Disclaimer: I do not own Mario or anything else of his series. Nintendo does, and I'm not related to them.
Days until the star festival: 7
After the very democratic decision of princess Peach, Mario and Luigi exited the castle, together with the luma. At the moment, they were walking through a small town, but with lots of life in it. Toads were busy with their daily routine, not aware of the future festival. Small toad children were playing around, playing tag for example, or were looking at the two brothers and their star-like companion. Girls found the luma cute, while the boys were bragging to each other that they would become at least as famous as the brothers. The adults were simply walking around, some taking life on their easiest, while others taking life on their hardest, trying to be on time for whatever thing they needed to be in time for.
"So, what are you going to do now?" asked Mario to the star creature.
"Mom said I should stay here until she arrives." Was the luma's answer. Luigi got a little bit confused upon this answer, because he knew that Rosalina was the adopted mother of the lumas, but he didn't know that Rosalina would come herself. After all, there was nothing written about it in the letter, was it?
Mario mentioned the slight confused face of his younger brother. He knew. He knew that Rosalina's observatory was the cause of the falling stardust. He knew that from his first galactic adventure. Nobody except him, Peach, Bowser and Rosalina remembered that adventure. After all, the whole universe got reborn. The words of Rosalina flew through his head;
"When stars die, they turn to stardust and scatter across the cosmos. Eventually, that stardust reforms to create a new star… And so the cycle of life continues. But the cycle never repeats itself in quite the same way… So… you'll see."
And so he did. The cycle repeated itself, a bit too much the same for his liking. He didn't expect that Bowser would again interrupt the star festival and kidnap Peach. The different way from last time was that Bowser was a giant and that he went through other galaxies to collect the power and grand stars. The cycle repeats, but with a small difference each time…
Mario's thoughts got interrupted when Luigi asked the luma another question. "And what are you planning to do in the meantime? Delivering other people's post?" Luigi was obviously talking about the postman-like outfit the luma wore.
"Nope! I only took this outfit because it suited my very important job, as mother called it, and because it looked fun!" was the lumas childish and happy answer.
"But until your mom arrives, what are you going to do?" Mario repeated the question.
"Sticking with you! You should know the stories about the heroic adventures of Mario of how he saved his special one more than once! This is my only chance to travel with my biggest idol and I'm not going to miss it!" The luma spoke with still the same enthusiastic tone. It flew from one spot to another around Luigi and Mario while answering.
"Are there any stories of me?" asked Luigi, a bit taken back from the luma's child-like behavior.
"And you are?" asked the luma, still in his happy mood. Luigi knew already the answer now because of luma's question, but answered anyway.
"Luigi, number one!" He tried to act heroic, hoping that his thoughts were wrong.
"Erm… Nope…" the luma answered, his happy mood broken that he had no happy answer for this green man. Luigi mentioned this, and said:
"Don't worry about it, it's not your fault that there aren't any stories about me…" Luigi tried to cheer the luma again up.
"Ok!" said the luma, now again cheerful that he didn't need to worry. Mario knew his brother better, though. He looked to him and… yes, he was down. Mario felt sorry for him. He had done so much, helping and once even rescuing Mario, and yet… nobody knew him. Sure, there were a few fan girls of him, but not as much as Mario's whole fan army. The only reason Mario could think of was that Luigi was player 2 in video games about them, but he quickly shrugged the thought off. They weren't in a video game after all, were they?
"By the way, what happened to your cap?" Luma asked completely out of nowhere.
"A certain luma found our caps a rather good souvenir of our adventure…" answered Luigi, still down from being so unknown. His hand moved to his head, rubbing against his hair. He missed his cap. No, they, Luigi and Mario, missed their caps. They had been born with them! Or so their parents told them… Luigi didn't really believe them. For that to happen, they should have been brought by a stork, but everyone knew that was a lie told by parents to keep the truth secret. But anyway, they had had those caps for a long time. Luigi's cap was a green one, with a white oval in the front and in that oval a green L. Mario's cap was nearly the same as Luigi's, though in red and with a red M.
"Luigi?" Mario asked friendly, perhaps trying to cheer Luigi a bit. "Shall we go buy ourselves some new caps?"
