eventually to the edge with the chasm of the emptied moat below.

"Luddy! Physics!" Iggy screeched, hanging down and it was a long way.

Ding...ding..ding..

Whooosh! An image of a dark star half the size of Bowser castle materialized in the night sky. A surge of wind clashed about from all directions and doors were blown off their hinges as Luigi and crew were swept off their feet.

"...HA! MORTALS, YOU WERE ALWAYS DOOMED TO REPEAT YOUR MISTAKES!"

Another heavenly voice, the now hidden twinkling purple star countered, "Get up!"

Luigi and Peach roused on jagged scorched rock, the bottom of Bowser Castle's moat, too in shock to notice any sustained injuries at the moment. There was a huge debris wall before them. Above dust and dirt steadily sprinkled above to slowly bury them alive. What would Mario tell them if he could? 'Luigi, don't stand there. Use the hammer on your tool belt!' 'Peach, don't be afraid to get your dress dirty. It's machine-washable for a reason.' 'How do I manage a kart race, a Mario Party, a baseball game, a picnic with the princess, and a scheduled toilet repair at Russ T.'s place? You prioritize, Luigi!'

Nearby on the other side was Lemmy pulling the bricks off of Iggy. "Hop, I'm sorry it got to this.." Iggy slowly opened his palm holding the wacky watch with a cracked crystal. "I thought I could be clever with an invention to fix.. I should have stepped up sooner.."

"Stop, stop!" Lemmy cried, removing the last brick from his brother. "We've made it this far. Remember what Luddy used to say to keep us moving? Something about gears.."

Ludwig then revealed himself from the shadows with a limp in his step yet his face was brilliant and his eyes piercing. "'There is no reverse gear in a Doomship for a reason.' Truer words have never been spoken, not even by great old scholars such as Goomelda the 'wisest of female goombas', though interestingly it seems here that your issue is that you did not go backwards enough. Whatever is going on, you likely failed because you tried to insert yourself into the middle of it. The forces above are strong, more so than five thousand Bowser bombs. Think, Lemmy. What started it? Was it really the bell ringing on this date or-"

Lemmy paused. "Your scheme that included Zoo in the first place?"

"Exactly. My copy of Dr. Mario's notes was the impetus of it all and that was thirteen days ago during early morning at this location."

Something dawned on Lemmy. "How did you know we time traveled? Then, you need to know-"

Ludwig hooked his arm around him, shushing him. "If you are about to reveal something mortifying, you should not. I do not wish to hear that I will never complete my backlog of Koopa Troopa projects, make any more music, or eventually build in castle in Austria. I wish to not hear it! Besides! Look at me, Lemmy. It will not matter, because you will succeed!"

Then the debris wall crumbled revealing Luigi and Peach, the princess even took the lead plowing through the dirt pile to reach the koopa's voices.

"What are we waiting for?" Luigi fussed. Above the dark star wailed, quaking the ground to make the largest object yet fall. A koopa tank was about to tumble down into the moat on top of them. It was time to use the watch Lemmy knew, granted it was nothing like the kind he tended to scribble on his wrist. A second away from being crushed, the there was shrill springing noise and the world went white.

…

'I want tuna for today, I want a sandwich too, so let me get a loaf of bread and send off another message. Now I've 'enjoyed' the Koopa delicacy of toe fungus and peanut butter but it tastes like.. (unintelligible).. even to me. Least I can scrape the peanut butter off and it is not too bad for this grizzled man who once spent months in a remote Shy Guy village. Not bad at all, my taste has been burnt out many stale coconuts ago. I wonder how my nephews are doing at three month about now. They are not in this world I must remind myself, but I have a hunch, call me crazy, a left over from my yellow fever delirium, but I am sure they will get to know what a wonderful land this is in the future. Maybe then it won't be so hard to make ends meet. Oh, let me count what I have again. Last week's pay only fifty coins, but this is the recession. Ah, I'm realizing this is the last page of my notebook and yet I'm still wasting space now! Okay for the record: Items used for Megavitamin X: Sulfate, salicylate, and koopa scute.'

