Snack Basket
It was a beautiful Saturday in the Mushroom Kingdom, with the early morning sun flirting with the leaves on the trees. Majority of the Toad children were enjoying a break from their school activities by either sleeping in or getting up at the break of dawn to watch the newest Axem Rangers episode.
On this perfect day, it seemed as though everybody was taking a break. Even the notorious Bowser Koopa, tyrant of the Dark lands, seemed to be taking it easy; in a rare act of kindness giving all his troops the day off too. It was perfect in every fashion and way, and that be for the heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom as well. Mario was preparing himself to go on a nice long walk that morning, free of kidnapped princesses and stress. Luigi, however, just woke up and dragged himself out of bed.
XxX
"How did you sleep last night, little bro?" asked Mario as Luigi trudged by on a straight path for the coffee maker.
"I slept good, thank you. And how about yourself?" mumbled Luigi as he grabbed a big bowl after downing a cup of coffee in record time and filled the bowl to the brim with corn flakes.
"I slept how I normally do... Oh! And I heard through the grape-vine that Bowser is taking a day off today, so that means no attacks today! I was just about to go out on a morning jog," said Mario as he passed Luigi scarfing down his cereal, "And you better watch how much you're eating. I'm surprised you aren't fat yet. Considering how much you eat in a single day, you should be even bigger than me at this point!"
One death glare and vicious left hook later, Mario was walking towards the door nursing a sore arm.
"Geez, I was only joking! Did you have to try and break my arm for that?"
Luigi wasn't a morning person and wasn't one to be messed with before coffee took effect. Luigi finished slurping up his breakfast and placed the empty bowl in the sink and began to walk towards the stairs up to his room to get ready for the day, but stopped in his tracks when something on the counter caught his eye.
On the counter was a small wicker picnic basket with a plastic white top that was held closed by a strawberry pin. What was inside? Luigi's curiosity got the better of him and he grabbed and opened it. Luigi's eyes snapped awake within a second at the glorious sight within. Within that blessed picnic basket were sweets of every sort. Warm and succulent treats calling Luigi's name. Luigi didn't even notice his mouth was open and drooling until he realized that there was a string of spit trying to work its way onto the sweets. His hand slowly moved towards a cinnamon roll, ready to snatch it up in a moment's notice.
Another hand seemingly appeared on Luigi's shoulder, causing him to instinctively turn around and punch whatever touched him.
"Seriously? What's with you and punching me today?"
"Well, what's with you and sneaking up on me today?" asked Luigi defensively, grabbing the cinnamon roll, ready to bite into its steamy goodness.
"Touche," Mario quickly swatted the cinnamon roll out of Luigi's hand, causing it to fall back into the basket, Luigi looking heart broken as it fell, "But please don't eat those. They're special. And I'm going off on my jog before something comes up that prevents me from going. I've been needing some excercise without the stress of saving princesses."
Luigi continued to give Mario puppy dog eyes, however Mario was examining the arm Luigi punched, ignorant of his little brother's gaze, before shaking off the slight pain.
"Well anyways, please don't eat that. I'm off now, I guess."
Mario brushed past Luigi, almost laughing at the saddened look on Luigi's face because he couldn't satisfy his sweet tooth. His little brother was quite a funny person. But that didn't matter at the moment as Mario flung open the front door to their house and marched away into the sunbeams, enjoying the perfect day, though truth be told, the day would be even more perfect if Mario didn't have two bruised arms to worry about.
XxX
Not eating those scrumptious snacks? How in the world is that possible? Luigi wanted to ask Mario if he could at least have one, but the slamming of the front door indicating the leaving of Mario very clearly deadpanned "No". Luigi could only shrug and walk off to get ready for his day, keeping it in the back of his mind to beg the snacks off Mario later.