"Where? I doubt any good clothing shop will have hats like our previous…" Upon saying that, Luigi got grabbed softly and was pointed to a shop called 'Mario bros. fan shop!' with as subtitle 'for all your heroic needs'. In sale were… Two hats exactly like the brothers' previous ones! Maybe needless to say, the shop got two hats less, but some coins richer. And it also got a fainted, Mario bros. fan, shopkeeper richer…
The luma (who got forced to go with them into the shop), Mario and Luigi walked out of the shop, when the last one said "This one feels exactly like the previous one! It's almost like they stole our previous hats while we were sleeping and made an exact replica of it!" Neither Mario, Luigi or the luma saw it, but another shopkeeper that had come to help the fainted one recover, had a nervous grin as Luigi said the last sentence…
"So, are we going to your house? Can I play some video games there? Please? Pretty please?" the luma asked very loud, fast, cheerful and out of nowhere, startling the bros. While recovering from the shock, they simply nodded, gaining a very happy reaction of the luma. They continued their path, and when they left the town, Mario asked:
"By the way, how old are you?"
The luma answered: "Well, I'm much older than the luma that accompanied you on your last story, and as such, I'm much more mature." While answering, the luma did as if he was some kind of professor. Some reporters passed them, moving to Peach's castle.
"And that's exactly…?" Mario continued with asking.
"One day older!" Mario rolled his eyes, while Luigi face-slapped himself in his mind. Children, these days… Almost as crazy as women.
Days until the star festival: 6
The first day had passed since the letter and Peach's international announce of the second star festival, and yet already every single hotel in the mushroom kingdom was completely full of tourists. Peach and Toadsworth (who, after the visit of a therapist and after some shock-therapy (very literal…) completely recovered from the previous day) were discussing this matter.
"Ten thousand already?" Toadworth screamed, shocking anyone who was in the castle. "That's ten thousand possible thieves or kidnappers!" Ok, maybe he hadn't completely recovered, but at least he had… a little bit.
"Yes." Peach sighed. There was lots of paperwork to do, or so you would think if you looked at the room where Peach, Toadsworth and lots of other toads were. The toads were carrying all kinds of important looking letters and papers, or were looking at them. The room itself was full of those papers, which hided what the room actually was. Though, if you looked at the U-shaped row of the papers and the various seats next to it, you would probably conclude that it was a meeting room.
"And what are we going to do about it?" Toadsworth asked, calmed down a bit. "We can't build new hotels; They take 2 weeks to finish. But if we announce that we can't contain any more tourists, we get less money from them… And princess Daisy also still needs a place to stay."
"The Daisy problem is already fixed. She's going to stay in one of the spare rooms in my castle." Peach replied, not really wanting to do all this paperwork anymore.
"But what about all the other tourists? We can't place them in the remaining spare rooms. It would cause a chaos, and they have a very good chance to kidnap you…" Toadsworth said. Peach got a bit annoyed at Toadsworth's mention of 'kidnapping'. That, and the stress of her work.
"I know, I know… I know we can't put them here, but we can't also place them simply on the fields near the town…" Peach didn't think much of what she said, but after a while, she realized that she just said the solution for this problem. "Wait! We can! We can put them on the fields near the town! As long they bring a tent or a camper, they can stay there!"
"That's indeed a good idea, princess. I compliment you for the idea." Toadsworth replied. Both continued with their work after that, until Toadsworth found a special list. "Princess Peach? I think I've found a special list."
"Really? What kind of list?" Peach asked, while walking towards Toadsworth to view at the list. Some toads gathered near Toadsworth as well.
"Well, on it is written all different species that are staying for the star festival. Not only that, but also how many of each species there are." Toadsworth answered. The toads that had gathered, returned to their workspot, because that didn't really interest them much.
"Can you read it aloud? I'm still needing to look over other things…" Peach asked as she as well returned to where she had been working for the day. Toadsworth nodded, and started reading…
"Goombas: 2,250. Toads: 3,000. Koopas: 2,250. Yoshis: 500. Beanish: 1999. Humans… Humans?" Toadsworth stopped for a moment. Humans were rather rare in this world. And most of them lived in the Mushroom Kingdom, with the exception of princess Daisy and Rosalina. The first one lived in Sarasaland, the second one in space.
Upon the mention of the word 'humans', most of the toads and Peach turned to Toadsworth. He continued when he saw that everyone was looking at him. "Humans: … one." He mentioned that after the one was a star like symbol, usually indicating that there was more about something. He looked at the bottom of the list. Indeed, after the star was something written. Toadsworth read this aloud, for everyone to hear in the room. "Human is the winner of the World Culture Lottery. The lottery will be held on…" Toadsworth stopped, looking for a moment at his watch, and then looking back at the list. "the day after tomorrow…"
Everyone stared at Toadsworth with big eyes. Nobody had heard of a 'World Culture Lottery.' There was no organization that was for the whole world. Well, there was once a try to make some kind of world organization, but… it didn't end so well for the people that wanted to make the organization when they visited Bowser… They had to spent quite a long time in the hospital, in order to be treated for their burns… In any case, there wasn't such organization that was spread over the world.