The thin book with a worn spine and cream colored pages was gently closed. Ludwig yawned, ending his cozy marathon of reading while the stars twinkled in his big recliner like chair in the corner of his bedroom. It took twenty pages to get there, but he had much patience and time with Mario's stream of activities keeping everyone in a buzz. On May 17 2019, a week and a half away, there would be a tennis match according to Mario's Facebook wall. Ludwig hated that he had to login to glean such info. He estimated that very scrupulous and detestable corporation was already selling his personal info by now. Good thing it was Larry's account anyway.

He stretched his arms and legs and brushed the bethmännchen crumbs from his lap, aware of the urgency that would be needed to qualify for his coveted Mega-Villain Badge. His scheme was on!… After a bathroom break. Just as the toilet set lid was raised he was startled by a bang muffled by thick stone walls. He darted to his bedroom window facing front. The moat being temporarily drained of lava and shrouding the castle in darkness encouraged much mischief with residents of the castle coming and going from Neo Bowser City. Grumbling he wondered if another drunk dry bones had ran their koopa tanks down the trench again as he marched downstairs. Halfway there he was knocked down, his snout in pain.

"So ein Mist!" Ludwig glared, leaning up again. "Lemmy, I never thought you would resort to the escapades as Larry and Roy and Morton and even Wendy that one time Milli Vanilli had a concert!"

Lemmy grabbed Ludwig by the slightly too snug fitting red robe. "Where the heck are your notes?"

"...Say again?" The military commander did a double take as he witnessed two humans, a woman with a man close behind strutting up the steps past his head.

"Come on, Iggy!" For the first time ever, Lemmy and Iggy bested their eldest brother physically from sheer willpower. They forced him back up to his room where Luigi and Peach was, Ludwig only then identifying the pair in plain clothes. They already had the notebook he'd left on his study desk, Dr. Mario's archived notebook.

"This is it!" It trembled in Luigi's hands. The last page was exactly what he skimmed over in Giant Land yesterday, or in the future rather. At the pinnacle of his journey, what would he do to rid this? His eyes wandered around Ludwig's neat room, the impressive trophy wall, around the piano in the corner, around the excessive dozen of yearly calendars with many dates marked, around the bed that hadn't been touched all night, and finally the open bathroom door...

"Luigi Mario, please!" Ludwig plead desperately. "I only found that in the castle's oldest most water logged treasury chest! It was seconds away from being recycled!"

The plumber dunked the entire notebook down the toilet, which was golden even, with extreme prejudice, thus ending Luigi's awesomely ambivalent allegory. The lesson learned? Always do spring cleaning. Or something.

Peach shrieked in excitement. "Thank the stars!"

"Curses!" Ludwig glared at his brothers. "You are 'trusted adjutants' no more!"

Lemmy couldn't help but to grin stupidly at the irony. "Fair enough."

Everyone froze when they heard heavy shuffling feet outdoors. The commotion had gotten someone up and it was time to scatter. What Ludwig saw next he'd never forget as the four others warped, vanished, from his room with technology he didn't think probable. First Ludwig lay in bed wondering if the entire episode was a trick of sleep deprivation, but the bruise on the back and front of his head was real. With that the genius had a new plan.

...

Mankind always marveled at shooting stars but few stopped to consider what it was like for them traveling through space and sweeping across the galaxy in a most crude, uncomfortable, and relatively sluggish pace. Geno's top speed might have been up to 160,000 mph, but the spaceship he used to have could topple that record in seconds. He saw ahead among asteroids and planets a coliseum enclosed by the silver gem like pillars of millennia and suspended in the middle of space by a sapphire platform. One of the sparkly entrance doors was ajar. The star warrior's civic duty too deeply entrenched to shake, he had to make sure something wasn't wrong. After the Star Temple, this was the second most important location around. A holographic scroll on the door stated in bold font: 'The galaxy courthouse is closed at this moment. Thanketh thee.'

Lengthy hallways warmly lit by the translucent stones that made them lead to the courtroom where sessions occurred. With capacity of hundreds of star beings it seemed even more enormous with rows of seats scrolling upwards unoccupied. Geno froze as an odd jingle chimed behind the judges platform. He pulled someone's new looking iPhone hidden in a drawer.

