It was just a normal day in Peach Gardens. The sun was shining down brightly, picking out the bright faces of pink and yellow flowers, glinting on the surface of cool blue ponds. The sound of the chain chomps that patrolled the grounds drifted lazily on the breeze, like the humming of bees on a fine spring morning. In the maze of bushes, King Boo and Waluigi were racing around after each other in a sporting game of Tag, whilst Luigi busily drove on the pathways, easily overtaking those he was racing with.
"Ah, I'm gonna win!" Waluigi crowed in his somewhat nasal voice upon catching sight of King Boo lurking behind one of the square bushes around which chain chomps roved. He took a sudden turn, the twin engines on the back of his motorbike roaring with the effort, and promptly knocked straight into another bush. Rebounding off it, he spun right into the path of a chain chomp and was gradually shunted further and further away from his prey.
Watching, King Boo let out a scream of laughter at his friend's far from brilliant driving skills, his tongue poking out in derision. Triumphantly, he engaged the star boost he had picked up earlier, making his own motorbike glow with rainbow colours. Grinning around his spiky teeth, he sped towards the hapless Waluigi.
Hearing the ghost racing towards him, Waluigi attempted to make a sharp turn to get out of the way, knowing that he would be mown down by the other's star boosted bike. Unfortunately, it was at that moment that the racers made their way through the bushes, steering frantically between the plants as they fought it out between each other for first place. The crowd roared through the previously serene garden, battering Waluigi from side to side.
There was silence for a moment as the group sped on past and Waluigi dedicated himself to trying to recover, and then Diddy Kong came speeding up from behind the others and threw a red shell at the purple overall wearing man. It exploded.
"Everybody cheat," Waluigi, his face blackened with soot from the explosion, complained sulkily to King Boo who was hanging around behind him out of harm's way.
Unsympathetic to his friend's plight, the ghost shrieked a challenge, reminding Waluigi that he was still it and had to tag King Boo. He was just about to turn and drive after one of the chain chomps so that he could collect a speed boost from the boxes it trailed behind its chain, when Luigi came speeding up, surprising him.
"Mama mia…" Luigi sighed, his usually cheerful face looking sad and tired.
"What happened to you?" Waluigi asked his better counterpart, his fierce black eyebrows coming together in a concerned frown.
"I was coming into first, when that Princess Peach, she throw a blue shell at me and blow me up. By the time I recover from it, she has come first and I am last in the race. I lose," Luigi explained, looking crestfallen.
Whilst he had been talking, King Boo had been taking the opportunity to creep up unnoticed behind his tag-playing partner. He had broken off a branch from one of the bushes and held it high up above his head, poised to attack the unsuspecting Waluigi with. As Luigi finished explaining, Boo hit Waluigi hard enough on the head to knock him off of his motorbike, yelling "Tag!"
"I'm the one who's supposed to be tagging you!" Waluigi complained from where he had fallen to the ground, shoving his purple hat back onto his head and feeling around gingerly to see if he had a lump coming up. Nobody took any notice.
Just then, Boo registered what Luigi had been saying. His mouth fell open wider than usual and he dropped the branch he had been holding. It fell onto Waluigi's head just as he was starting to stand up, knocking him back down to the ground.
"Did you say Peach blew you up? I've had trouble from her before. Well, she's won her last race at the expense of other, better drivers." Leaping back up onto his motorbike (even though he had no legs), Boo shouted "After her!" and took off in a cloud of dust.
"Yeah! We gonna win!" Waluigi echoed the sentiment. Pushing the branch off of his head, he leapt up onto his own bike and took off after King Boo, bumping into the railings as he tried to exit the maze and then disappearing in a clumsy skid around the corner.
"Mama mia…" Luigi murmured to himself, wondering if he had been wise to involve the other two, but still he revved up his kart and took off after them, catching up easily.
After driving twice around Peach Gardens and finding nothing, even though they checked behind every bush and searched in all the long grassed flowerbeds, the three friends decided that the other racers must have moved on to another place.
"Where can they have gone?" Luigi wondered aloud.
King Boo let out a mournful shriek and then butted Waluigi into a nearby pond to make himself feel better. They had to find the others if they ever wanted to catch up with Peach and get her back for making Luigi lose the race.