After some discussions, Peach, Toadsworth and the toads decided to ignore it. A tourist is a tourist, even if he's such rare species. And the 'World Culture Lottery' was probably some new organization in a distant country that in order to celebrate its start, held this lottery. All the toads went back to work, but Peach and Toadsworth started talking to each other about something else.
"You know, I'm not really comfortable with Bowser. Master Mario might have said that Bowser is tiny and all that stuff, but still…" Toadsworth said with a worried look on his face.
"Don't worry." Peach gently replied. "I've send some toads to keep an eye on him."
"And those are…?" Toadsworth asked, while both him and Peach started once again with their paperwork.
"The toad brigade."
Days until the star festival: 5
"Okay, and how… did we end up… in this mess again?" asked a shivering toad, that almost looked like any other toad, if it wasn't for his headlamp and red vest. With him were other toads, who all had different colors. One was blue and wore glasses, another one green, yet another one purple and the last one was yellow. The yellow toad seemed to sleep, which was rather remarkable as the five toads were in a nightmarish landscape. The lands were dark, barren and hot. The hotness came from lava flowing over the lands, the fires from it being the only things that lightened the area. There were no trees or plants at all, which was not helping to let the lands look less scary. On the horizon was a big, dark castle, with on it a head that looked like some kind of dragon with horns. In short, if you were looking for a calm, peaceful, beautiful and not harmless vacation spot, then you should absolutely go here! … or maybe not.
"Well, it's because we decided to accept the offer of become the royal guards of princess Peach, and because the only main attacker is Bowser, she decided to let us guard her from him… by placing us here." Was the purple toad's answer.
"Better said, we got the job most children would dream of… we became spies." Was the green toad's reaction.
"No, in order to become spies, we would have needed to train for years, we would have undergone medical checks and lot of more things which we would have probably failed at…" was the blue toad's correction.
"Zzz…" were the yellow toad's words of wisdom… erm, sleepiness.
"Thus so we did… If I had known… this beforehand, than… I would have never signed up. In truth, I would… never go… to this kind of place… willingly." The red toad was still shivering, a scared look on his face. While he was the self-appointed captain of this group of toads that called themselves the toad brigade, he was probably the most cowardly of them.
"But you would have done it if this was a paradise... and then probably slack off and forgetting the job…" The green toad muttered softly, but loud enough for the captain to hear it.
"What… was… that?" The captain tried to be intimidating, but he was more scared than that he did scare. The other toads became silent anyway. In the middle of nowhere, it was probably better to not quarrel and so they didn't. They decided to walk farther, towards their destination: the scary castle at the horizon. They had to drag the yellow toad with them, leaving the green toad questioning:
"Why couldn't we leave him simply at home? He sleeps all the time anyway, and he's rather heavy as well…"
"Well…" The blue toad started. The captain sighed. He had heard the reason already, and he still didn't understand it. At least the explanation would distract him from the scary area. "Because of Yellow toad's daily schemes, I started researching on why he's holding onto it. I couldn't find a good solution to this sleeping problem, until I started to research the origins of our species, the Agaricus bisporus, and discovered that their activity is usually in the night. So, to my theory is that evolution took another way for him, or that his genes mutated into those of the past." All the toads looked with confused faces at him, before the purple one asked:
"And this means that we need to carry Yellow Toad because of…?"
"Simple, in order to prove my theory. If its correct, we have discovered the perfect night guard while we are sleeping." Was the blue toad's rather simple answer.
"But he was asleep while Peach ordered us to do this! How will he know it and not freak out?" The green Toad asked.
"I've written a letter for him, detailing every single thing he needs to know. There's absolutely nothing I've forgotten to write down." The blue toad answered.
"Including… that… he's got… a job… as… a royal guard?" The captain asked. The blue toad's eyes widened when the captain asked.
"I knew I forgot something…" Upon this reaction of the blue toad, all others (even the yellow's ones somehow) rolled their eyes. They continued their way to the castle, the captain informing the others of their mission again. He wasn't shivering anymore for some reason, but the hint of fear was still on his face.
