Storm clouds amassed over the top of Bowser's floating fortress, turning an already cloudy day into darkness. Thunder cracked both near and far from the battle underway. The heinous machinist Smithy, leader of the the eponymous Smithy Gang floated from the air in front of the castle, his face contorted into a permanent scowl of anger. Mario, his brother Luigi and Mallow, Prince of Nimbus Land stood at the entrance, still breathing heavily from evading their adversary's attack. Away from the battle was the enormous axe-shaped airship Blade observing from afar but not involved.
"Come on, Creampuff!" Luigi stammered, his entire body shivering. "He's not gonna give us all day!"
"Almost..." Mallow's plump body separated at the midsection and his upper half hovered in the air. Bright dots of magical energy sparkled around his gut and dashed into the center to form a green club of playing cards and fading just as quickly.
Smithy raised his enormous hammer over his head in preparation to strike while this happened. He was answered by a series of yellow lightning bolts striking down from different parts of the sky in rapid succession. The faintest hint of a painful wince flickered on Smithy's face only to disappear at the end of the onslaught.
"Oh no... Even lightning doesn't work on him anymore," the Prince quietly said as body rejoined. Despite the meekness of his voice and the sound of battle, the red plumber had little trouble hearing.
"Man, this Smithy guy really is tougher than chewin' on an undercooked piece of lasagna now." While Mario and Mallow had both taken on the leader of the Smithy Gang before, it did not take long to find out round two was a far different affair. "Guess I gotta give him a stir to make him easier to grasp like a fork and spaghetti!"
Mario sprinted across the wooden gate of the castle, undeterred by its pockmarked condition. Before reaching the end he leaped into the air well above Smithy, a sudden twist of his torso left the plumber spinning at a rate most jet engines could not achieve and at a similar speed towards his foe.
The two collided and the scraping of metal a buzzsaw against steel plating screeched from the air. Sparks erupted in every direction and a subdued grunt could be heard from Smithy. The noise did not last long as the machinist managed to swat Mario away from him with his free hand, the spinning plumber was left in an uncontrollable collision course with the castle wall.
"Mario, no!" Luigi could only stand in horror as a small hole exploded into being on the outer wall of Bowser's Keep, kicking chunks of brick and dust away as it did, some even landing in the green plumber's mustache only to be freed by a sneeze.
Mario clumsily emerged from the hole he left, his eyes and his head rotating in opposite directions as a loose brick fell on his head from above. Compared to being thrown into the wall a single brick was nothing, but it was enough to remind him of the fact his hat was facing backwards and to adjust it. He leaped back to his two comrades and said. "Not even the Spin Jump worked, Luigi. I think we need to use some Pasta Power to take this metalhead down..." Mario paused to see that Luigi was giving only a blank stare at him, seemingly unable to hear him. "Luigi?"
A sense of coldness washed over Mario, one that he had felt only a few times before. Mario had been on many adventures and fought many battles, usually with his brother by his side and most often against the King of Koopas. While they were rarely pieces of tiramisu, the older brother knew that even when it seemed impossible it would only take some determination and courage to last long enough to win the day in the end.
Yet, this time was different. Smithy was a tough guy the last time they fought, but now he seemed invulnerable compared to the plumber duo – a fact made clear by him cracking open the Lazy Shell like it was an egg. Sure enough, they and Mallow likewise had risen to the occasion over the course of their journey, but it had been a physically and mentally stressful learning course seeing the results of Smithy's spiteful reprisal upon the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond.
Though that glimmer of hope that victory was assured still glowed within Mario like a lighthouse during a storm, each passing moment a sea of doubt climbed up the coast to snuff it out. Sadly, he could not say the same of his brother. He could not tell what was going on inside his brother's head, but Luigi never had the confidence he did and seemed to take things worse than he let on. He didn't even know how bad things really were: Smithy had yet to tear his mask off and show his true appearance with the strength that came with it.
"You fools have stopped nothing. Last time you fought me I let down my guard and lost, causing my conquest to be delayed. But now the world will be filled with weapons and you will fail!" Smithy spoke in a superficially polite tone, his teeth gritted and only holding back from yelling from a pretense of formality. "The sky will become a choking smog of black smoke and rains of arrows. The ground endless dunes of saltpeter with shrubs of knives. The oceans thick of oil and burning fire. And in it all, never ending, soul-breaking, all-encompassing WAR!"
As though to emphasize his point, the skies above turned dark as countless swords materialized mid-air only to throw themselves at the castle. To call it a 'sword rain' was inaccurate, as unlike actual rain the blades all moved at the same time, far too many and too densely packed to simply avoid, like an edged derecho.