Getting ready was regular enough for Luigi as he slipped out of his PJ's and into his regular working clothes. Luigi slipped on his white gloves, which felt very relieving on Luigi's hands, as the gloves softly covered and protected the mangled skin covered in burns that liked to hurt if treated otherwise. His hands always bothered him without his gloves. This, however, was not caused by Bowser's troops, but rather from Luigi's childhood. In fact, Mario had nearly identically messed up hands that forced him to wear gloves too, though many assumed he never took them off due to being used to wearing them or for fasion reasons. In reality, the story of the burns is a rather long one involving seven year old Mario and Luigi being stupid with a gas can, which is a story better suited for another time.
Luigi finished up his usual routine of painstakingly grooming his moustache and went downstairs to watch TV and enjoy his Saturday. As usual, Luigi had gotten up far to late to catch anything but re-runs, which was alright, as Luigi didn't mind watching Sniffit or Whiffit reruns as it was an entertaining show as is. This time the episode playing was the one Mario himself featured in, and Luigi couldn't help but snicker as Mario got every single trivia question wrong at least once. Mario never was good at trivia.
Luigi was having a good time laughing at the show, but was brought out of his false reality by a knock at the door. Who could that be? Not Mario, because he left the door unlocked and knew he did. Who else could it be? Luigi begrudgingly got up from the couch and left behind the imprint of himself he was working on to disapear.
Luigi opened the front door and almost fell over in shock. Princess Daisy stood on his front porch in all her glory. To say she was beautiful was an understatement to Luigi. This time Daisy was covered in sweat and was wearing her jogging outfit. But what the real shocker for Luigi was, was in fact Daisy's jogging outfit, which bordered on "anime-nose-bleed-inducing".
"Hey, Luigi," said Daisy, somewhat out of breath, "I was on my morning jog and noticed I was in the neighborhood."
"D-Daisy," Luigi stuttered as he beheld the beautiful woman in front of him, "P-p-please come in, if you would like."
"Don't mind if I do," said Daisy as she entered the humble house, sending a small breeze carrying the scent of her desert flower perfume towards Luigi and making him almost pass out from a mixture of excitement and anxiety.
Luigi caught up with Daisy and lead her to the kitchen. "Hey, need any food or anything?" asked Luigi as he opened up cupboards, but finding much to his chagrin that they were devoid of food.
Mario was supposed to go shopping yesterday. Daisy had a confused look on her face, which was positively tearing Luigi apart on the inside, but Luigi's eyes quickly fell upon the forbidden picnic basket sitting on the counter. Mario was probably saving that for Peach, and it would serve him right to have it eaten because he didn't go shopping like he was supposed to. Luigi quickly picked up the picnic basket and showed Daisy the mouth watering contents inside.
"Sorry, but I haven't gone shopping recently. Do you want some of this?" Luigi asked.
Daisy looked at the treats longingly for a second before breaking her gaze with the sweets and looking back up at Luigi.
"Sorry," said Daisy, with an expression on her face that looked like it was almost breaking her heart to decline, "I'm going on a diet and I can't have any sweets. But if it's alright with you, could you please direct me to a bathroom so I can... f-freshen up?"
Luigi gazed upon Daisy wondering how she could be any fresher than she already was? And was that a stutter he heard? It was when Luigi realized that he had been awkwardly staring at Daisy for about a minute that he snapped himself out of his trance. Luigi pointed at the nearby hallway, Daisy's face looking equally uncomfortable as Luigi's from that weird interaction.
"It's the third door on the left," Luigi directed.
Daisy quickly thanked him and took off to the bathroom, trying to forget about the awkward silence that had just happened.
Luigi just looked after Daisy as she went down the hall and the door closed with a thud. Why couldn't he be normal around her for just once? It wasn't until he looked down that Luigi realized he was holding a donut from the basket with a big bite in it. He had started eating it before he had even realized it! Luigi stared at the half eaten remains in his hands before shrugging. It probably wouldn't matter if he had just one. The flavor of the donut absolutely burst in Luigi's mouth, curving the edges of his lips upward in a smile. This was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted! And that was saying something, because Tace. T could really create things with those hands of hers.
