AUTHOR'S NOTE: The ONLY thing I own in this story, as with every other story I have publish, or will publish, on this site is its plot. EVERYTHING ELSE in this story is copyrighted to Nintendo, Inc.

YOSHI SAVES THE DAY

Prologue (Waluigi)

One may refer to the Mushroom Kingdom as peaceful, majestic, or even completely uninhabited; but in truth, no matter how majestic you can think our world can be, it is the opposite of uninhabited and miles from peaceful. The Mushroom Kingdom is a place of majesty and mystery alike, with warp pipes which can lead anywhere and bricks and stone blocks which float in midair as though held up by fishing lines connected to the clouds.

Sometimes, it seems like something happens every day, from a kidnapping attempt on our Princess to a Mario Kart race or other sport competition during which a hundred thousand fans or more pack and overcrowd the stadiums. It's a wonder how they can find room for all those people, considering most of the stadiums can only hold like a third that amount!

And Bowser hasn't slowed down the frequency of his kidnapping attempts on Peach. You'd think he was glued to the Prin-cess or something – he practically comes up with about a thousand kidnapping schemes a day and tries about half; but only rarely do they even come close to success.

If you could predict Bowser's next attack, what exactly would it be? Hmmm . . . just a wild guess, but suppose Bowser's next kidnapping scheme were to target more than just Peach. That would lead to the biggest mess in Mushroom Kingdom history! Fortunately, that was just a wild guess – Bowser's ambitions have always targeted Peach and no one else.

Little did we know that this next kidnapping attempt was right around the corner . . .

Part One (With Mario)

The sun shone brilliant from the top of the bright blue sky as the stocky plumber slowly emerged from a deep sleep, stretched, and rose to his feet. The five-o'clock shadow which would normally be seen on his face was worse than usual, and his electric razor could barely scratch the surface. He stared at himself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror hanging on the bathroom door for what seem-ed like an eternity. "Man, am I putting on weight," he told himself quietly, so as not to awaken his brother, who was sound asleep in the room right down the hall. "I've gotta cut back on my pasta consumption…" That was true: both the plumber and his brother were so in love with pasta, they could marry it.

Mario could hear his brother snoring away in the other room. No other person snored quite like Luigi Mario, not even Wario, whose snoring audible up to ten miles away. A deep breath, then something incoherent such as "Yoshi-yosh-yosh-yosh-yoshi-oshi-yoshi…" Another deep breath, then "Bowser, I have-younowgiveupbeforeI…" Before you what, Luigi? Mario found himself mentally inquiring his brother as he made his way to the kitchen for a bowl of Mushroom Flakes and a tall, stiff glass of milk.

The cereal streamlined into the bowl with considerable ease, and was joined with a pint and a half of milk and a shiny silver spoon. The plumber lifted the bowl from the counter and slowly started toward the kitchen table, ten feet away. Three steps later, however, someone else's footsteps joined his. Mario quickly set the bowl down on the table, and as it teetered on the edge, obviously close to falling to its death and forcing Mario to starve until lunchtime or afternoon-snack-time, whichever came first, he darted into the hallway on tiptoe, hesitation at his brother's bedroom door. He turned the handle until it could go no further, then slowly pushed open the door.

His brother's hat lay upon his favorite feather pillow. The bedclothes were drawn up and beyond Luigi's neck. A third deep breath, followed by "Oh, DaisyIloveyouloveyouwilyoumarryme…" told Mario that his brother the night owl was still sound asleep. Mario backpedaled out of the room on tiptoe and pulled the door shut. The phone rang suddenly and he started down the hallway, toward the kitchen and the Mario bros' only phone. Two rings, three rings, four…Mario wasn't sure he could make it there on time. He broke into the sort of run he had managed to learn on his early adventures and that always proved successful on sneak attacks on Bowser. He reached the phone just as it rang for the last time, then routed the call to the answering machine which Luigi always moved around but never told Mario where.

"ONE MISSED CALL," said the caller ID when Mario picked the receiver up off of the countertop. He strummed through the list of recent calls, and the number at the top of the list was "SARASA, DAISY 994-535-7539." So Luigi was right, after all, huh? Mario's subconscious quipped as his good conscience took over and redialed Daisy Sarasa's telephone number. The phone at her end rang once, twice, thrice…Mario was beginning to get impatient, and started to hang up, when a female voice sang over the line:

"Hi, Mario!"

"Hello, Daisy," Mario replied, and he shifted the phone to his other ear as the first began that annoying ringing Mario always got in the morning. "Were you calling for Luigi?"

"Yes…" she started, then hesitated. The five seconds of silence which followed felt like five whole years as Mario waited for an answer. "He never calls me anymore. I haven't seen him in years, and I'm…well, I'm kinda thinking of ending our engagement."