"Thank you (heart musicnote)!?, you found it!" Rosalina the space queen emerged from a backroom. "Of course it would be I with so many matters on my mind receiving a well intentioned gift from my children and losing it right away." The graceful princess met him sheepishly. Geno was struck however by her excellent appearance, long beautiful hair, dazzlingly vibrant blue clothing and mature beauty.

He tore his gaze away. "Miss Rosalina, glad to help and all but I gotta take flight right now. A dark star was doing something to Earth and Great Eld's wont pick up."

The platinum blonde flushed, bringing her decisive eyebrows downwards. "May I?" Her hand wrapped around the star warrior's, making his heart race. She revealed in her other hand that she had a star rod.

Geno found himself hanging on when Rosalina's Space Observatory soared to Star Temple. With her lumas all at school she had no discipline to lay off of full throttle and they were there in less than five minutes. Star Temple was another suspended in space structure, a golden colored mansion of humble size considering it contained the greatest star of all and his family of Star Guardians and associates.

Geno and Rosalina crossed the moat over sparkling blue liquid, likely not water exactly, to the front doors. It was bolted shut but from the outside uncharacteristically. Rosalina blasted the entire mechanism apart with her star rod and they were in. Now their steps echoed on golden tiled floors. Dust was everywhere as if cleaning hadn't commenced for some time. The abandoned aura made Geno's stomach sink in human terms at least as Rosalina overtook him. There were countless rooms to consider. Geno rushed inside of one and came out of a door on the opposite side of the hall.

Rosalina paused, her delicate hand resting on her chin. "(Heart) (musicnote)!?, let us not drive ourselves mad yet. Do you hear that?"

Geno trained his ear to the left. Some movie was playing. He tracked it down like a chomp hot on the sent of steak to the room at the farthest reaches. They burst into a den entertainment area and was blinded by a bright wide screen TV, stale air and sent of mildly burned popcorn assaulting as well. Kalmar, Klevar, Misstar, Muskular, Skolar, Mamar, and lastly Eldstar were seated vacantly watching the scene on TV were an unfunny actor was saving the world from bad pop culture references.

Geno spun around Eldstar, closest to the screen seated in an office like swivel hair. He was unresponsive like a dummy. All the while Geno felt his head spin and he wasn't sure why.

"This is giving me a headache!" Rosalina covered her ears. Inept at electronics she could only unplug the TV making the room go pitch black. Geno realized whatever almost inebriated him was caused by the television set.

Eldstar's eyes flickered and the dry throat of him and others created a chorus of coughing and barking from the stars. "(Heart)(musicnote)!? and Miss Rosey? Oh-Whatever happened? I am usually a bit stiff but-"

"What was wrong with your TV?"

"I got a message on my pager for a free cable package. The Y/N thing? I replied 'yes' as I always do."

Klevar cleared his throat and requested to see that pager, he the only one around with an inkling of computer savviness. "This is an old message," the brainy star explained. "How long have we been here?"

Skolar noticed this that his normal brown pencil moustache was a bush on his face. "Judging by the hair that flutters and dances across my lip as I speak, it has been a fortnight at the minimum."

"We have been watching TV for that long?" They all panicked. The sender of the message was Zachary A. Ztar, also known as Eldstar's rival the Dark Ztar himself.

Geno gasped. "He's attacking the Earth using some other star I encountered earlier!"

Eldstar hopped up which made a loud crack. He ignored it. "But it can not possibly be so! Why, I just spoke to him."

"Why ever would you communicate like that?" Rosalina wondered out loud. The other stars gave her a sympathetic look to suggest that the reasoning why was beyond them all, possibly literally.

Eldstar dialed a number on a rotary phone. He waited tapping a foot. In another realm where the ground was cracked and purple and jagged obsidian spires rose from the ground there was an onyx temple surrounded by a tall thorny fence. Seated on a couch before a larger screen TV was a black colored star with a goatee and monocle sipping tea. When the phone rung he nearly spit it on his lap. "Bloody fool. Who could this be?"

