Mario's breathing came quick and shallow. The gun in his hand was aimed squarely at Luigi's chest. One squeeze of his finger and it would all be over. But could he do it? Before he was full of resolve, but now he felt it leave him as he looked in his brother's eyes.
Luigi saw this. "What's wrong, Mario?" he sneered, his moustache deforming sickeningly. "You don't have the coglioni to do it?"
"Luigi…" Mario had never felt such conflict. The evil he could see burning within his brother was plain for all to see. But where had it come from? "Why are you doing this? You're my brother! We were a team!" He was shouting by the end of it.
Luigi's face morphed startlingly quickly from his previous expression of evil glee to stomach-churning hatred. "We were a team? We were a TEAM?" His mobile throne had stopped inching its way towards the control panel by the wall, his objective forgotten in the face of his wrath. "We were never a team, Mario! It was never about us! Only you! Only ever you!"
"No, Luigi!" Mario was growing desperate. "We did everything together. You can't say that was a lie!"
"You're right. We did do everything together."
"Then why are you –"
"Because people only ever saw you doing it!" Luigi roared, spittle flying from his mouth. "Every time, without fail! How many times did we save Princess Peach, how many times did we defeat Bowser? And every one of those times you got the thanks, the praise, the glory. Me, I got the barest of side glances." His head fell, a single tear-drop falling to the steel floor.
Mario had by this point let the hand holding the gun fall. He made to move forward. "Please, Luigi, don't let it end this way."
The green brother raised his head the barest fraction. "How do you mean?"
"I mean we can fix things. Everything we do from now on, we'll make sure you have just as much of the glory."
Luigi looked him in the eye once more, then laughed quietly. "Fix things in the future, you mean. But you see, everything was done in the past, and that can't be changed." His fingers flew, and his throne shot forwards to the control panel. Mario was only slightly slower, his gun once more trained on Luigi.
"Luigi, don't make me do this!"
"Hah. I'm not making you do anything."
"You are! I can't let you press that button!"
"So you know what I've set up? Fifty megaton-yield warheads distributed across the Mushroom Kingdom? Your intelligence network always was impressive."
Mario was trembling. Was Luigi honestly going to do it? Little Luigi, his beloved brother? "Please… Just, please…"
"Can you imagine it?" Luigi was smiling at the ominously glowing button as he would a loved-one. "The Kingdom, wreathed in atomic flames. Two hundred million souls crying out in nuclear anguish, knowing the pain I've felt all these years."
"You won't do it."
"I won't? Why?"
"Because –" Mario paused. He knew why. "Because you're my brother, and you're better than that."
For the first time Luigi gave a true smile. "Thank you."
Mario's grip loosened.
Then Luigi's scowl returned. "But I'm not worth the credit you're giving me." His hand descended.
Mario would have tried to claim that he had acted without thinking, but the truth was that as he pulled the trigger, he was screaming inside. He felt the resistance it gave and pulled beyond it. He had fully intended to shoot – to kill.
The bullet flew true, blowing straight through the flesh of Luigi's chest, between his ribs and into his heart. Almost instantly the massive reduction of blood pressure caused his arm to drop back to his side.
Mario ran forwards, the hateful weapon dropping from his hand. He embraced his brother. "Why?" he sobbed. "You didn't have to. No one…We could have just acted as though it never happened. No one else knew it was you! We could have gone home!"
Luigi reached up to cup Mario's face. "Don't worry, Mario. I was…" He had to pause to cough, blood trailing from his mouth. "I was hoping you would stop me. It was never you I was angry with. Never... Only other people…"
"Luigi…"
"Mario," Luigi whispered, "Thank you…" The briefest, most slight of smiles crossed his face before his eyes darkened and his breathing ceased.
Mario hunched over the lifeless body of his brother, crying. He couldn't control himself, great wracks running through him as he wept for Luigi. Such pain he had never before felt. Nothing had ever even approached the sorrow that gripped his chest in its stone-hard, ice-cold grip.
What felt like a lifetime later, Mario was able to straighten. Luigi's body was heavy in his arms, and growing cold, but he picked him up and lay him across the large-backed chair. Through his watery eyes, Mario noticed Luigi's hat lying by his feet. He reached down to pick it up.
"What now?" he whispered to the silent room. The steel walls gave not even an echo. All was silent and still. Dead.
Except for one thing. The red button to detonate the nuclear weapons was still glowing. The slow pulsation seemed beckoning almost.
Mario tried to pull himself together. He would give Luigi a proper burial. He refused to do anything else. But then he would need to dedicate himself to finding and defusing those warheads. They were too dangerous. Far too many people could be hurt if they were to go off, or fall into the wrong hands.
At that moment however, a thought blossomed into being in Mario's mind. From nowhere it flew through his brain and made itself known.
Those were the people who did this to Luigi.
The fault for what had happened had never lain with Mario. It had been those who refused to see past the elder brother to the younger who had been there all the time. Those people had sown the seeds of darkness in Luigi, and tended them well. There was no escaping it. Everything was their fault.
What was the right thing to do? Mario looked down at Luigi's pitiful body. It was not right. Such an evil should have never been allowed to pass. Should those responsible be punished?
A part of Mario's mind he did not want to acknowledge knew the answer. But there was Luigi's limp body, lying lifeless and cold before him. He did not want to acknowledge his brother's death either, but he was faced with its reality.
It was the right thing to do. People only learn one way, Mario thought as he turned to the button. He knew Luigi was still behind him, unmoving. And with that knowledge, he reached out and pressed down.
THE END