Someone suggested that this story would read better if not broken up into chapters, and I agree wholeheartedly. I would have switched it to one chapter sooner, but I was too lazy -,-; So anyway, here it is, in all its one-shot glory! XD
Nintendo holds all copyrights blah blah blah.
"EEEEEEEK!" The scream came loud and clear from down one of the magnificent corridors: it was coming from Peach's bedroom. Obviously, it was Peach who was screaming.
Mario, who happened to have dropped in to say hello, heard the scream. "Bowser!" he cried, and dashed down the hall, the soles of his brown shoes clicking as he ran down the marble-tiled corridor.
He finally reached the pink door that lead to Peach's bedroom, skidding to a halt in front of it before slamming in open. "Where is he? What is it?" he cried, running into the room and looking around. Bowser was nowhere in sight. Peach was standing on her dresser, shaking all over and staring wide-eyed at a bookshelf in the corner of the room.
"M-M-Mario! There's a m-mouse behind there!" she said fearfully, pointing a shaking finger at the shelf. "EEEEEK! THERE IT GOES!" she screamed as the tiny brown animal darted out from behind the bookshelf and towards the dresser. Peach shrieked again and leapt from the dresser to her bed, where she sat quaking.
Mario raised an eyebrow at her. "You were screaming… because of a mouse? They're totally harmless, Peach!"
Before the princess could reply, another person- very short, with a red-spotted mushroom cap on his head- ran into the room, and before he could stop ran right into Mario. "Sorry, Mario!" said Toad, stumbling backwards as he regained his balance. "What's going on? What's wrong?" he cried frantically.
"Peach saw a mouse." Mario said flatly.
Toad looked from Mario to Peach to the dresser she was staring fearfully at, an annoyed look on his face. "You mean… there's no emergency? All that fuss was over a little mouse?" Mario nodded, and Toad rolled his eyes. "Oh, brother," he muttered, but luckily Peach wasn't listening.
Just at that moment, yet another person dashed into the room, ran headlong into Toad, who was knocked into Mario, who stumbled forward and fell with a startled cry. The old mushroom man's eyes boggled behind his small round spectacles. "Oh, Master Mario! I'm terribly sorry! I heard the princess' cries of distress and came as quickly as I could! But… where's Bowser?"
Mario stood up and brushed himself off. "No danger here, Toadsworth" he said.
Peach looked over at them, scowling. "I beg to differ!" she said, her voice high and squeaky. "There's a horrible little monster over there, and all you can do is stand there and talk? And then you say there's no danger, huh! Indeed!"
Toadsworth gasped. "A monster, good gracious!" he cried.
Mario sighed. "Calm down, it's just a mouse," he muttered. To Peach he said "Look, Peach, it's just a harmless little mouse. If it makes you feel better we'll set some traps and-"
"Oh, no, Mario! Don't kill it!" cried Peach from the bed, her elegant gloved hands flying to her face in horror. "Oh, please don't kill it, Mario!"
"What?" Toad interrupted, dumbfounded. "Why not?"
"Well, I don't know. It just doesn't seem right. Just- catch it and put it outside or something. Ooo, but don't leave it in here!"
Mario rolled his eyes, exasperated. "But, Peach, it's not that easy to catch a mouse! They're tiny, and really really fast."
Peach pouted pitifully. "Mario," she said, her bright blue eyes large and shiny. "Please, try? For me?"
That look did it. Mario stood defiantly for a moment, but quickly broke down, and grinned. "Well, all right. I'll try," he said finally. Peach immediately brightened.
"Oh, wonderful. Please hurry, though; it could come over here at any minute!"
Mario was making for the dresser when a fourth person dashed in. Fortunately, everyone had moved from the doorway, so he didn't run into anybody. Unfortunately, his foot snagged on a bump in the rug, and he flew face-first into the floor. Mario stepped over to help his brother up. Once on his own two feet again, Luigi looked around. "What happened? Did I miss anything?"
"What brought you here, Weege?" Mario said.
"Those screams, of course. I thought it might be Bowser or something."
"But… that was ten minutes ago. What took you so long to get here?"
"I was in the other end of the castle. This place is big, you know."
"Oh my, you could hear me all the way over there? Was I really that loud?" Peach said sheepishly.
Everyone answered in unison. "Yes," they all said flatly.
She frowned slightly. "There's a mouse over there, Luigi. Your brother was just about to catch it for me," she said to the new comer.
"Why don't you just set some traps?" he suggested with a shrug.
Toad shook his head. "She won't have it. She insisted we don't kill it."