"I think I might have an idea," Waluigi spluttered as he tried to crawl out of the pond, his moustache dripping puddles onto the ground. Hanging onto the edge, he pursed his lips and spurted a jet of water out of his mouth onto the front of King Boo's bike. A fish made its way out of the small fountain and landed beside the wheel, flopping on the dirt. "But I'm not going to tell you what it is."
Luigi rescued the fish. "I'll put this down your dungarees if you don't tell me," he warned and then as an afterthought added a polite "Please."
The fish was eyed thoughtfully and then Waluigi said "Peach usually goes shopping in Coconut Mall at this time of day, she's probably gone there."
Finally having managed to clamber out of the water, Waluigi shook himself dry and drenched King Boo in the process. The two were just about to get into a fight over it, when Luigi interrupted them by saying dubiously "But we have to drive on Moonview Highway to get to the mall."
And that decided the whole matter, because Boo gave an excited scream of "Moonview Highway!" and shot off towards it. The other two had no choice but to follow him.
The drive along Moonview Highway in pursuit of that treacherous Princess Peach started out pleasantly enough. True, the road was shrouded in perpetual twilight and the vehicles the three friends were driving weren't equipped with headlights, but the panoramic view visible over the edge of the gently curving roads was awe-inspiring and the road was fairly empty of traffic.
That was, until they reached the bridge that led onto the main road. Passing under one of the bars that lifted to allow traffic through, they were faced with a sudden onrush of heavy traffic consisting of speeding cars and looming lorries. They found themselves buffeted by the slipstreams of air, and choking on the cloud of exhaust fumes, but still they drove bravely on, albeit a little more carefully than before.
Growing bored with their slow, cautious progress, King Boo swerved to pick up a box and found to his delight that it granted him with a star boost. Grinning, he engaged it and took off with a gleeful whoop, knocking cars off of the road left and right as he plowed fearlessly through the traffic.
With a synchronized sigh, Luigi and Waluigi took off after him. By taking advantage of the rainbow speed boost strips that dotted the road here and there, they were able to stay close enough behind him for a while to keep him in sight. But when Luigi had to save his villainous alter-ego from falling off the edge of the road when he took a turn too fast, they lost sight of Boo.
"He cheater," Waluigi confided to the other moustachioed man as they threaded precariously through the oncoming traffic.
"You say everbody cheater," Luigi muttered under his breath, his words lost in the roar of a Moo Moo Milkshake lorry as it thundered past. "But you biggest cheater I know."
They caught up with King Boo to find the ghost idling at the edge of the road. He was staring curiously at something, hardly even bothering to acknowledge the other two as he heard them pull up behind him. One of his short, stubby arms left the handle of his bike so that he could shade his eyes, even though the sky was dark. Frowning in thought, he made a gesture towards an approaching vehicle and asked "What's that?"
Wondering what could have caught Boo's attention enough to stop him in his path of havoc, Luigi produced a pair of binoculars from out of his dungarees and looked through them in the direction the ghost was pointing.
Also wanting a look, Waluigi pulled a gold-rimmed monocle from his pocket, and held it to one squinted eye. Unfortunately, he was looking in the wrong direction and didn't know what he was supposed to be seeing until he heard Luigi gasp and exclaim in fear "A bomb car!"
"A bomb? What does it do?" Boo asked in a voice that was high-pitched with wonderment.
Before either of the other two could stop him, King Boo had driven straight into the approaching bomb car; which did indeed look just like a bomb on four wheels. There was an almighty bang and a sphere of orange fire flared up as the bomb car exploded on impact with the ghost's motorbike.
A few seconds later, Boo drove out of the ball of flame, hardly even singed and happier than ever. "Bombs explode!" he answered his own question in a joyous yell before speeding off to find another one and do it all over again.
"Looks like we'll have to teach Princess Peach a lesson on our own," Waluigi commented in a dry sneer, as he and the other man took off in the other direction to Boo, resuming their course towards the Coconut Mall.
Luigi nodded in determination and then gestured to a smaller road that branched off from the main highway, ascending up the side of one of the steep cliffs that flanked one side of the main road. "There's a short cut over there, it will save us time."