"Gentletoads, we are nearing Bowser's castle. Remember, we may not tell anything of the star festival to anyone, especially Bowser…"
Days until the star festival: 4
"Is it finally time, Kamek?" A rather impatient, but also small, monster asked. The monster looked like a turtle, but not completely. First, he was standing on two legs instead of four. Second, his shell had very large (for his size) spikes on it. Third, he had red hair, but it was not very long. Fourth, he had spikes on his head (though those are called horns) and his tail as well. Last but not least, his head looked more of that of a dragon rather than one of a turtle. The turtle-monster had a yellow skin and a green shell, by the way.
"Yes, oh great Bowser, king of the Koopas, it's finally midnight." A rather odd looking figure said. His whole body was covered with a blue cloak, that looked like a wizard's costume, including the hat part. The only part of his body that wasn't covered by the cloak, was his face, but most of that was covered by a old men's looking large glasses. The part that wasn't covered by either the cloak or the glasses, was his mouth that looked like one of a turtele and part of his forehead, both of these showing that the mysterious figure had a yellow skin like Bowser. In his hands were both an odd looking book and some kind of metal stick that looked like a wand, thanks to the red jewel at the top of it.
Both of them were in a not so odd looking room. That is, if you don't find either the mysterious caldrons, the library like shelves with lots of books on them, the chairs that looked royal, one named by the way 'Kidnapping babies for dummies and wizards', or just the simple dark mood that this room gave, odd. The dark mood could be explained with the fact that it was night, or so the full moon that shined through the window hinted. In that same window, a rather odd looking oval that was white with yellow spots could be seen. But that's beside the point. The room was one that simply fitted the word 'evil.'
"Then make it quick. I don't wanna to be smaller than my own children! What's the whole point of midnight while it's full moon anyway?" Bowser asked a bit annoyed. Kamek started waving with his wand.
"That's because that we need the might of the moon to counter the power of a grand star. But now to make you bigger once again, oh great king." Kamek answered while waving his wand faster and faster. Then he took a broomstick that was in a corner, flew despite the laws of gravity with the broomstick over Bowser, and dark looking dust fell on him. The colors of Bowser changed, as if magic was transforming him. He started to grow and grow, until he was a lot bigger than Kamek. Kamek then flew back to the ground.
"Ah, it's great to be my own size again! How did I turn so small again, Kamek?" Kamek sighed for a moment. Bowser had asked for this already ten times, and it was all to get Kamek say something insulting, so he had a reason to fire-breathe him. However, because Bowser was so small, his breathe was very easy to dodge. But now he was big again… Maybe if Kamek was careful, he could prevent that Bowser would attack him…
"Oh so great Bowser, it all happened when the wretched plumber managed to outsmart you and…"
"Blaargh!" Was the sound of a fire breathing Bowser, and a roasting magician. "Don't you dare to insult me!" Bowser shouted loud, looking angry. But if one looked closer at his eyes, they could see the glint of enjoyment.
The roasted Kamek had made his first fail. He corrected himself and continued. "Played very unfair and managed to smack the grand star out of you, making you smaller again and sending you plummeting into the warp hole. When you got out and ate the grand star again, you became a giant again. However, due the lack of a smart attack strategy on your side…"
"Blaargh!" Was yet the sound again of a fire-breathing Bowser and a roasting wizard. Kamek had made a mistake again. He corrected himself again and continued.
"Due the unfairness of Mario's attacks, he smacked the grand star again out of you. Because the grand star was in you for a very short time and it had yet to mingle with you again, it took a bit of your giantness and made you very small, smaller than normal. I had warned you from the beginning not to eat the grand star and to get it smacked out of you in such short period..."
"Blaargh!" You probably should know the sound by now. Bowser was amused that his attacks managed to fry Kamek three times, hinting that his full power was back to him.
"Gwahahaha! I'm my old self again! Now let's go preparing another evil mastermind plan! How quicker, how more chance we have to surprise that dumb plumber!" Bowser laughed loud, and wanted to exit the room. However, out of the only doorway came, just as Bowser wanted to open it, an also odd looking figure. The figure looked like Kamek, except the cloak was purple, that it didn't go over the head and instead, the figure wore an actual purple hat. The creature also had long grey hair, and looked overall feminine.
"Blaargh!" This time the new figure got fried. "Old hag! Don't open the door when I'm wanting to do it! You almost shocked me, though that's not possible, but still!" Old Hag dusted the black ash of her, something that Kamek had forgotten until now. He did so quickly.
"Sorry your hot-headedness, but this is important! Some guards spotted spies on the road to the castle!" Old Hag said. This captured Bowser's interest and calmed him down as well.
"Spies, you say? Kammy, tell me more…" Wait a second. Old Hag is named Kammy and not Old Hag? … Erm, what I was writing was that the white oval with yellow spots in the window seemed to move a bit, as if terrified of something.