Luigi looked at Toad in disbelief. Toadsworth stepped forward, brandishing his walking stick with an authoritative air. "Well, I'm not cut out for such things. Too old, you know. Master Mario, Master Luigi, I trust you'll take care of it. Toad, you help them if you can. Princess, perhaps you'd like to come with me?"
Peach nodded, eager to get away from where the mouse was. She and Toadsworth left together, and ironically they went to the kitchen, where perhaps a dozen or so mice made their homes.
The three young men watched them leave. "Huh, 'help them if you can' indeed," Toad muttered. "All he has to do is keep her happy. I'd love to see him crawling after mice."
"Well, it's no use complaining. We have to get that mouse out of here or Peach'll flip. I don't see why she won't just let us kill it, but oh well." Mario said, dropping to his knees by the dresser and peering into the narrow space between the dresser and the wall. Tiny, beady black eyes stared back at him, wide with terror. The little creature sat transfixed, petrified from fear.
Luigi stooped on the other side of the dresser, pulling a flashlight from his pocket and shining it at the mouse. "Poor little guy," he murmured. "I can see why she didn't want him killed. He looks so helpless."
Mario rolled his eyes. "It's a mouse, Luigi. A pest. There's probably a bazillion of them around here, anyway. One less wouldn't hurt anything." He looked over at Toad, who stood by waiting to see what he could do. "Could you get something to catch it in?" Toad nodded and started looking for something they could put a mouse in.
Luigi frowned. "It'd hurt the mouse," he muttered. "And besides, he's totallydefensless. And relatively harmless, and really cute, besides."
Mario raised an eyebrow. "You are weird," he said bluntly. By now Toad had come back with an empty glass with a smooth rim, which he handed to Mario. "All right, Luigi, scare it this way. I'll catch it under here, and we'll release it, just to make you and Peach happy. Okay?"
Luigi nodded and reached a gloved hand into the crack. Mario sat with the cup in position, his entire body tensed for the spring. Toad stood to the side, watching and feeling awkward that he couldn't do more. And the mouse absolutely panicked.
Unfortunately, no one had told the mouse their plan.
The terrified creature ran in blind fear, and in its confusion ran the wrong way. It scurried up Luigi's hand; up his fingers, over his palm, and up right up his sleeve. "EEEEEEEE!" he squealed, terribly startled, and sprang to his feet, waving his arm madly.
"What happened? Where's the mouse?... Luigi, are you okay?" Toad said, watching the man skip around like mad.
"It-it-it's… Ah! Ahahaha! It's in my shirt! Oh, he-he-help, it tickles! Get it out, get it out, get it out!" he cried, slapping himself where the mouse was running and laughing until tears streamed down his face.
"Hold still for a minute!" Mario shouted, trying to get close to his frantically hopping brother. "Just try and shake it out!"
"What do you think I'm do-do-do-doing?" he yelled back between laughs. "It won't hold- Ahahaha! It won't hold sti-hi-hi-hill!" He shook his arms downwards frantically, until finally the mouse popped out without warning.
"There it goes!" the trio hollered in unison. The chased it to the other end of the room, where it hid itself under the bed. All three of them hit the floor immediately, and Luigi groped for the flashlight, which he'd dropped into his pocket before reaching behind the dresser. He clicked it on and shone it under the queen size pink sheeted bed, searching for the intruder.
Sure enough, there it sat, watching them and quivering with fear. "How are we going to get it now?" someone whispered. There was a moment of frustrated and thoughtful silence, then Luigi spoke up.
"What if we used the Poltergust?" he said, sitting up. "I'm sure it'd work fine. That thing will suck up anything."
Mario sat up too. "Well," he said, "We could try that. But are you sure it'd be safe?"
Luigi shrugged. "Probably. I could use the Warp Pipe that goes to the house and get it. I'd only be gone a second."
Toad was still watching the mouse. "Great idea. We'll keep an eye on the mouse 'till you get back." He spoke without turning his head or looking away from the mouse under the bed.
Luigi nodded and ran out, dashing down the corridor and into the Hall of Pipes: a large room with dozens of warps pipes that led to practically everywhere in the Mushroom Kingdom. He didn't even have to think about it; he was so used to the kingdom and the castle that he just ran up to the right pipe and leapt in.
Warping was always a bizarre sensation, and Luigi had never quite gotten used to it. One minute he was flying downwards into pitch blackness, and the next he was suddenly rocketing upwards again, as though a giant spring had shot him up like a pinball in the launcher. And being in a totally different place then where he started- even though it felt like he should have ended up where he began- always threw him off.