It probably wouldn't hurt to have one more, right? Before he could really process it, he had one more in his hand, already half eaten. They were just too good. In what seemed like a blur, Luigi finished off another treat, but when he grabbed for more, he couldn't feel anything. Upon closer inspection, the basket was completely empty with the exception of some forlorn crumbs scattered at the bottom. He should probably replace the snacks before Mario notices. Suddenly, a pleasant warm feeling filled Luigi, making him close his eyes and sigh with bliss. It was almost as if he were sitting in a beach chair on the perfect day, absorbing the sun's rays. This sensation was interupted, though not entirely dissipated by the sensation of his gut rubbing against the counter in front of him.
Luigi's eyes snapped open. He wasn't standing close enough to the counter to where his belly should be touching it. But as he looked down, Luigi noticed his belly looked a bit distended to where it did touch the counter. Well, he did just eat a bunch of sweets, a basket full to be exact, and his stomach wasn't exactly an endless depository, so some exercise should fix that extra bit of belly as the food digested. Luigi resumed closing his eyes and allowing his imagination to take hold of perfection again, but was interrupted once more as the pressure on his belly was a bit more.
Luigi opened his eyes once more and looked down at his gut. That's odd... his gut DID seem a bit bigger than when he last looked. Oh well, it was probably his mind playing tricks on him. Luigi put a hand on his stomach and gave it a few pats. Man those sweets were filling. It was when Luigi felt his hand being pushed outwards by his stomach that alarm bells started ringing in his head. Luigi's eyes snapped open, bliss evaporating as he stared down at his belly that seemed to hit some sort of catalyst and was growing outwards at a faster pace to where the growth was visible. What was going on?
At this point, Luigi's gut was making him look more like Mario. Panic was racing through Luigi's mind as to why this was happening and how to stop it. Luigi put both hands on his rapidly growing stomach and gave it a strong push inwards, but to no avail as it only pushed back out again further. Luigi now looked as if he were pregnant, though the soft and squishy sinking beneath his hands said otherwise instead of taut skin. He looked like he lived up to the weird "Mama Luigi" nickname he gotten awhile back, though he had no idea where it came from or how he got it.
As Luigi continued to fret over his ever growing gut, he noticed that the blissful warm feeling was stronger in intensity in his naval area, which most likely signaled where the growing was taking place. Luigi breathed a sigh of relief as the warm feeling in his stomach curbed and died down a little. 'Finally,' Luigi sighed to himself. His stomach made him look as if he had swallowed Wario! Though that was a bit of an exaggeration, if Luigi were to stretch both of his hands out in front of him, the end of his gut would almost reach his wrist! Miraculously, though, his overalls stayed buckled shut and stretched with the growth.
It was when the strong warm feeling came back in his legs, that Luigi's sense of fear renewed itself. Luigi could feel his legs plumping themselves up, pushing against his pant legs as they fought for freedom. However, no freedom was given as his legs continued to grow outwards. Luigi knew he needed to get outside. He didn't know how much bigger he was going to get and didn't want to ruin the house to where Mario found out. Luigi started to take a step, the fat on his legs continuing to expand, making each step harder. It was when Luigi was halfway through the living room and had to stop for a breather that he knew getting much of anywhere was an impossibility. That was when his gut also decided to resume growing, starting to absorb his legs into it as it continued its outward conquest.
It was only a matter of moments before his own weight became too much for Luigi and his own sausage like legs (or what was left of them that hadn't more or less been absorbed by the stomach) buckled, sending Luigi to the floor. However, he didn't have far to fall as his own heavily padded rear caught him before he fell as much as an inch. A struggle was made to get back on his feet, and Luigi almost succeeded to only have his feet (with almost no legs to speak of at this point) be lifted off the ground by his area between his legs touching the ground solidly and lifting him up further as more weight compounded in the area, making any attempts to move futile and forcing him into a type of sitting position. All at once, as the rest of his body kept growing, making Luigi's body look like a weird pear shape, the warm feeling spread to his upper body, yearning to even out the growth. Luigi watched in horror as the years of careful training and work to make him effective to help his brother melted away as he started taking on a more spherical shape.