"Zach? Ah how is my cousin?"

"You?" the star sneered. "I go by 'Dark Ztar' now. What do you want?" The dark star, the other dark star rather, listened for a while before he features darkened even more so. Now he was infuriated. Season 90 of Noki's Island was set to 'pause'.

...

Mitch crawling around the block and making his palms and knee caps raw paid off. Steve the bullet bill's old van crossed the mist into Area 64, a broom handle the toad procured taking place of his legs to reach the pedals. It wasn't easy, the person responsible for the blockade doing a good job, jut the toad wanted in bad enough and he got it. At the cost of banging up the muffler. Oh well. He could hardly see, more so as his eyes clouded. A daze came over him as something about reality changing in that moment.

"Waaaahh!" Bowser Junior flopped on the windshield. "Th-the machine- Kaboom! And and h-he and she- and- and-!"

"Ahhhhh!…. Dude hop in!" Mitch stopped and pushed the door open.

"Help me find my brothers and sister! I left my teleporter at home!" the six year old whined.

"Before Bowser Castle was destroyed by the storm Saturday?"

Junior shook his head rapidly. "No no no. The castles okay, I left my Switch on Mario Odyssey this morning! I never cut my games or my TV off. Ever ever ever."

Mitch gave him an odd look. First the talk of the teleporter, which he assumed was made up, now this child was denying that Bowser's Castle was ever destroyed? He wondered if any of the craziness related to the machine in Area 64 he knew the koopas were in possession of, also the reason Super Spy HQ fruitlessly burst into his home. And where were they? Talk about an organization that claimed to have their toes dipped in everything.

"This looks like another one though." Junior poked at something jammed under the van's old cassette deck in place of what used to be the CD player. The face of it looked like a spectrum analyzer with two mismatched knobs on the outer sides. A lime green note, a specific style Mitch always used in his office stated in his own always somewhat downhill yet in excellent cursive handwriting:

'Steve, hit the right, set the distance, remember to check if something's in the way- please please, then hit the left. It's a prototype and I haven't finished my article next. Don't break it and don't give it to Kylie for her article first. -Thanks, dude.'

Mitch stared at the note like it was the Underchomp ready to drag him to Hades. The teleporter wasn't there when he entered Area 64, he was sure. He was broken out of his stupor by several of blood curdling screams from outside as a bolt struck the ground. The mist agitated and left behind only one body, a heap of smoking armor on a spot scorched into the grass. Junior abandoned the vehicle impulsively.

"Oh no! Mr. Tanner was cool, we'd play games sometime. He got 'pro-mo-ted' Koopatrol because my pet chain-chomp knocked him off the top of a fortress once and he didn't die!" Junior's childish hand retracted when his armor was hot as a stove stop, the notion that death was permanent yet to settle in fully.

"I know I ain't your pappy, but get your butt back over here!" Mitch hissed. "Now, explain this, uh 'teleporter'."

"I dunno Mister. Ours looks different. Luddy's is blue, not black and it has a red button. It does have that wavy thing though. I'm not allowed to touch it but it made someone go ZOOM! Really really really fast."

"I-I think it get it. Thanks," Mitch lied. His headache seared to badly, he couldn't attempt to read anyone's thoughts.

"Wait!" someone called. Something green came from the mist, Yoshi searching around. He saw the van and began running behind it. Mitch caught him in the rear view and slammed the breaks for the dinosaur.

"Listen stranger and Bowser Junior, we need to find Captain Toad. No time for questions!" Yoshi let himself in, scooting the toad and koopa child aside to drive himself. Mitch allowed this at least initially, since Mario's buddy actually possessed legs to press the pedals, but he was baffled again as Yoshi went for the teleporter. "Hopefully yours doesn't make so much fog," Yoshi remarked offhandedly. He spun the right knob it until the spectrum analyzer resembled a mountain peak, and punched the left inward. Bowser Junior did not exaggerate for once, they really went 'ZOOM!'