Of course, he'd done it so often that he barely even thought about it anymore, and just ran into the Pipe House in search of the modified vacuum cleaner made by the inventor and ghost enthusiast, Professor E. Gadd.
Meanwhile, back at the palace, the mouse had begun carefully inching along the wall, always keeping its eyes on Mario and Toad. "What's it doing?" Toad mumbled in a hushed voice.
"Trying to get away, of course." Mario replied. "We've got to stop it from leaving. It could slip under the door and go who-knows-where."
"Well what should we do?"
"Try and cut it off. It's edging to the right, so go to the right side of the bed so it can't get out that way."
"Well what about the left side?"
"I'll block that side."
Toad frowned. "Well then, what about the side we're on now?"
Mario blinked. "I dunno. I guess we could just leave it unguarded. I mean mice rarely leave the wall, so it'd probably be fine."
"If you say so," Toad said. So they moved to either side of the enormous bed and got back down on their bellies. Toad found himself, to his astonishment, face-to-face with the furry little creature. If Toad was startled, however, it was nothing compared to how the mouse felt.
It squeaked out loud and turned around, and ran several feet before realizing that another enormous face was waiting at the other end. It squealed again and stopped, looked around for a possible escape, and saw the entire broad side of the bed was open. Freedom!
It suddenly turned and zipped out through the long opening, to the surprise of the two men. They quickly sat up with a cry, but it turned out that Mario was under a bedside table, and when he sat up he hit his head hard against the bottom. "Ooowowow!" he cried, doubling over and rubbing his painfully throbbing head.
Toad stood quickly and watched the mouse as it hid itself behind the bookshelf again. "I'll get it!" he screamed in his excitement, and ran to cut off any chance of the mouse running off again. But in his way was the notorious bump in the rug. One second he was running wildly, and the next he was sprawled on the floor, skidding along until friction stopped him, and getting a bad rug burn on his chin in the process.
At that exact moment, Luigi returned, with the Poltergust strapped to his back. He failed to notice Toad lying in his path, and promptly tripped over the mushroom man.
Toad groaned and shoved on Luigi. "Gerroff," he grunted. Luigi moved his legs off of Toad, who sat up and scowled. "Won't go that way, huh? He'll stay by the wall, huh? You ass."
Mario crawled out from under the table, still nursing his aching head. "Well, sorry. I thought it would."
Luigi stood up and looked around. "You guys didn't loose it, did you?" he said.
Toad pointed towards the bookshelf. "Last I saw it, it went that way. But then I fell, and it could have left between then and now."
Luigi nodded and walked cautiously towards the shelf, the nozzle of the vacuum in one hand and a flashlight in the other. He flicked on the flashlight and shone it down into the crevice, onto the small brown bit of fluff that from where Luigi stood resembled a dust bunny. He turned his head to face the other two and mouthed I've got it! Then he looked back behind the bookshelf, ready to use the vacuum. The mouse was nowhere to be seen.
"It's gone!" he cried, bewildered.
"WHAT?" the other two shouted, running over. The mouse was undoubtedly gone. "Where'd it go?"
"How am I supposed to—hey, there it is," Luigi said, pointing. The mouse had made its way to a corner, where it was trying to look as small and invisible as possible. Mario grinned slightly and walked over as silently as he could. After several years of practice at sneaking around, he was pretty good at it.
Soon he was crouched in the corner, and was slowly and carefully reaching towards the quivering ball of fur. It didn't seem to notice him until the last minute. Then, without warning, it looked up, stared at Mario's fingers for a moment, and then quite suddenly leapt up at nipped the gloved forefinger.
"Ow!" Mario cried, more startled than hurt really, and examined his finger for a second. The little creature's sharp front teeth had gone right through the glove material, and had even broken the skin a little, so that a tiny speck of red appeared on the glove.
The mouse, meanwhile, had gone back to the bookshelf. Luigi was peering behind it at the animal, an eyebrow raised. "It couldn't have hurt that much, Mario. Look, it's over here now."
"Move!" Mario said loudly, pushing Luigi to the side before his brother got a chance to move. He dropped to the ground and searched frantically with his hand under the shelf, but found nothing.
"Mario, calm down," Toad said reproachfully. "Come on now, it's just a mouse, right?" At that very moment, the speeding ball of fuzz whizzed past, scurrying over Toad's shoe on his way. "Eeeee!" he squealed. "Oh, there it goes! There it goes!"