The warm feeling eventually penetrated his face and Luigi felt his cheeks puff up, making it hard to keep his eyes open, let alone see. Suddenly, everything subsided, leaving a shocked Luigi to examine his body the best he could with limited mobility. He was certainly much fatter than Wario, or any other living thing for that matter, and was almost completely immobile from his legless feet sticking out of his body and unable to touch the floor. Luigi moaned, noticing his voice was also much deeper. Being unable to see his face, Luigi used his hands, which were surprisingly unaffected for the most part by this other than being slightly chubbier, and felt the soft mounds of flesh covering his face. Shame crept from every corner of his being, but Luigi was interrupted from his pity party by an orange shape at the corner of his vision that escaped his attention.
It was Daisy, mouth agape as she stared at Luigi. She saw everything. Confusing thoughts ran through her head at a million miles an hour with so many questions, but suddenly a single solid thought stuck in her state of befuddlement. Daisy wanted to do more than just visit when she originally came, with an important question, but it was her own fears that held her back when she tried to tell him what she wanted to. But there was also a fear that Luigi would try to run away when she told him what she intended to. But above all, right now with Luigi immobile, there was one thing she wanted to do more than anything else, the idea erasing all her previous thoughts for the time being.
Daisy's body seemed to snap out of the state of shock all at once as she moved swiftly in front of Luigi and looked him in the eye. Luigi nervously looked back, trying to read Daisy's expression to see what she was going to do, but to no avail. It all became clear what she was doing when she walked forward and gave Luigi a giant hug, embracing him warmly. Luigi always seemed to run away from possible hugs from anyone other than Mario, so with him helpless, this was something Daisy wanted to try more than anything. Sure Luigi didn't exactly rub Daisy as the hugging type, but it was his own fault for always looking so hugable all the time. And now he was even cuddlier! She could see all the blood rush to Luigi's face as he tried to kick the best he could without legs, which resulted more in his feet wiggling as he tried to make an impossible getaway. This was an embrace he wasn't escaping anytime soon.
Finally, Daisy let go of the embrace, leaving Luigi blushing as red as Mario's shirt. Now that that was out of the way, there were questions that needed to be answered. From what Daisy had seen when she walked out of the bathroom was Luigi panicking as he started to seemingly inflate. That was a pure indication that it wasn't on purpose.
"What happened?" asked Daisy, voice unintentionally wavering.
"I ate from the basket of treats Mario told me not to and I started gaining weight like crazy!" Luigi's now deep voice boomed, sounding very serious and to be feared, as well as sounding like Luigi was on the verge of tears.
"Well, why did you do something like that? He told you not to eat it, didn't he?"
"I just assumed he was saving it for him and Peach and that they wouldn't miss one... or two."
"Well, maybe you should listen to him in the future," stated Daisy
"I know!" Luigi wailed as he began to cry, "Now I can't go on adventures anymore due to being immobile, not to mention people never liked me much and with this, they'll like me even less! Nobody will like me!"
Daisy looked at Luigi sobbing, feeling it pull at her heartstrings as she heard his cries. It reminded her of the original reason for coming here that she had forgotten moments ago. Daisy walked up to the sobbing Luigi again and embraced him once more, this time with the younger Mario brother too occupied to even try to resist.
"Luigi, I still like you," said Daisy, "While this may be a huge problem that seriously needs to be fixed, you're still Luigi, the really sweet guy that I can't help but like. And you know why I really dropped by today?"
Luigi's sobs subsided to sniffles. "Why, because you needed to use the bathroom?" asked Luigi.
Daisy shook her head.
"No. I dropped by to ask you a question that I was too scared and nervous to ask you at first. I had to go to the bathroom to compose myself in order to make a second attempt at asking. And I think I would still like to ask you it."
"W-what's the question?"
"Will you go on a date with me?"
Luigi's entire world froze before bursting into ecstasy.
"O-o-of course I'll go on a date of you!" Luigi stuttered, being the happiest man in the world for a few seconds before remembering his predicament, "Oh, but I'll have to take off all this weight first. But because of how big I am, that could take years!"
Luigi suddenly remembered something. "OH NO! Mario is on a walk and can return home at any minute and he'll know I ate that food! You gotta help me!"
