Luigi was riding on the back of Yoshi, waiting on the hill before the castle of Bowser. Volcanoes erupting in the background were shrouded by the smoke that was now covering the sky as a whole. It was always dark here, but it was even darker now in the kingdom of the Koopas. Only Bowser's castle was like a star, as it's fire gave birth to flickering shadows. The Kingdom of these pathetic reptiles had fallen. Luigi smiled, as his fiery eyes narrowed. He had been burning them to pleasure himself a little bit, but it ceased to amuse him now. He pointed towards the castle and began the incantation, spoken in the tongue of the ancient... "Fires of hell, death and decay, by the God's of the beginning, Star Road, fulfil my wish, become my sword and blast my enemies into oblivion!"
The most terrifying thing in this very moment, was the silence, as the space where the once proud castle stood imploded... This silence, which only lasted a second, was so terrifying, because it itself seemed to eliminate all existence.
As the existence that once was Bowser's castle was fused into a singularity, warped out of existence once and for all, the vast amount of energy released exploded. The shock wave caused destruction in all of the kingdoms, and were it not for the shield Luigi had created, he would have been evaporated, like every kind of matter in the epicentre of the explosion. Not only did he banish the castle into non-existence, around it, almost a hundred miles wide, remained a crater. A scar on the earth, reminding the world of what disobedience meant to a God.
A shooting star flew through the sky, as Luigi sat by the fire in the middle of his new crater. He smiled... HIS wishes were always granted now. There were times when it was not like this, though...
Luigi sighed. He had made a fool out of himself, again. He was always in the shadow of his older brother. Sometimes he thought he was someone existing because there was a need for comic relief.
It had not always been like this, there were times when he was at least equal to his brother, but today...
Even Daisy seemed to laugh at him more often these days. He invented some kick-ass fighting style for tournaments, and everyone just said that it looked gay. It was effective, but maybe they were right and it was just some kind of stupid dance...
He sighed again. He didn't want to think about it that much, at least he could still help when there was a crusade against Bowser to free the princess. He was still helpful. "Yet", he mumbled, "I am never really needed!" He was sitting on his bed in his room. Comfortable, yes, but not nearly as big as Mario's room. A picture of his brother was hanging from the wall. He was posing, making a "V" for victory. Luigi still liked his brother, but while there were nearly fifty pictures of Mario, there were only twelve of him, including eight showing them both, in the castle.
Every aspect of his life felt like he was not the main character. Luigi wanted to accept that, but he could not. He did at least as much work as his brother, if not more. And somehow Mario managed to be more popular, to get more attention, to become a legend.
He stood up and left the room. He wanted to look for Daisy, he needed some cheering up.
As he found her, she seemed uneasy. He found her in the dining room, alone, and as he entered she seemed to get nervous all of a sudden. "Hello, dear", Luigi greeted her.
"Hello", she answered. As he saw the look on her face, he had to ask: "Is.. Is there something wrong?"
"Yes, Luigi" - her response made him feel very uneasy. The tension in this room was almost edible, which means, you could already feel it on your tongue.
"It is just that.. I don't think it will work out..." He knew it... He knew that she would say this, it was just his luck.
"Why? Why do you say that?"
"It's not because of you it's becau-."
"Oh yes, it is because of you, isn't it? I'm not good enough for you, that is what you want to say? And it is not because of me, but because of you, because it is your fault that you are TASTELESS!"
"...no reason to be mean, jus-"
"Just what? No reason? You are dumping me, you are just dumping me here! After I rescued you! You are the one who is mean here! You... You...", he breathed heavily, "I have to leave now." He walked out of the room without turning back.
Of course he didn't want to cry, and in fact, he managed not to. He thought that he would, but there were no tears. As he was sitting in his room, he just stared out of the window. His mind was sort of blank. He didn't even think about the situation, he just felt extremely empty. Not empty as in sad. Not empty as in lifeless. Empty as in to-be-filled.
He heard the door being opened and closed. "Luigi, I heard what happened." The voice of his brother seemed quite sincere. Of course, he was perfect, wasn't he? So he was even perfect in caring for his brother. "It's nothing Mario, really...", he said after a while, "I don't know, maybe we never really loved each other." Mario was sitting on Luigi's bed, "But of course you did, and it's not good for you, acting as if it was nothing." Luigi did not answer. "You should not seal your feelings inside yourself. If you are sad, you should be sad for a while!" Luigi still didn't answer. In fact, he didn't even listen to his brother. He was probably saying something intelligent, considerate and encouraging. Luigi just watched the birds in the sky, from his window, thinking about nothing at all.
"Luigi? Hey, Luigi? What do you think about?", suddenly the voice of Mario was piercing his mind. "Err, Mario, I...", he didn't know what to answer. He was thinking about nothing... "I don't want to talk about it." Mario walked towards him, and put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "If you want to talk about it, just come to me. I'll listen."
"Err, yes, thank you, Mario." - Great, now he had to visit Mario and talk about this matter, or he would come back, pestering him. Mario left the room and Luigi sighed again. NOW he was worried, as he had no clue what he should talk about. He went to bed early, sleeping peacefully until dawn.
As the sun rose, Luigi did not know that he had some luck here. He would not have to visit his brother - for his brother would be dead by the end of the day.
It was during breakfast. Everyone kept silent, most likely because of the breakup between him and Daisy, yet Daisy wasn't there, the mushroom underlings seldom spoke, and Mario and Peach seemed like they did not want to hurt his feelings. He himself thought that this matter was very childish, and everyone's reaction seemed to be so pathetic.