"AFTER IT!" both the Mario Brothers exclaimed, and Mario, in his excitement, grabbed the Poltergust by the hose and turned it on, chasing the mouse everywhere without realizing he was dragging Luigi along behind him.
"Yaaaah! Mario, I'm still strapped to the Poltergust!" he shouted, but no one was listening. Mario and Toad were in hot pursuit of the mouse, who was trying to hide anywhere and everywhere now.
It ran under a beautiful polished rosewood vanity with a red velvet-cushioned stool, and Mario pushed it hard in order to uncover the mouse, causing the priceless piece to fall over. The mirror shattered with a smash. Toad tripped over the stool, and Mario dragged Luigi over it, which was too much for the little stool to take. It broke apart with a loud 'CRACK'.
The panicking mouse fled to the dresser, where instead of going behind it he scurried up the side and into a drawer. Mario and Toad immediately tore into it, yanking out drawers and pulling out clothes. Luigi was trying to stand up, but kept getting tangled in Peach's underthings and panty-hose and falling over again, which was not only frustrating but highly embarrassing.
"Where did it GO?" Toad screamed. The mouse, it appeared, had been hiding inside one of Peach's socks, because it suddenly was scurrying down Luigi's leg. He cried out and tried to reach it, but couldn't- his arms were partially tied behind him by an old sweater.
"I see it! Get it, it's right there!" he yelled frantically, struggling to stand. Toad snatched up the vacuum hose and chased the small animal madly, bringing Luigi to the floor again. Toad, who was surprisingly strong for a man his size, tugged Luigi behind him with little difficulty.
"Turn it on, Toad; I'll get the mouse out!" Mario yelled. The mouse had retreated to the bookshelf again, and without even stopping to think Mario jumped in the air and preformed his famous jump-kick, driving his foot hard into the hand-carved oak bookcase and causing it to topple over, sending books flying everywhere. "Toad? Toad, where are you! Get over here quick with the vacuum!"
Toad groaned. He and Luigi were completely buried under an enormous pile of books, most of which were thick, heavy cookbooks. The mouse took the opportunity to run to the closet door, and without a backward glance slipped under the door.
"Closet!" Mario cried. Toad sprang to his feet (Luigi tried to jump up too, but failed miserably) and hurried after Mario, with the Poltergust in tow. Luckily for Luigi, the straps on the backpack-style vacuum had snapped, so he wasn't being tugged all over any more.
Mario and Toad tore open the double doors to the princess' enormous walk-in closet and Mario, who happened to have been in front, started immediately snatching dresses off their hangers and flinging them over his shoulder. There were perhaps three dozen puffy, frilly pink dresses, no two exactly alike- and they all landed on Toad in a heavy pink heap of girly fashion.
The shoes came next- there were hundreds of them- and Mario tossed them behind him recklessly, inadvertently throwing several through a window which had been closed, and knocking over several vases that had been full of roses in water.
"Aha!" came Mario's voice from inside the large closet. He reached out and grabbed the Poltergust, and there was the loud vrrrroooom sound of a vacuum running. "Aha!" he cried again. He came out twirling the hose in his hand, grinning triumphantly. "Got it," he said simply.
The pile of books shifted and Luigi sat up, causing an avalanche of literature to go sliding and tumbling away from his head and shoulders. He scowled at Mario and made to rub his head, but realized his arms were still restrained by the pink wool sweater. "Good for you," he grumbled in bad temper.
Mario looked around the room, his mouth slightly agape. It was an absolute train wreck. The shelf and vanity were ruined, shards of broken glass were everywhere from the window and mirror, bits of porcelain scattered with wet roses lay in heaps next to pink high-heels, and there were books and clothes literally everywhere. The only thing that wasn't wrecked was the bed.
"Mama mia…" he moaned as he surveyed the damage.
Toad finally dug himself out of the huge mound of dresses, and looked around. "Holy cow! Mario, look what you did!"
"You should talk, Toad," Luigi snapped. "You did almost as much damage as he did, so there."
"Hey, Weege, are you all right?" Mario said quietly, feeling sheepish. He walked over and heaved his brother out of the mountain books, and helped him disentangle himself from the sweater.
"I'm fine," Luigi sighed. "But Peach's gonna flip out when she sees this." The other two nodded their agreement. Luigi suddenly grinned. "Hey, but you got the mouse, right? And it's alive, just like Peach wanted."
"If we killed it now she'd never know the difference," Toad muttered.
Mario grinned. "Yeah, but then it wouldn't have been worth the trouble of trying to catch it alive in the first place. We'll have done all this in vain," he said, gesturing around at the catastrophe surrounding them. "Come on, guys, let's take it outside."