"Sorry…we've been REALLY busy lately, with that Bob-Bob scare at Peach's castle one day, then Waluigi's disappearance the next…and then Wario went on a stark raving rampage and killed several people in Delfino Plaza. Anyway, Luigi's sound asleep right now."

"Well, please, tell him to call me when he wakes up…" With that the Princess of Sarasaland hung up on her end and Mario on his. Luigi and Daisy had been engaged for the past year and had been thinking about marriage; but with one thing after another over the past several weeks, the plumbers just could find no free time.

Mario started back to the kitchen table, diving forward to save his cereal from oblivion. The spoon managed to tip its way out of the bowl and fell with a clang to the floor as the plumber lifted his bowl of cereal up and onto the table. He retrieved a new spoon from the drawer full of silverware and began to ingest the delicious cereal he'd always wanted to try but never could get his hands on. Mario always made Luigi go to the store for him, if Luigi could go incognito to avoid attention.

It was then that he heard the footfalls in the hallway behind him, and turned to see who was there. The room was empty save for him. He turned back to his oh-so-delicious cereal (Oh this is so good so yummy so deli—) and the footfalls started up again. Mario could here his heart racing in his chest like the ancient, rusty-to-the-frame jalopy that Wario called his race kart down a potholed stretch of Mario Raceway. He shuddered, listening for his brother's snoring.

A deep breath, succeeded by "Oh, Yoshi-yosh-yosh-yosh-yoshi-oshi-yoshi…"

Mario knew the intruder was not his brother. The footfalls started up again and Mario's heart beat even faster. The intruder was almost right behind him now. Any second and he'd be saying hi to his dead mother in heaven, or Wario's dead father in hell. Any second, he'd be staring down the barrel of a BFG gun. Any second now and he'd be uttering his final prayers before being disintegrated. Any second now…any second now and…

"HI MARIO!"

Mario jumped a mile, nearly choking on the unusually large spoonful of Mushroom Flakes he had been chewing on. He landed firmly in the chair next to the one he'd rocketed out of. He turned to face the intruder. A million thoughts began to run rampant in his mind. Was it Bowser finally doing away with Mario, as he'd wanted to since the day the two first met? Was it Wario paying a surprise visit and scaring Mario out of his wits? Was it…

"Luigi?!?" Mario shrieked, and allowed the bowl of cereal in his hand to fall to the floor. "You had me frigging scared out of my wits! Please don't do that again!"

"Sorry, couldn't resist!" Luigi's morning hyperactivity stuck out like a sore thumb via the glowing expression upon his face. "Hehe, gotcha!" And just like that, the hyperactivity and the glowing face were gone, replaced with a deep concern and an expression of half-sadness, half-hopelessness. It took Mario literally five minutes to notice the sudden change; their dad the morning dove had passed nearly all of that particular gene to Luigi and almost none to Mario.

"Uh…Luigi…" Mario said slowly, then hesitated. He thought for a moment, perhaps searching for the right words that wouldn't make the seriously gullible Luigi snap. "Is…is anything wrong?" For a moment Luigi did not answer, and Mario almost regretted asking him that question. When Luigi finally found his voice he opened his mouth to reply, but instead, he stifled a scream and jumped backward nearly into the next room as the phone began to shriek. Mario, a bit startled himself, fished the phone off of the counter and read the caller ID.

SARASA, DAISY 994-535-7539.

"LUIGI!" Mario hollered into the next room. "DAISY'S CALLING, AND I'M PRETTY DARN SURE IT'S FOR YOU!" There was a beep as Luigi picked up the second, older receiver in the living room and began a conversation with Daisy. Mario decided to stay out of the conversation – after all, it was none of his business, it was Luigi's and that was that. As Luigi babbled on in the next room Mario cleaned up the small mess he'd made when Luigi had given him that morning scare, and then continued to eat.

"Sorry…" Mario heard Luigi raise his voice. "I just…I—I've been very busy this past week and…" Daisy broke in with a statement of her own from her end of the line just then. "Apology accepted. Hey, I've an idea. Why don't we meet for a picnic in Sarasaland tomorrow?" Daisy became so overjoyed, Mario could hear her screaming with excitement over the phone. "Well…okay then. See you then!" Luigi said, hanging up.

"Hey Luigi," Mario said, just because he couldn't resist and it was the perfect moment, "next time you decide to use the phone, keep your voice down!" That was very true of Luigi – he raised his voice every time he used the telephone. Luigi muttered something incoherent in return and proceeded into the kitchen to tell Mario what his conversation had been about.

"Daisy and me are going on a picnic in Sarasaland tomorrow!"