"Yes sir, spies from the Mushroom Kingdom!" Old… Kammy replied. Kamek yawned because of the late hour. Despite that, he walked to a shelf and picked out a book, called: 'Anti-fire spells for fried koopas.' He took a seat and started reading.
"From the Mushroom Kingdom? They don't do such things, except when something important will happen..." Bowser replied while thinking. He stood in a typical think stance, with one of his hands to his chin, his eyes closed and his foot stomping a bit.
"And indeed something will happen! They are going to hold the star festival again!" Kammy shouted, breaking Kamek's concentration to his book. His head moved up, looking to Kammy and Bowser.
"But that's not possible! The star festival is once a century, changing a few days each century!" Kamek shouted.
"Well, apparently it is, according to the toads." Kammy replied.
"According to the toads? Don't you know you shouldn't talk directly to spies? They will lie for sure about such important things!" Bowser shouted angry, preparing another fire-breath. Kammy jumped back in terror, stuttering as she replied:
"I… didn't… talk… to… them. Nobody… did. Guards… overheard… what… they… were… saying." Bowser calmed down a bit with this sentence, giving Kammy the chance to recover. After she did, she continued. "The guards heard preciously what they said. In fact, I can quote exactly what the toads said, thanks to them."
"And that is?" Bowser asked friendly, well, friendly as far as he could go.
"Gentletoads, we are nearing Bowser's castle. Remember, we may not tell anything of the star festival to anyone, especially Bowser, his children, or any of his minions. We may also not tell that we are spying them in order to prevent them from surprising and attacking us at the festival. That nearly the whole world is coming should also stay a secret. But what should remain the biggest secret is that the Mushroom Kingdom is not expecting any attack after the last galaxy adventure, because if Bowser learns of that, he will surely attack the festival, and that's the last thing we want. So, remember all of this, and we should do fine on this job." Kammy coughed after saying all of this, while Bowser and Kamek sweat-dropped anime-style. The oval with yellow spots seemed to face-slap himself…
"You weren't lying when you said you could quote exactly what the toads said…" Kamek muttered, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
"So… And what did you do with the toads?" Bowser asked.
"Our soldiers are searching for them right as we are…" Kammy tried to answer, when she was interrupted by the door, that got thrown rude open. Creatures that looked like a turtle, but that were standing on two legs, had a green American football helmet and normal hammers, walked into the room with a lot of pride.
"Sir Bowser! We have captured four enemy spies that entered our territory!" One that looked like a leader with his bigger size, said with pride, while the others threw four toads (one red, one blue, one purple and one green) of the toad brigade into the room. Each of them was bound with ropes.
"Excellent! Though, I have one thing to say to you hammer bros…" Bowser said, while walking up to the hammer bros. These got nervous from this, knowing that Bowser was known as hot-headed.
"There's no reason to break the door when entering a room!" Bowser shouted hard while breathing fire at the bros, frying them like a turtle in a turtle-soup. When he was finished, he walked up to the four toads. The purple and green one were shivering with fear, the red one was shivering even harder than the previous two (though he looked like a leader with his headlamp) and the blue one… the final one... He was busy with mathematics, in order to find the perfect way to unwrap himself. Despite the oddness of the last one, Bowser laughed at them like a villain would do to their captives.
"Gwahahahaha! And you thought you could simply spy on me, the great Koopa king! Gwahaha!"
"We're… not… telling… you… anything!" The green toad replied bravely but yet with fear.
"Oh, you already did…" Bowser replied matter-of-factly.
"We… did?" The purple toad asked.
"Yes, you did…" Kammy chuckled, before telling them the whole quote again. She coughed afterwards, and all others in the room sweat-dropped, with the exception of Bowser and Kamek.
"We… have… a… fifth… toad! He… will… report… this… to… the… princess!" The red toad said, trying to be courageous but failing at this a bit. Bowser ignored that simply, while shouting.
" Ha! And you authors thought I was a dumb, comic relief villain! What do you have to say upon my excellent capture of the toad brigade?" Bowser laughed aloud, before the whole wall before him collapsed. He shrieked as he jumped back from the wall. When the whole wall was down, the white oval white yellow spots revealed to be… the yellow toad.
"I believe he broke the fourth wall literally with that sentence…" One of the hammer bros said to the others. Bowser simply looked angry at them to silence them, before ordering them to capture the yellow toad.
