Mario sat on the low hill deep in thought as he watched his brother and Daisy walk up the garden path. He felt a familiar hand on his shoulder, then feel it slip into his hand.
"Peach"
"Mario"

They sat together in silence as they watched Luigi walk, leaning on his stick and on Daisy, looking somewhat incongruous in an old band tshirt and faded cut-off coverall, which were some of the few clothes that fit him.

"You're not working today then?"
"No"
"Have you told him yet?"
"No...It's still too soon, but I know there isn't much time left"

They sat and watched, seeing them walk out of view behind a tree.

"How long from today? About five weeks?"

Peach nodded.

It had been a week since Luigi had awoken and on that day Mario had received a thin but expectant envelope in the post. It was none other than a court summons but not just any court - the World Court. It had not escaped Mario's notice that a similar one was addressed to Luigi. He thought about opening it but froze - there was a time he would have done that without thinking but now - no.

He had been too wrapped up in Luigi's recovery to notice that the Mushroom Kingdom had not escaped entirely unscathed from the Void. People were returning to their homes but there were still refugees who had fled when their homes and villages were destroyed by rampaging mobs of panicked people. There where also the cults, the most notorious being the 'Flowers of Fungus' who believed that the Void was judgement on all Toads who choose to live in cities, fraternise with non-Toads and neglect their sacred fungus rituals. However it was more used as a cover for kidnapping and looting. The dungeons in Peach's castle had been pressed into use as emergency accommodation for displaced people.

"Peach, I WILL tell him - there is no argument, but he is still so fragile - and it's the first time he's seen Daisy now he's conscious."
"I understand. It has been hard on all of us. I have my Summons too. It is the first time in living memory that a Head of State has been summoned to the World Court!"

Still there was the Summons and it was no less a trial to find if there was any living accomplice to Count Bleck's omnicidal plan to destroy all worlds. Mario froze as he read his Summons -he was to be a key witness in this. But what about Luigi? It had occurred to Mario that the Summons for Luigi might not be so much for key witness but for prime suspect.

Mario sighed. Nothing to do now except let his brother have the afternoon.