The swords reached the castle swiftly, digging themselves into the stone and wood and sticking out from them before vanishing into smoke. Mallow crafted a shield of snow and solid ice to protect himself and Mario jumped behind it, both narrowly being impaled by the weapons that all but pierced through the barrier.
Yet, an untouched island lay in the serrated sea, where Luigi stood. The plumber looked up at Smithy glaring him in the eye. "You wanna weapon so bad? I'll show you one! The Luigi Cannon!"
Mario's eyes widened at the declaration. "Has Luigi lost his spaghetti noodle? Does he really think it'll work?" The plumber had seen his brother use it before and indeed it had shown to be quite potent. But he still did not know if it would be able to harm Smithy in his current state, let alone his real one after he and Mallow gave it everything they had. The prospects were just so grim.
Luigi did not wait to answer questions, he reached into his suspenders pocket and pulled out a large caliber machine gun - painted a bright green and having an L stenciled on the side - from thin air and aimed it at Smithy. The machinist humphed at the weapon and held out his free hand, which itself was a multi-barreled autocannon. Luigi fired, a rapid series of Bullet Bills erupted from his weapon.
The Bullet Bills impacted Smithy dead on, but all ricochet off into different directions, bumps on their heads and their eyes turned into blank Xs. "Mosquito bites hurt more," Smithy said before returning fire.
Luigi stood his ground as the shells whizzed past him but never seeming to connect, Mario and Mallow could only watch in disbelief. "He's not even moving out of the way, Mario. How is he doing that?" the Prince asked.
"That's just to testfire!" Luigi shouted, his hand began to glow green before spreading onto the cannon, as it did the weapon began to expand, a second barrel sprouted from beneath and widened until it quickly overtook the first in size. Luigi fired again as soon as the transformation was complete, now the stream of Bullet Bills was accompanied by the steady beat of their much larger Banzai Bills.
Unlike the ineffective Bullet Bills, the first of the Banzai Bills colliding with Smithy actually forced the leader of the Smithy Gang back, not even slowing the big ballistic bruiser down as it sailed through the air.
"He actually pushed him back! Hit him dead on right in the ravioli!" Mario yelled, the sea of doubt had its drain at the bottom pulled. They might just win this after all.
Mallow was not as optimistic, he took the brief lapse in the fighting to use his psychopathic power upon the machinist, to give a rough idea of how hurt he really was. "He's not being hurt, Mario. He's just being pushed away somehow."
Whatever patience Smithy had was knocked out of him along with his breath, and he grasped the sides of the bullet and tossed it aside. Before he could move to return to the fray the second in the line of Banzai Bills impacted, but now expecting the projectiles Smithy pushed it aside even quicker as well as smashing the third with his hammer, making it explode in a puff of smoke.
A new torrent of Bullet Bills darted towards Smithy, but their purpose was not to hit him. Instead, the green plumber was using them as stepping stones to hop towards him in mid-air clutching a wooden mallet in his hands. "My brother might have have showed you he knows how to spin, and Mallow might have showed you he can use thunder, but they haven't shown ya that I can do both! I've got something that's even better, even better than Brooklyn!"
"I don't understand," Mallow said, scratching his puffy head. "Why does he compare everything to Brooklyn? What is Brooklyn?"
Mallow's question remained unanswered as the front of Bowser's Castle began to transform. The stone effigy of Bowser's face contorted and twisted along the rest of the front entrance into the shape of a tube jutting outwards. The bricks themselves transmogrified into metal and the now dwarfed Luigi Cannon shot up into the air until it landed on top and fused with the new humongous barrel. Tesla coils, vacuum tubes and large electric circuits emerged from the windows and the top of the Castle, having completely occupied the interior.
Luigi swung his hammer as he finally reached Smithy and with surprising force was able to send him flying back again towards the Blade until he slammed into the side of the hull.
The Axem Rangers were Smithy's most elite fighting force, answering only to the man himself. Composing of Red, Yellow, Green, Pink and Black, few could match the raw power or the masterful skill of just one, and it was rare for all five to not fight at the same time. Yet, as they had quickly learned, one of those few might just be before them.
A tall man in a green suit and a gray helmet stood before them on the deck of the Blade, veins bulging from his exposed, muscular arms as his body seemed to glow red. His slightly slouched posture was that of pure aggression, the remnants of one of Smithy's henchmen clenched in his fist, recently separated from its owner.