"Run, yellow!" The red, green and purple toad shouted, but the blue one looked as if the yellow toad was already captured. The yellow toad ran away, so fast that nobody could even get near him, if it wasn't for the fact that he fell asleep while running. While the hammer bros carried all toads away, Bowser laughed loud, before telling Kamek:
"Kamek, tell my children to prepare themselves for a big kidnapping… With their 'big' dad! Gwahahaha!" Bowser laughed, while both Kammy and Kamek moved out of the room, muttering to each other:
"He's going to steal again the power stars and grand stars, isn't he?" Kammy started
"Yes, but he will probably attempt to kidnap everyone at the festival, including Mario and Luigi… No human or whatever species will escape!" With that, both laughed evilly while moving to one of the other rooms in the castle…
Days until the star festival: 3
While toad town was very busy preparing for the star festival, one human walked through the streets. Its short brown hair was a big mess, and apparently still long enough for the wind to blow through it. The human, seeming to be a male, wore a dark yellow sweater and jeans. A dark blue digital watch was on his left arm. His brown shoes made sounds as they stepped on the stone road, but you could only hear it when you were close enough and focused on the sounds. The male himself seemed to be around fifteen-sixteen years old. However, the most noticeable of the boy was the large brown suitcase he was hauling after him, apparently not strong enough to carry it, or tired from his quite long journey. His brown eyes looked around himself.
"What are those… mushroom-heads?" The boy muttered, his eyes giving away that he was nervous of all the strange creatures around him. "And isn't that a dinosaur?" the boy looked straight at a green creature, which had the same form as a raptor, though a bit smaller and a whole lot less scary. It looked rather friendly, talking to one of the mushroom-heads. "Where are all the humans? I only see those mushroom-heads, the dinosaur and koopas…"
The boy thought about what he had heard before he came here. "Don't worry about all the odd creatures you will see there. They are all friendly…" Yeah, sure. If they were indeed friendly, why did the people that guided him to this… place, not come along with him? Now he was walking around in a town full of those odd mushroom-heads, that looked at him as if he would rob them any moment or save them from any kind of disaster. Why, that was a question the boy wanted an answer to. He wouldn't do either of them anyway; he was way and way too nice to even consider to rob them, and saving them from a disaster… That was out of question.
The boy finally entered a building, that looked like some four-star hotel. To his terror, the receptionist was a mushroom-head as well. It, and probably he, didn't gave him the odd stare all the others gave him. Instead, it gave a friendly smile like any other receptionist would do. This calmed the boy down a bit.
"Erm…" The boy didn't know what to say, maybe due some of his left nervosity, or maybe due his rather shy nature. Lucky enough for the boy, the receptionist simply asked, while still holding the receptionist smile:
"Have you reserved a room?" Of course he had. The only room left in this hotel was for the human that won the 'World Culture Lottery.' He was yesterday informed of who this human was, and this boy fitted the description perfectly. The receptionist only needed to know his name to be sure that this was indeed the human.
"Well… Not exactly, but I won a lottery and…" The boy started, but the receptionist interrupted him.
"Yes, I know. I only need to know your name, and you get your room."
"Rich Bosman, sir…" The boy replied, wondering if this mushroom creature was indeed a 'sir', and not something else because of his different species.
"Yep, that name is on the list. Could you follow me to your room?" The receptionist asked Rich, who followed the mushroom-head to Rich's room. On the way, Rich asked one question.
"Erm… Sorry that I ask, but what kind of species are you?" The receptionist hold his smile, but in his mind, he was alarmed. How did the human not know that he was a toad? 'Maybe…" the toad thought, but he couldn't remember what the 'maybe' was. Instead, he simply answered the question
"I'm called a toad, and… here's your room!" Toad added the last part of the sentence as he opened a door. Rich walked into it, finding the room looking quite comfortable. There was a bed, a night-table, a cupboard where he could store clothes, a television (though it was an old one) and some seats in front of the television. Rich thanked the toad, and placed his suitcase next to the bed.
"Never would have thought they would mean this literally with 'a journey to a new world!'" Rich muttered to himself, before opening the suitcase. It held almost no clothes, but it hold several other things, like a DS and video games. There was also a camera, which Rich hadn't used on his way to here due the heavy suitcase, which Rich didn't want to carry for a too long time.
After having everything prepared for his stay, Rich sat on his bed, mentioning a folder on the night table. A quick scan with his eyes learned Rich that on it was the program for the star festival, including special events before the star festival itself.