The silence was suddenly interrupted, as the door was opened, and Toad entered. He was gasping, "The...", he took a moment to catch his breath while everyone just stared at him. "The Star Road! It is under attack!"
Mario jumped up. "WHAT?" "By whom?" "Who would do something like this?" "Is it smithy again? But that is impossible" suddenly there were a thousand voices in the room.
"Quiet, please", Peach was taking control now, "Toad, tell us: Who is attacking the Star Road. And how?"
"It seems to be Bowser! And he managed to gain access by a new series of airships!"
Again, the room was filled with voices. Why should Bowser do something like this? He helped to restore the Star Road back then.
"I don't know why Bowser would do such a thing... But we have to stop him!", Peach said with determination. Somehow Luigi thought of this to be quite ironic. Hearing the determination in Peach's voice, he thought how she would do nothing and send him and Mario to do the job.
"Mario, Luigi, you have to face Bowser once more!", she said to them. Jackpot! Of course he was right, she'd never do something like that herself nowadays. Back then she helped to restore it, or so he was told. But today she seemed to be very sloppy. "Of course, Princess!", his brother answered. Then he turned to Luigi, "Come, this will help to get this whole Daisy-business off your mind.", he smiled. Luigi smiled back, but not because it would do THAT, but because this whole "Daisy-business" meant nothing to him.
They took down Bowser's airships with ease, managing to jump from one to the other, defeating all the Koopalings. Standard stuff, Luigi had some routine in it by now, and so had Mario. "There it is!", his brother shouted, as they approached the Star Road on Bowser's last airship. "Look, there! Bowser is doing something. Some kind of ritual! Kamek seems to be there as well."
They jumped, and landed just in front of Bowser, who was reading something incomprehensible from an ancient-looking book. He was glowing, probably because of some magikoopa magic. As the plumbers landed, he stopped and closed the book.
"It's -a over, Bowser! What do you want here, anyway?", Mario said. Maybe this is why he is more popular, Luigi thought, maybe because he managed to say the stereotypical sentences. "Not this time, Mario! Kamek! Hold them back, until I complete the ritual!"
Kamek's strange voice filled the air. "You... This time, you won't disturb our plans! I will crush you, Mario!" Luigi felt some anger, as he was overlooked again. He wished... He wished that he'd be better than Mario, just ONCE. "Don't worry, Luigi, we can handle this.", he heard Mario say. Yeah, they could handle this. Kamek would just use some of his pathetic tricks again. The magic of these Magikoopas never seemed to be any real threat.
A cascade of fireballs was flying towards them, their origin being Kamek's staff. Fancy, but nothing to stop them. Luigi jumped quickly, avoiding them, finally aiming for Kamek himself, who suddenly disappeard. "Teleportation!", he looked at Mario, "where is he?" Mario didn't seem to know, either. "Luigi, don't waste your time with him, I will try to defeat Kamek! You fight Bowser, I leave him to you this time!" Luigi smiled. He really still loved his brother, Mario was indeed perfect. He even realised what really bothered Luigi now. "Thank you, Mario", he answered, but Mario did not seem to hear him.
"No problem, I will have a chance to thank him after I defeat Bowser!" - with this Luigi started running towards their arch-nemesis. He readied a fire flower he had kept for a moment like this. Bowser saw this and stopped his incantations again, looking at Luigi with some horror in his eyes. "No! Fire flower is so cheap! Do you have no honour?" Luigi didn't care for the Koopa's excuses.
He beat him extremely quickly. Bowser was just too clumsy to avoid his fireballs, while Luigi could easily dodge the big, powerful, but slow fireballs of the dragon turtle. It had always been like this, and Bowser fell, from the Star Road, to an unknown fate. Of course he would survive, he was a tough turtle after all. But again, he was beaten. Luigi smiled. He was beaten by him, not Mario.
The very same Mario that did not beat Bowser this time, approached his brother. "Luigi, good work!", he smiled at him, "Kamek just rushed towards the ground, saying something about saving Bowser!" "Yeah, he will have to if he does not want him to leave quite some crater!" They laughed, and sat down for a moment.
"What do you think, why did he attack the Star Road?", Luigi asked, while they enjoyed their view. They could see all of the kingdoms from up here. "I don't know for sure, but... The Star Road transforms the wishes of people into stars... And when there is a shooting star, the wish becomes true." Luigi knew that... "Yes, that is how it works."
"Maybe he wanted some of his wishes granted. Or all of his wishes granted!", Mario said, "maybe we should read the book he had with him. It is still here, isn't it?" - "Yes, it is over there, why?" - "I just go get it, wait here, Luigi."
Luigi watched the panorama, focussing on the mushroom kingdom. He felt good, this day was really exciting, and just for once, he had surpassed Mario, defeating Bowser, and probably saving the world and people's wishes from grave danger.
He heard a sound like a tomato being smashed by a hammer, and turned around. What he saw made his eyes widen in terror and disbelief. Mario had been crushed by a shooting star, that happened to crash-land exactly on his head...
"Mariooooooooooooooooooooooooo!", Luigi screamed, running towards his brother, or what was left of him. The only things left of the plumber were one arm that was lying there, on the ground, while the rest of Mario was a pool of blood and mashed flesh and bones. "No... No...What...", Luigi picked up the arm. "What happened?" he looked at the shooting star. On it, in fiery letters, there was something written, he had trouble reading it, because a tear forced his way into his eye. As he managed to read it, he fell on his knees...
"I wish that I will be better than Mario, just ONCE!"
- Luigi