...Meanwhile Kylie and Toad and two others tagging along continued aimlessly through the mist until the koopa reporter glanced to her right and Toad was missing, her own pink shoes at the edge of a crevasse in the ground. "Gee whiz! You're alright?" she yelled to Toad who had rolled down partially. It went deeper, how much so hard to tell. "I'm seeing remnants of the airship that brought the Mario Fan Club here, amazing! Yet, somethings missing peeps. Obvious as a chain-chomp in a china shop."

"There was something else here," the koopa soldier tagging along, Johnson confirmed. "Probably from aliens."

"Or from remote secret government agents," a spike Mario fanatic added.

"Probably, likely, certainly, you are incorrect! Our secret government agents indeed work here, in fact their hideout is under Shy Guy's Toy Box. I wrote two books about it in eight grade, middle school." They turned and faced Morton Koopa panting. "The object missing is our Timulator but we should not try to find it. That's all part of the Dark Star's morbid, ruthless, waiting game." He reached for Kylie. "It covers, it shrouds, it conceals to execute stealthily."

While everyone else was staying back from Morton, Kylie gawked. "Say it ain't so, brother!"

Toad climbed out of the pit. "Hear that?" There was a faint hum of a machine in the distance, distorted somewhat.

"Hmm. I do. That might be the- Everyone duck!" Kylie dove down with Morton. They hit the grass as a bolt flew over their bodies, a white one instead of the black ones attacking people in the mist.

"Outta the way, gal. Where did he go?" a gritty voice growled. Booigi the Second appeared looking all around rapidly.

Kylie rubbed her head. "Who?" The spike screamed behind her. She whipped around, agape as the young Mario fan collapsed to the ground with a gash in his back. For only a flash she saw Captain Toad, hunched with a blood soaked pickaxe before he disappeared in the mist. He was the mist! She would never forget that look in his eyes.

"Ahh!" Morton jumped up. "He has stolen, looted, our secret technology of tele-! Wait.. what am I talking about?"

Kylie backed away from the body with wavering steps. "Mitch and I had Ludwig's new invention, the teleporter, on LOCK. I think. Now I'm wondering what I'm talkin about. The heck is a tele-"

"Keep your shells on! That's what Bowser always said," Johnson blurt, special training of the lowly koopa troopa taking over.

"He ain't the only one who can-" Booigi turned around. The Captain, the mist, reappeared again in a way reminiscent of teleportation. He fought with a large and strong koopa while another person was on the other side of him, pulling away at Captain Toad's arm with the pickaxe. The Captain gave a backhand slap to sent the weaker one, a toad girl, to the ground hard. He elbowed the larger man, Roy Koopa and with a grunt he collapsed, sunglasses cracking in two.

"Jerk move!" Roy spat.

"I'm only warming up," Captain Toad remarked airily. Instead of the usual stab attack, he rose his pickaxe in the air waiting. Not a second later there was the sound of thunder as a black bolt blitz from above.

"Nooooo!" Booigi roared.

With a blinding glare the lightning bounced off of the shiny metal and split in two halves for each victim. Another bang knocked even Captain Toad off his feet. The smoke cleared and Kylie blinked again. Both Roy and Emery were still living rapidly breathing bodies, the object stopping their demise the green Bowser racket blocking the shock for them. The pickaxe was toast, molten iron on the ground.

Booigi got up from the throw that took all the energy from them. "Ha. Ha… Hahahahahahaha!"

"Captain, you're a bad guy now!" Toad exclaimed in disbelief. He surprised everyone by slugging his look-alike effectively. Kylie was about to rush over, what an event! What a scoop! What a dumb thing to do that she was going to do anyway! -But she felt her phone vibrate.

"I'm back and alive!" Luigi mass texted everyone from Mario's old phone number.

Think was, Kylie couldn't remember why he would text her.

…

Author note: Next time.. The end!

To be continued…

Created: 9/13/19, 9/15, 9/22, 9/23

Rewrite: 12/10, 12/12, 12/15, 12/19, 12/23, 12/26, 12/28, 12/29, 12/30,

1/2/20 , 1/3, 1/7, 1/8, 1/9, 1/10, 1/12- 1/16

Edit: 1/28/21

Edited: 5/1/20, 1/2/21