"Mweh, I can look later on it..." Rich muttered, before taking the DS and playing a video game on it. However, if Rich had looked a bit longer on the folder, he would have seen two figures on the left bottom corner, with above them the text: 'Wanted for treasure stealing and robbing…" One looked fat, the other skinny…
Days until the Star Festival: 2
"Argh! I can't believe Wario left me outside!" The large and skinny dark silhouette from Peach's castle shouted to nobody in particular. This time though, he wasn't dark, revealing that he wore black overalls with a purple undershirt beneath it. The figure had orange elf-like shoes. His eyes had the color of… the color of… only had the pupils. His mustache was a very odd one, moving very horizontal from his pink witch-like nose, then making a ninety degree rotation upwards, making his mustache look in the end as a L. This L (though upwards down) was also on his cap, which looked like Mario's and Luigi's, but in purple and with the turned around L instead of the M and the normal L.
The figure was standing near what seemed to be a very big castle. A passer-by would think of it as the palace of a king, but the owner of the castle was actually not somebody royal. The castle reached nearly the clouds, and was very big in every way you looked at it. However, something that wasn't big about the castle was the amount of windows. There were absolutely no windows everywhere, and the main door was very small. The owner seemed to dislike intruders and wanted to give them no chance to get even near the treasure that this castle holds. The castle was surrounded by a thick forest, with no path from the castle into it. People that wanted to find the castle but didn't know its location, would get lost for sure.
The main door suddenly opened. The other dark and fat silhouette from Peach's castle appeared, but he was as well not dark anymore. He wore a purple overalls with a yellow undershirt beneath. His shoes were a bit like the purple person, but less pointy at the end, smaller and green. His nose looked like a typical fun nose, only without the glasses. The mustache looked like two W's linked with each other at each side of the nose. His chin was an odd one as well, looking as if he had two chins instead of one. His eyes had only pupils, like Waluigi. The cap he wore was the same as the other caps, only in yellow and a W.
"Why Wario, why may I not enter your castle?" the purple figure asked.
"I know you Waluigi. You would touch one of my treasures, if you don't go as far as stealing it!" Wario replied annoyed. It was worse enough that Waluigi knew where the castle was, but to let him enter? No, never in his whole life would he allow that to happen.
"But to let me wait here, with all the animals in the woods… Don't ya think that's a bit cruel?" Waluigi responded as if he was moaning.
"Says who?" Wario shot back. Waluigi jumped back in surprise, and remained silent, not knowing what for nasty thing to say upon that. Wario continued. "Besides, all the forest animals have left since I started building the castle here… They surely left because they couldn't handle the awesomeness of me." Wario stood with pride.
"That, or you scared them away with your garlic diet." Waluigi muttered softly, but just loud enough for Wario to hear. Wario immediately punched Waluigi, who got hit and shoot into a nearby tree. Wario walked towards him, his fist in the air to prevent another remark of Waluigi.
"Anyway, we don't have the time to talk about this. The festival is at the day after tomorrow, and we still got lots of things to do…" Wario said evilly, grinning at the new treasure he would get soon…
"What kind of things? We simply go there, distract a person, steal his money, do the same thing over again, and after the star festival, we return to our normal house, share the money…" 'probably 10/90 for him', Waluigi thought. "and we're finished."
"If things were just that simple…" Wario muttered, confusing Waluigi. "You see, that was the original plan. But…" Wario hold up a folder, and pointed to bottom left corner. In that corner were two figures that were them, with a wanted above. "They will simply recognize us if we go normal there. No, we have to find a disguise…"
"That fits you…" Waluigi added.
"And YOU…" Wario replied back angry, before calming down and continuing normally. "so we can infiltrate the festival."
"But where can we find some good costumes?" Waluigi asked, before mentioning the grin on Wario's face. "You… already found one?" Wario took out a costume… but suddenly the clouds covered the sun, making it in the forest so dark, that the form of the costume couldn't be seen. After Wario put the costume back to where he got it from, the clouds moved away from the sun, making it again light in the forest.
"I'm not wearing that!" Waluigi shouted.
"You have to! It's the only costume that fits both of us!" Wario replied.
"Still not doing it!"
"I give you twenty percent of the money we get!"
"Make it sixty and we have a deal."
"Thirty!"
"Fifty!"
"Forty!"
"Fine!" Waluigi finally accepted. "Though I don't see how we can actually steal this way!"
"Oh, you see…" Wario grinned evily. Together, they walked into the forest, thinking about how rich they will get after the festival… How much money they would get… Maybe they would steal as much money as a princess gets in a year…
Days until the star festival: 1
A large crowd of toads had appeared near Peach's castle. But they weren't the only creatures near it. Goombas, koopas, yoshis, beanish, a human…
Goombas are creatures that look like the hat of a mushroom, though that is only their head yet. They have a small part of body beneath it, but it only serves as a connection to the feet and the head, having no arms at all. They also seem to have two big teeth pointing upwards, but not all of them have the same length of teeth. Most of the goombas that were in the crowd had red heads, though one had a pink one.