Whoever he was, he wasn't related to the Mario Brothers, but he was no less terrifying or destructive to the Smithy Gang's interests, or the Gang itself for that matter.
The largest and physically strongest of the five, Axem Yellow charged the strange man, ready to bodyslam head-on to knock him off balance while readying his axe to finish him off. Yellow was stopped dead in his tracks from a hard punch to his gut by the man. Yellow howled in pain before his back erupted a slurry of gears, solid state electronics and oil while his lifeless body was thrown aside by the man.
"Axem Yellow!" Cried out Axem Green, in horror that the undisputed muscle of the team was so quickly dispatched. The healer of the group, Axem Pink did not even attempt to use her healing abilities, the wounds were beyond their power.
Not that it would have mattered, as the figure to do a charge towards Axem Black throwing a fist towards the Ranger's face. Axem Black was the fastest of the group and managed to dodge the first strike, but failed to avoid a kick at his legs. The sheer force of impact caused Black's entire left leg to disintegrate and the Ranger to trip to the ground gracelessly. Axem Black's career was cut short immediately after with a violent stomp on his head, shattering his expensive triangular sunglasses.
Axem Green began to glow white as he channeled magical energy through his body. Within the area around the battle stars twinkled around briefly. The Meteor Blast was a formidable technique that did not seem impressive, but dealt tremendous shredding damage to its target. The other green figure did not seem to notice any change as it closed in to the remaining Axem Rangers. Axem Pink swung her axe downwards at the man, who caught the handle in his fist and gripped it so tightly it visibly bent. He tore the weapon from Axem Pink and jabbed the hilt into the side of her head, making her slump lifelessly to the ground.
Axem Green attempted to stab the figure with the pointed top of his own axe while he was distracted. In return for his efforts the man simply threw a right hook at the Ranger's jaw, causing his entire head to twist until it only loosely connected to his head.
Only Axem Red, leader and strongest of all remained. Unlike the raw, explosive anger of the man who killed his teammates, Axem Red's was calm and refined. He had analyzed the man's fighting and already devised the method he would take to make the man pay for his actions without any irrational taunts or strikes.
The man stopped glowing red, and simply reached for something behind his back. A double-barreled shotgun of some type was soon brandished in his arms. The last of the Axems Ranger was blown into pieces by a pair of buckshot before he could even react.
As the final Ranger fell to the deck, a violent shaking overtook the Blade, the result of something big hitting the side of the vessel at high speed. Though he saw that the floating castle in the distance was now the cocoon of a giant gun and the projectile clearly came from its direction, the man did not care, the weapon was not his concern. The man approached the side of the vessel where the impact was, when he was suddenly flung into the air from an explosion below deck. He flew like a ragdoll to the stern of the airship accompanied by wooden and metallic debris where he slammed against the railing. Although unhurt, he now had to start moving towards his goal again.
Smithy rose from the hole inside the Blade's interior walls and moved to the edge of the hull. If the machinist had blood vessels they would have burst and sprayed steaming blood, instead he had metal plumbing that did the same with water. Geysers of vapor jetted from his neck and the underside of his head collected condensation as the full extent of his anger reached the surface. He saw the now enormous Luigi Cannon overtake the now distant Castle, and, for only a few microseconds, he admired the craftsmanship.
Luigi stood on a small cloud with a face on it to Smithy's right, floating in mid-air. "It's the end, Smithy. You and your robot army better leave before I shoot!"
The leader of the Smithy Gang looked into the plumber's eyes, he could sense the determination within them. Luigi intended to throw everything he had at him with that cannon, even parts he likely didn't know he had. "You intend to attack with your absolute power. So I will show you how impotent you really are, Luigi." Smithy took his own hammer and smashed it against his head. Not only was he unfazed, the part that was hit transformed into a different shape all together, like that of a metal block. He smashed again and again, changing his head more and more until it resembled an iron maiden with only his bulging red eyes and his mouth exposed through an eye-slit.
"Lord Smithy! That cannon is aimed right at us!" A lowly Jabit shook in terror at the weapon, desperately attempting to advise his boss not to proceed.
"And I will block it with everything not because it is necessary, but to prove to this plumber my limits exceed his own," Smithy replied, once again returning to an oddly calm demeanor.
"You want the ship to be destro-" The Jabit was not permitted to voice his concerns further. Smithy slammed his hammer against the minion, instantly shattering it into thousands of tiny pieces. So hard was he hit that the pieces on impact with the ceiling caused them to explode with great enough force to reach the top decks of the Blade.