Daisy thought about it as fast as she could. "Considering how fast you put on the weight, I'm thinking that since this is obviously unnatural, there's probably a just as quick way to get back to normal. How about running?"
"But Daisy, how can I run if I don't even have-" Luigi was interrupted by Daisy pulling the old dusty treadmill out of the bro.s' basement, somehow strong enough to lift it without effort. Daisy quickly moved over to Luigi and lifted him up with a bit more effort than the treadmill and put him on the track.
"I would ask how you're strong enough to lift me or the treadmill up, but I'm kind of afraid to know the answer."
Daisy didn't say a word as she turned on the tread mill. Instead of being able to do anything, Luigi started to roll in place.
"This isn't working, Daisy," Luigi said.
"Nonsense! It just isn't turned up enough yet!"
All that did was make Luigi roll faster before shooting him off and making him take out the living room couch.
"You know what, let's think of something else."
Daisy quickly moved the treadmill back to the basement and came back up. "Okay, let's try-"
Daisy was interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Bro, open up. I'm back and I'm too lazy to open the door," said Mario's muffled voice from the other side of the front door.
Panic raced through both Luigi and Daisy. Daisy, being the quicker reactor of the two, grabbed a blanket from the wreckage of the couch and draped it over Luigi as a rather pathetic attempt to hide him.
"Come on, bro. Just open up already."
Daisy, being the only one who could answer the door, rushed over and opened it, looking as casual as possible, the look complete with the suspicious sweat beading up on her forehead.
Mario was covered in sweat and had a wet red towel over his shoulders. He was currently pre-occupied trying to wipe some chain-chomp waste he had accidentally stepped in off his shoe.
"Man, Luigi, people don't clean up after their-," Mario looked up and a smile covered his face before changing to a look of confusion, "Oh, Daisy! What a pleasant surprise! Where's Luigi?"
Daisy started sweating bullets. "Oh, he's out... getting groceries! He asked me to watch the house."
Mario instantly knew something was up and peered past her to see his destroyed living room. As Mario was about to angrily say something, he stopped in his tracks when he saw a lump poorly covered with blankets, two brown boots sticking out of it. Wow, those two were bad at hiding things. However, Mario felt like humoring her for a bit longer to see if she would come out with the truth.
"I see," said Mario as he strolled into the house, "So why is the couch destroyed?"
"Well... Luigi said he was hungry enough to eat a couch... and he tried to."
Mario was mildly amused by Daisy's rather mediocre attempts to hide things, but had to at least give her points for trying.
"Uh huh. Yep," Mario walked over to the lump, which he knew was Luigi and leaned on him, hearing Luigi's attempts to stifle laughter as he did so, "And what's this?"
"My... mobile home?"
"Daisy, that gag doesn't even work in this context," said Mario as he whipped the blanket off of Luigi, "Man, little bro, you really let yourself go."
Shame flooded Luigi's face as he looked at Mario."I'm sorry, I couldn't-"
"Couldn't help yourself? That's rather clear right now. I told you not to eat that stuff!"
Daisy recovered from the shock of being found out so quickly and marched up to Mario, ready to go up to bat for Luigi. "Well, you at least could have given him an explaination as to why he couldn't eat those treats! It just looked like you were being greedy with the snacks! He was hungry and ate one and not being able to help himself, ate more before this happened! Not to mention that perhaps you could have put this somewhere out of his reach! If anything, this is as much as your fault as his!"
Mario sighed. "Fine, I'll admit to this being my fault too. I'm sorry, Luigi, I should have been clear why you shouldn't have eaten it."
"But what did the food do to me and how do we undo it?"
"Well, the reason the sweets made you put on the weight is because when they were all being made at the bakery, a clumsy toad knocked an entire bottle of P-balloon essence into the batch of batter. The basket was originally going to be sent to Bowser so he'd eat it and be out of everyone's hair for awhile, but that clearly isn't happening now."
"Okay, but how do I get my thin and lithe body back?"