"Short cuts for cheaters," Waluigi grumbled quietly. He never used short cuts when racing, but only because he couldn't remember where they were after finding them.
Just as the two turned off towards the smaller road, cutting across a few lanes, a lorry larger than any of the others came speeding towards them. Its horn honked hellishly, seeming to tear the night in two and they were frozen to the spot, like rabbits caught in the headlights.
Because Waluigi was the slower driver of the two, he felt only the sharp pull of dirty-tasting air as it rushed past his face in the lorry's wake, but Luigi had been right in the monster vehicle's path and was squashed flat beneath its giant wheels.
"Luigi, you okay?"
"Mama mia…" Luigi groaned in a wheeze, his voice compressed along with the rest of him. The lorry had flattened him out like a pancake, the wheels of his crumpled car the highest point. They turned slowly as he drove around in woozy circles, hardly able to see the road over the top of his car, so much the lorry had squashed him. The car spluttered, lurched and then came to a complete halt in the middle of the road. "My car, it won't go."
"Kablammo!" A familiar voice suddenly whooped, and then Boo was careening down the short cut across the road and coming to a stop beside the other two. His crown was askew on his head and blackened with soot, but he looked very happy. He stared down at the flattened Luigi, his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
"We'll have to go on without you," Waluigi announced.
"No…" Luigi's voice was barely above a whisper.
Bending his long legs, Waluigi crouched down beside his friend and brought one of his pointed ears closer to the other man's concertinaed mouth so the he could hear him better.
"You… can't…"
He clapped his friend and sometimes rival on the shoulder in jovial reassurance. "Don't worry about me and Boo, Luigi."
"That's King Boo, to you," the ghost huffed, but Waluigi took no notice.
"The two of us, we shall go on this quest to get your honour back. We shall avenge you and return triumphant to restore you to your rightful position of champion racer. It's the least we can do for you. Do not fear for us Luigi, for we are brave and we are strong and we can face whatever challenges fate throws in out path."
"No, you don't understand." Weakly, Luigi beckoned for the other man to come even closer, gripping him by the front of his purple shirt. Although crushed, his eyes blazed. "I don't want you going on my quest. One of you is insane and the other" – here he looked pointedly at Waluigi – "is an idiot. I'll be the laughing stock of everyone in Mario Land."
"Your concern touches me, but it falls on deaf ears," said Waluigi, who hadn't been listening to a word.
"Are you coming or not?" Boo called back over his shoulder, impatiently revving his bike.
Waluigi nodded and stood up, tipping his cap in farewell to Luigi. Walking over to his own bike and swinging his leg over it to get on, his attention was called back by his flattened friend, who was croaking "No… don't go…"
"Of course we'll bring you back an ice cream," the pointed eared man soothed, kicking his bike into gear and hurrying after Boo, who had already driven off. "Sheesh, does that guy never shut up?" He rolled his eyes at the ghost as he pulled up beside him.
Luigi watched helplessly until they were both out of sight.
Racing at top speed and only getting blown up a few times by passing bomb cars, Waluigi and King Boo soon made it to Coconut Mall.
"Race you to the entrance!" Boo whooped, coaxing his bike into a triumphant skid through the mall's entrance.
There was no reply, unless a shocked yell counted, because Waluigi had just driven straight into one of the cars in the parking lot and was currently being squashed against a wall by the vehicle's bumper.
Boo waiting impatiently for his friend to extricate himself.
When Waluigi had finally managed to drive out from between the car and the wall, looking rather worse for wear, the two bikers drove into the mall in search of Peach. It wasn't an easy search. This was mainly due to the fact that whilst Boo traversed the elevators going up onto the next floor, he more often than not turned to find Waluigi far behind him, struggling to drive up a down escalator. This hampered their progress considerably, but Boo liked stopping to window shop and read the adverts tacked up on the walls anyway, so he didn't mind the hold ups too much.
Boo was just idly by a shop window, trying to decide whether he really did need a new super-sonic toothbrush or not, when Waluigi gave an exclamation of "There she is!"