Luigi reached again into his pocket and pulled out a mushroom shaped device, holding it in one hand as he pushed down a button with his other. A laser shot from the device and aimed at Smithy's midsection. Luigi's face was now in tears and his teeth bared. "This is my home and I won't let anyone try to take it from me! Not Bowser! Not Cackletta! Not you! Not the Long Island Mental Ward! No one!"
The Luigi Cannon fired, and the world was consumed. A blindingly brilliant blue-white beam of ballistic something erupted from the barrel of the cannon. Mario and Mallow could only observe with their jaws agape in fear, awe and curiosity. Around them the stone bricks of Bowser's castle superheated from proximity, and steam rose above rapid fissures bursting from pressure.
Though Smithy only had miliseconds to brace for the beam to hit him dead on, it was all he needed. Or so he thought. The Blade was instantly split into two pieces from the beam and fragmented even further from the shockwaves. Smithy himself was once again pushed helplessly by the blast.
The entire sky and all around it had turned shades of bluish-white from the beam. It did not take long to become apparent the Luigi Cannon's discharge was spinning as it flew, and a immense vortex dragged clouds far and wide into it as lightning crackled within. The clouds resembled a powerful hurricane seen from outer space, standing vertically in the atmosphere with the beam encompassing the eye.
The unidentified green man miraculously survived the impact on the Blade, only briefly after being thrown away from the deck bursting underneath his feet. He managed to stand upright even as the bifurcated half of airship he was on lost altitude in a lopsided angle. Noticing the centrifugal effect of the beam and now disinterested in whatever the Blade might have held, the man simply pushed himself into the air with his legs and was swept along. He built up momentum before managing to force himself to escape the spinning and launching at an angle to send him flying through the air away from the phenomenon.
Smithy, using his absolute power to protect himself from the blast, was quickly being overwhelmed. It was impossible, he thought, but each passing instant he was being further proven wrong. More wrong than he could have ever conceived before. His body was being dismantled, tiny powder-like fragments being pulled from the surface and forming a shimmering helix trail. Though he could not see it in his mind's eye, he knew it was happening. Across numerous dimensions Smithy had conquered in the past and were conquering in the present, his duplicates were simultaneously being enveloped in the electrical vortex just as he was. Their bodies being yanked into the air by an invisible wind with such great force they were being torn asunder into microscopic pieces. Even the great factory he created and was created from was not immune and it too contorted and twisted into complete annihilation.
Smithy as a conscious being had been erased, but the beam of the Luigi Cannon continued on as the larger remnants of the Blade crashed to the ground. The vessel's iconic Breaker Beam had survived relatively intact until that point, but the energy of the blast had supercharged it far beyond anything it could handle. When it hit the ground, the weapon went critical and detonated. The horizon was briefly encompassed by a blue mushroom cloud only to be disfigured and absorbed into the rest of the vortex.
Continuing into space, the very tip of the blast was finally visible. A Banzai Bill, far greater in size than it's normal brethren and silver in color. Tears flowed from its joyful yet pained face which froze immediately the coldness of space, leaving behind a trail like that of a comet. The Silver Bill may have defeated Smithy, but the machinist had mortally wounded the bullet from the strain in his brief resistance. "Thank you again, Luigi..." the ballistic said. "These few seconds of freedom from gravity, worth a lifetime of..." Silver Bill closed his eyes yet tears still flowed, forever.
Luigi floated back to his brother and the Prince. The weather had returned to normal and the beam dissipated, the Luigi Cannon compressed itself back into the comparatively meager machine gun it was and flew back into the plumber's pocket.
"I can't believe it. You beat Smithy!" Mallow said, he had to keep himself from weeping tears of joy lest he soak everyone in a downpour. Not that anyone minded when he failed.
"I knew my brother had a cannoli up his sleeve! Just had to figure out if it had garlic pesto or raspberry vinaigrette or penne or all of the above and-" Mario stopped to hear the rumbling of his stomach. "Say let's get something to eat, I'm hungry as a Piranha Plant."
"What can I say?" Luigi asked, lifting his hands before his chest. "It was a golden opportunity to use a silver bullet."
The trio laughed happily as they all walked back into Bowser's keep, raising the gates behind them.
A/N: The contents of this story came to me in a dream. With the sole exception of the appearance of the Axem Rangers and by extension their 'fight', every other aspect of this story was for the most part portrayed as it was depicted. In hindsight it seems like the rushed finale of a greater tale to be told, but I deemed trying to do that would be beyond the scope of finally writing a fic for the first time in nearly five years.
It is good to be back.
-Doc Mad