Koopas are the creatures that look like turtles, walking on two feet. They look very much like the hammer bros, but then without the helmet and the hammers. The front of the shell on the belly also looked more like one of a turtle, instead of the hammer bros' t-shirt-like clothing on their belly. The koopas that were now present on the festival had green, red and blue shells, though the last color was uncommon.
Yoshis, also known as dinosaurs by a few, are creatures that look a bit like raptors, minus the sharpy teeth and pointy head. Instead, they seem to have no teeth at all, and their face is round, with two eyes sticking above the hat. On their back is a red bubble-like thing, looking very comfy to sit on. They all wear brown shoes. The creatures can be any kind of color, but the most popular one is the green one.
Beanish are creatures that are human-like, though their skin is green and their hats look like… beans.
And finally a human… Well, you know that one.
On a balcony of Peach's castle, was Peach herself, Mario, the luma, Toadsworth and a few other toads. Luigi was standing in the garden in front of Peach's castle. All the people looked up to the sky, as if something was bound to happen…
And so something did. Behind some clouds, a large airplane appeared. The loud sound caused some to cover their ears. The plane flew over the crowd, Peach's castle, before… A human jumped out of it! This caused the crowd to panic, not wanting to see someone dying right before their eyes. Lucky enough, the human opened a parachute that looked like an orange flower, landing in the end softly on the ground, but the parachute landed on her. Luigi quickly came to help the human throw off the parachute.
Once the parachute had been taken off, all could see the human, who was a girl. She had orange hair, just beyond her shoulders. Like Mario, Luigi and Peach, she had blue eyes. Her golden crown hinted that she was of royally, but her clothes… they hinted that she was a sportswoman. She wore a orange shorts, and an orange sleeveless shirt. On that shirt was a blue jewel, with surrounding white forms that, with the jewel, looked like a flower. She wore orange shoes with white socks. On her back was also an orange backpack, used to store the parachute in.
The girl, along with Luigi, walked into the castle. Upon seeing this, the crowd walked away. In the castle itself, Peach walked towards the girl.
"Daisy, what was going on in your head?" Peach asked a bit unfriendly.
"Also nice to see you again, Peach." Daisy simply replied with a smile. This threw Peach back a bit, realizing how she had reacted, or better said, overreacted.
"Sorry, Daisy. But I thought the plane was only going to fly above the castle and then land on the airfield…" Peach said.
"It still did. After all, I can't land safely with two suitcases, can I?" Daisy stated matter-of-factly.
"You know what Peach meant, Daisy." Mario said, who had just appeared on the scene. The luma wasn't around him, for some reason.
"What? I told you I would do a surprise. Just landing on the air field and then walking all the way here and then doing some formal things seemed boring to me, so that's why I did this." Daisy replied.
"But couldn't you tell us at least beforehand?" Peach asked.
"I actually wanted to, but knowing how you would react, I decided against it." Daisy answered. Peach let out a sigh, before saying:
"Well, welcome back, Daisy." Peach said. "Should I order a toad to bring you to your room?"
"Nah, I need my suitcases first." Daisy answered.
"Well, then I shall leave you here. I still have lots of things to do for tomorrow. Mario, could you come with me?" Peach asked. Mario nodded, and followed Peach out of the room, leaving Luigi and Daisy behind.
"Well, erm… Hello back?" Luigi said a bit shy.
"Erm… Hello." Daisy said a bit shy as well. "Erm… question. What were you doing outside, without Mario and Peach?"
"I was there in order to prevent any kind of trouble." Luigi replied, still shy.
"Oh…" Daisy said, and so continued the awkward talk between the two. So instead, let's move on to Mario and Peach.
Mario and Peach were crossing several rooms, before Peach mentioned Mario to stop. Mario did so immediately, looking at Peach.
"Well… Mario, can you come tomorrow to my castle to enjoy some cake?" Peach asked, before continuing. "Normally, I would ask you with a letter, but some people are thinking my letters bring bad luck."
"Erm… Sure, Peach." Mario replied, not with his usual enthusiastic mood, but with a bit of shyness… After that, the two continued their way, looking forward to what the next day would bring…
Days until the star festival: 0
But that day is for the next chapter. So go on, and read it! And review, of course.