The ghost turned and saw, over the spray of the decorative fountain behind him, Peach sitting at a table and sipping from a tall glass of violently pink smoothie. Intent on her drink, the princess hadn't spotted the two friends.
Together, they crept silently up to the fountain and bunched together, peering around its stone foundation at her. She sighed in boredom and swirled her straw around in her drink. There was a brief but quiet fight between Waluigi and Boo as to who got the best vantage point to spy on her, which the ghost won. Then after a moment they drew back behind the cover of the fountain, using the splash of running water to drown out their whispered conversation.
"How we gonna teach her a lesson?" Waluigi asked.
"Don't worry, just leave everything to me and follow my lead. Come on." So saying, Boo drove out from behind the fountain and over to the princess.
"What do you two losers want?" She asked as she saw them approach.
"We've come to challenge you to a race," Boo said loudly, ignoring the panicked look that arose on Waluigi's face.
Peach yawned loudly. "No thanks. I don't race losers like you."
"I gonna get you for that!" Waluigi shouted in a temper, but Boo swiftly poked the man in the eye to shut him up.
"That's why I'm going to make it interesting, Princess. If we win, you admit that you cheated and that Luigi is a better racer than you."
"And if I win?"
Boo shrugged nonchalantly. "You'll be allowed to carry on racing however you want, and Waluigi here will buy you a lifetime's supply of smoothies."
"Hey!" Waluigi protested.
Peach stood up with a smile, holding out her hand for Boo to shake. "It's a deal. I'll meet you at the mall's entrance in ten minutes. Whoever comes first after three laps around the mall is the winner." She paused and looked at the spluttering Waluigi with a grin. "You'd better start saving up for all those smoothies."
With that, she pulled her hand sharply away from Boo's, who was reaching out to shake it. She held her hand rudely to her nose and blew a raspberry, before turning and flouncing off.
"Waah, we gonna lose…" Waluigi wailed as soon as the princess was out of earshot. "Why you tell her we race her? We can't beat her!"
"You're not going to have to." Boo said with a knowing wink. "I have a cunning plan. Come on, I'll take you to my secret short cut and explain the plan to you on the way."
"Ahh, this time we cheat!"
Ten minutes later, Boo was pulling up to the starting line that was painted on the floor near the entrance of the mall.
Peach was already waiting there and as the ghost approached, she called out "Where's your friend?"
"He burst a tire on the way over here."
"You mean he chickened out," Peach laughed, tossing her long blonde ponytail.
Ignoring her, Boo asked "Ready to lose?"
"No, but you are."
Standing by the side, toeing the starting line, was Koopa Troopa with a checkered flag in his hands. Raising his voice to be heard over the arguing of the two racers, he called out "Three… two… one… Go!" The flag in his hands was brought sharply down, fluttering in the breeze.
"Koopa troopa, what a funny name," King Boo taunted the small turtle-like creature and then looked up to find that the race had started and Peach had already entered the mall. Uttering a shrill battle cry, he kicked his motorbike into life and zoomed after her.
They sped to the first escalator, King Boo rapidly gaining back the ground he had lost until his front wheel was nudging the back of Peach's small pink kart. They almost ascended together, both wobbling as they tried to knock each other off the escalator whilst avoiding each other's attacks.
Up one floor, Peach picked up a mushroom boost for her kart, spitting clouds of exhaust fumes back into Boo's face as she roared out of sight. Luckily, the ghost knew of a short cut nearby and swerved to take it, appearing right in front of Peach as she rounded the next corner. Seeing him, she scowled and threw a green shell she had managed to pick up at him, but he saw it coming in his wing mirror and was able to avoid it. It bounced harmlessly off a wall, almost hitting Peach herself as it ricocheted back towards her.
King Boo turned to stick his tongue out at the unfortunate princess and careened into the railing of the next escalator because he hadn't been looking where he was going. Smiling sweetly, Peach came rushing past him. He gave chase, skidding frantically around the corner that greeted him.
By the time they reached the mall's main plaza, where he and Waluigi had originally come across the princess drinking a smoothie, Peach was way ahead of Boo. But it didn't matter, because secreted out of sight in a little hidey hole, Waluigi was watching the two racers as they split in opposite directions to go around the fountain. His arms were full of red shells.