"Hold your horses, I had to guilt trip you a bit first, but what the P-Balloon essence did was combine with the fattening foods to cause the effect of extreme weight gain. Although this isn't the most accurate explanation, what the food did pretty much was inflate all your cells. And how do we undo this? We pop them."
Luigi recoiled in fear, causing Mario to laugh a bit before leaning back on Luigi again and giving him a pat on the stomach.
"Don't worry, this isn't nearly as painful as it sounds. All we need to do is send enough force through your body and you'll be back to normal, though you'll never live this down from me. I have a plan on how to do this, but we need to get you outside."
Daisy promptly picked up Luigi, much to the amazement of Mario and tried to get him through the open front door, but the door was having none of it, frame squealing as Luigi's too big body attempted to force its way past. One broken door frame and a long stream of profanity from Mario later, they successfully made it out the door and stood in the front lawn.
"So what do I do?" asked Daisy, holding Luigi over her head while Luigi had a indescribable priceless scared look on his face.
Mario, wanting to protect his pride from the princess potentially stronger than him, quickly tried to take Luigi from Daisy. "Oh no, I'll take it from he-" Luigi's massive weight hit Mario like a ton of bricks.
How could he even be this heavy? That's not even addressing the question of how Daisy could possibly be stronger than him without any visible arm muscles! But he couldn't stop now! His pride was on the line. Luigi had pushed Mario down into an uncomfortable squatting position and Mario desperately pushed up against the weight of his younger brother, slowly standing up straight. Mario did what always helped him do difficult things and imagined he was mashing an "A" button on a controller. Finally, Mario was almost completely upright and let loose a burst of strength to send Luigi up into the air.
"Luigi! Face your stomach towards the ground and do a body slam!"
Luigi maneuvered his massive girth in the air and slammed down on the ground, sending out a massive shock wave that flung a couple of toad houses off of their foundations in the distance.
"Wow, if that was used to attack somebody, that's a ground shaking attack that could do a lot of damage," Mario noted aloud.
A moan from Luigi in his normal voice frequency turned Mario's head and he found himself looking at Luigi laying on the ground covered in his own stretched out and ruined clothes like a blanket. Mario and Daisy rushed to where Luigi was laying and helped him up, his overalls falling off, but his green shirt being stretched out enough to where it hung down to his knees. Luigi quickly shook off the Cheep Cheeps that were circling his head and let out a whoop when he looked down and realized he could see his feet again.
"Woohoo, I'm thin and ready for action again!" Luigi whooped, both fists in the air above his head in victory.
"You've never exactly been thin, bro," said Mario as he poked the small bit of paunch on Luigi's stomach, which earned him two indignant looks from both Luigi and Daisy.
XxX
Luigi quickly rushed into the house and put on fitting clothes, before rushing out and embracing Mario, and to her surprise, Daisy too.
Daisy hung around for the rest of the day, giving Mario a hard time for not getting groceries, whilst cuddling Luigi that she had in a death grip so he couldn't get away (not that he was trying at this point), and enjoyed her time visiting. After being chased out of the livingroom by Daisy because of a comment he made on Luigi's weight, Mario sat in his room on his bed shaking his head and smiling. It was as if Daisy was a weird version of Peach created specifically for Luigi with a more tomboyish vibe. But that was just plain silly, so Mario dismissed the thought. He could only guess what those two were doing in the living room together.
XxX
After chasing off Mario, Daisy took her place beside Luigi once more and gave him a playful punch on the shoulder. Luigi turned to Daisy.
"S-s-so Daisy," stuttered out Luigi, "What about that date?"
Daisy didn't respond, but suddenly grabbed Luigi and pulled him into a kiss.
"I don't know," said Daisy as she looked at Luigi's burning red face, "What about it?"
T H E - E N D
Man, this took forever to write for a number of reasons, but I'm glad it's completed. I consider this as a warm up for getting back into the swing of writing, so my usual writing style may be a bit weird due to me not writing too much during my personal crisis. But please let me know how I did with a review. I appreciate each and every review I receive and welcome them. And let me tell you, it's so great to be back. I have nothing else to say, so Norm out. And remember that if you're going to lie, make it a good one!