"That's great!" Mario replied. "Mind if I join you? After all, it's not like nature to provide you a garbage disposal, is it?" At that both plumbers burst into laughter simultaneously. On most picnics Luigi and Daisy barely got though half of the lunch she packed for them, and the rest was saved for Mario the human garbage disposal. Luigi had mentioned to Daisy the idea of not packing as much food, and even the idea of him making the lunch – but the last tie Luigi had made lunch, Mario had nearly ended up in the hospital with food poisoning. Daisy had taken sick with what seemed like a mild Yoshi flu but was merely sickness from undercooked food. Peach had gone running home green from crown to barouche; and Yoshi had taken one bite of Luigi's casserole, if that's what it was, and chucked it over his shoulder into the nearby stream tributary, turning to the fruit from a nearby apple tree instead.

After several minutes of laughter Luigi continued, in between short bursts of chuckles: "She's – expecting us – tomorrow – around noon." He started to say something else but stopped as the phone shrieked again. Mario bolted into the other room and dived at the phone, nearly whipping the leg of the folding coffee table with his head. As his left hand reached the phone, he twisted his body to land upon the couch and his right hand made contact with one of the folding legs and pushed it out from under the table. The entire apparatus tipped over forward, and everything on it rolled onto the floor and broke. It was then that Mario remembered two things simultaneously: the LEGO model of Peach's castle that Luigi had been working on for the past year and a half had been on the table, and was extremely brittle, so brittle Luigi could not pick it up without detaching the half-finished tower first or the whole thing was trash; and the phone was still in Mario's hand, unanswered yet still ringing. Ignoring the smashed LEGO castle, Mario checked the called ID (NOT PROVIDED 1-800-269-7371) and threw his thumb to the TALK button on the phone as fast as Luigi could throw his own thumbs onto the Controller buttons and joystick during a video game.

"Hello?" the plumber whispered into the portable receiver. "Who is it?"

Whoever had just called Mario had a gruff voice as he muttered something incoherent.

"Can you please say that again?" Mario requested of his caller. "I couldn't quite understand what you—?"

"I said, I'd like to know where to find Princess Toadstool," the gruff voice broke in suddenly. This struck Mario as extremely odd. No one ever asked anyone where to find Princess Peach; everyone who knew her, including Bowser, knew where she was at almost all times. How anyone could be clueless as to Peach's location was, at the time beyond Mario, and beyond everybody else in the Mushroom Kingdom.

"Uh…I think you could find her at her cast…" Mario cut himself off and lowered the phone, and thought about the situation. If whoever was calling was asking about Peach's location, he was either a foreigner who had just moved to town and wanted to see the Princess, and called Mario because he knew that Mario knew where to find her; or he was disguising his voice and asking Mario were to find the Princess so he could find her himself and pull an act of foul play on her. Suspecting the latter, Mario pulled the phone back to his ear and started to say something, but movement into the room caught his eye and he dropped it again.

"Well?" the gruff voice asked, barely audible from the distance between the receiver and Mario's ear. The movement into the room had been his brother, and nothing but. Mario breathed a silent sigh of relief and quickly slid his hand over the receiver.

"Who is it?" Luigi asked, the expression on his face which told Mario he was having one of his "brainless moments."

"It's just some guy trying to find out where the Princess is," Mario said, and started feeling for the OFF button on the phone behind his back. "Ignore it." But Luigi did exactly the opposite. In fact, he did by far THE dumbest thing Mario had ever seen him do.

"Well, why didn't you tell him already?" he blurted out, ripping the phone out of Mario's hands with almost no problem. As Mario tried to grab it back, Luigi pulled it out of his reach. Being nearly a foot taller than his older and more famous brother, this was easy for Luigi to do.

"Luigi, I told you not to trust this guy," Mario managed before Luigi pushed him out of the way. He fell backward onto the couch in a slight daze. By the time he had fully awakened, it was too late.

Luigi's "brainless moment" took a turn for the worse, as he raised the phone to his ear, switched on the speakerphone feature, and said:

"Yes, you're looking for the Princess?"

"Yes, now where is she?" Now the gruff voice sounded not only gruff, but angry as well.

"I think she's in her castle right now. She's exhausted after her adventure in Super Princess Peach."

The gruff voice muttered something incoherent in reply; then its owner and Luigi hung up simultaneously. Mario couldn't help feeling that Luigi had made the biggest mistake of his life by ripping the phone out of his brother's hand and blurting out the location of Peach's castle. He made sure Luigi knew this as well, by giving the biggest wallop he could muster to his brother's head. The fist struck Luigi's forehead dead-on, and Luigi fell backward to the floor. What Mario didn't know was that Luigi's big mistake would nearly cost the Mario Bros. and Peach their lives.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I dd typing it! Please read and review (I will now be adding the next chapter unless you do)!