Grinning and carefully biting down on the tip of his tongue in concentration, the pointy eared man selected a red shell from the top of the pile. His arm drew back ready to throw and his squinted eyes focused on a spot just beyond the fountain where Peach should emerge any second now…
There was a flash of chrome and Waluigi let lose the red shell in his hand. Its automatic tracking device locked on the target and sped towards it. It crashed on impact, spinning the vehicle around. As the targeted driver came to a stop, Waluigi saw to his horror that he had hit the wrong person! King Boo was the one knocked off course. He looked and saw that Peach had gotten way ahead – she was already nearing the parking lot, ready to embark upon her second lap.
King Boo wasted a few more precious seconds to seek out Waluigi, scanning the balcony around the top of the plaza until he caught sight of the flash of purple that was his hidden friend. Frowning, the ghost drew one hand across where his throat probably would have been, were he not a big round ball of white ghost substance. The gesture meant only one thing: You're dead.
Waluigi swallowed nervously and was relieved when the angry ghost whizzed out of sight, chasing after Princess Peach.
The next time the two racers came into view, he targeted the right person, but unfortunately Peach dropped a banana skin behind her just as the shell was about to make impact. The banana stopped the shell in its tracks and she was able to carry on unhindered, unaware of the danger she had been in.
There was only one more lap to go, which meant that Waluigi only had one more chance.
That chance came soon enough. Seeing Peach come into view, way ahead of the ghost, Waluigi took a deep breath and threw one of his few remaining shells. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see, but when he heard an angry cry he quickly opened them again. He had managed to hit Peach! She was spinning around from the blow, unable to drive on for the moment, but Boo was still a long way back. Waluigi would have to buy his friend some more time.
He threw the rest of the shells in his arms one after the other, unloosing a barrage of them upon the unsuspecting princess. Every time she stopped spinning from one attack, another one would collide with her and she would be incapacitated once again. King Boo was easily able to overtake her and make it to the finish line.
"Finish!" Koopa Troopa shouted as King Boo crossed the line, signaling the end of the race.
Able to hear it even though her head was spinning, Peach gave an angry scream. The barrage of shells abruptly stopped. Frowning, she got out of her kart, which had finally stopped spinning. "This isn't fair!" She shouted to anyone within earshot. "I should have won! And where did all those red shells suddenly come from?"
King Boo came whizzing past, back from the finish line, waving a golden trophy shaped like a coconut in one hand. Coming to a stop beside the princess he said "From up there," and pointed out his secret hiding place up on the balcony.
Seeing Boo's gesture, Waluigi drove forwards and wove cheerily to the enraged princess.
She guessed their plan in a second. "You cheated! He hid up there and threw shells at me to make sure I didn't win!"
"It's not very nice when people cheat, is it?" Boo asked sternly.
Peach's face fell as she realized what the ghost was saying. The angry look on her face disappeared and she hung her head. "No, I guess it isn't…"
"So you won't do it again?"
"No I won't, I promise."
"And you agree that Luigi is a better driver than you and should have won?"
Peach sighed sadly. "Yes, I agree." She went around to the back of her kart and opened the trunk, pulling out a trophy for first place and handing it over to King Boo. "You'd better give him this; he deserves it more than I do."
"That's very kind of you, Princess Peach. Since you've been such a good sport about all this, Waluigi will buy you a smoothie."
"Waah, no fair!"
After Waluigi had bought Princess Peach her smoothie and she was happily sat drinking it, King Boo drove up to them. He was waving a trophy in each hand and still steering his bike perfectly, even though he had no legs.
"Come on, let's go and give the good news to Luigi!" He shouted, grinning triumphantly.
"Yeah! We winners!" Waluigi crowed, jumping onto his motorbike and punching a fist into the air in celebration.
The two sped off in cloud of dust, back towards Moonview Highway so they could tell their friend that he was still the undisputed champion of Mario Land (along with King Boo of course).
They were so happy that they didn't notice that far behind them, Princess Peach was sneakily gathering up blue and red shells, filling the trunk of her kart with them. Once it was overflowing with ammunition, she smiled to herself and took off after the two friends to get her own back on them…