So the trio left the disaster area, carrying the Poltergust inside of which they could hear the mouse scrabbling about, searching for an escape. Soon they were in the gardens, and Luigi, who knew how to handle the vacuum better than the other two, opened the compartment designed for non-ghost objects and let the mouse out.
The little rodent peeked its head over the side of the removable compartment and sniffed experimentally. Then it quickly clambered out and hurried away, down the garden path. Luigi smiled. "You've gotta admit, though; he is kinda cute."
Toad scowled. "Cute my—hey, what's that? Oh no, you've got to be kidding," he groaned. From out of the flowers a scrawny orange tabby bounded, pounced on the mouse, and carried it off, without even bothering to play with his catch first. They could hear the mouse squealing horribly for a moment, and then it silenced. The three young men stared slack-jawed as the cat disappeared back through the foliage of a flowering bush.
A muscle in the corner of Mario's mouth spasmed slightly. "Tell me that didn't just happen."
"It happened." Luigi said. "All that… for nothing."
"We should have got a cat to begin with," Toad murmured half-heartedly.
Mario shook his head. "Listen, as far as Peach is concerned, that never happened, all right?"
The other two nodded. "Right."
"Let's go tell her we caught it, then," Luigi said, making to strap the Poltergust on his back, and dropping it before realizing the straps were broken. He frowned as he picked it up again and carried it back to the castle cradled in his arms.
Toad, who knew best where Peach liked to spend her time, led the brothers to the kitchen door. From the other side they could hear Toadsworth's voice droning about politics, but they all knew that Peach wasn't paying attention. The trio stood awkwardly in front of the door, until Mario gave Toad a gentle shove towards the door.
"Why don't you tell her, Toad? You're her best friend, and kind of her servant."
Toad looked up at him like he was growing a second head. "What, are you crazy? You're going! You're her boyfriend. And besides, you made the most mess. And you're the one who caught it, too."
Mario scowled. "She's not my girlfriend," he muttered, but didn't move towards the door.
Luigi got impatient after a few minutes, and rolled his eyes. "Well, Mario, are you going or what? We'll be right behind you "
Mario sighed but stepped forward and opened the door. Peach was standing at a table, mixing something in a large bowl. He had to smile; she was probably baking something. Peach had recently discovered that she really loved baking, and now she did it whenever she could. She was really good at it, too…
"Oh, hi guys!" she said in her soft feminine voice. "Did you get that mouse?"
She sure was pretty, even with bits of batter spattered on her dress. It was kind of cute…
Toad suddenly kicked him in the leg, snapping him painfully out of his wistful thoughts. "Earth to Mario!" he said. "Tell her, already!"
"Tell me what?" she said, wiping her petite hands on a smudgy pink apron tied around her waist and walking over to Mario, Luigi and Toad.
"Well…" Mario started, biting his lip. "We've got some good news and… and some bad news. The good news is; we got the mouse." He paused for a minute before adding, "Alive."
Peach beamed. "That's wonderful, guys!" she said brightly. She looked them each in the face, but they all averted their eyes; Mario was looking at the bowl of cake batter, Toad was pretending to listen to Toadsworth who hadn't stopped talking yet, and Luigi stared dejectedly at his feet. "Okaaay, what's the bad news?" she asked worriedly.
"Well…" Mario said again, but didn't finish. No one said anything for a second. Toad coughed quietly, and Luigi shuffled his feet in the awkward silence.
Peach sighed exasperatedly. "Well, if there's nothing wrong then I'm going back to my room," she said, and before they could do anything she had pushed past the three of them and was walking briskly down the hall.
"Wait! Peach, wait a minute!" they said, snapping out of it and scrambling to stop Peach from entering her room. In the rush, the Poltergust was knocked from Luigi's hands, and the heavy machine dropped to his foot with a thud. He had to bite his lip to stifle a shout. Stumbling over it and leaving it behind, he hopped behind the other two favoring his left foot.
"I don't see what the problem is," Peach said as she reached for the doorknob. The three friends could only watch in horror as she turned the shining brass knob and slowly opened the pink door. "What's the worst that could have hap-"
She stopped dead in the middle of her sentence, and stared into the room. And screamed.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!"
Bwa X3 You may think that their change from laid back to insane in the mouse hunt was a bit sudden, but believe me; it's fairly accurate. If you've ever tried to catch a mouse with your bare hands you'll understand their unespected passionate resolve to get the little bastard XD Anyway, reviews are loved but not nessissarily manditory as this is an older story that has been reviewed before :-)