It's been a year since I've uploaded and I'm so sorry. I truly apologize for the wait.

Mario, Luigi, and Peach belong to Nintendo


The full moon shone directly down on a sorry scene.

Mario cursed himself. He should have seen this coming. The water recedes before the tsunami hits; and they were all about to drown.

"How did they know where we were headed?" Peach asked.

"That would be me," Chuck said nonchalantly. He strode into the pack, dropped into his wolf form, turned around and growled at Mario.

"And now, if you would so kindly surrender the fraulein, and join me, I will spare you,"

"And what about my brother?"

"I'll rip him to shreds,"

"you'll have to catch me first," Luigi snarled, but he didn't run. Fleeing would mean abandoning Peach, and that was something he was unwilling to do.

Chuck flicked his tail, giving a hostile signal.

As one the whole pack relaxed their haunches and sat with their muzzles to the sky.

Then they howled.

Bright white beams of light shot out of the muzzle of each wolf, soaring to the moon above. The whole milky white sphere seemed to glow brighter before it released a column of its light downward, striking the middle of the rotunda.

Then Luigi screamed.

It only lasted for seven seconds, but the poor thing was clearly in agony.

When the howls finally stopped, and the moonbeam shut of he crumpled to the floor, not moving.

"Luigi!" Mario cried. He turned to Chuck and snarled. "What was that for?"

"That was to keep him subdued," Chuck replied "while a pack punishes their treacherous alpha."

With a flick of his ear, the two wolves next to Chuck, the yellow male who chased them through the forest, and a wiry but well-muscled warm-brown she-wolf, lunged forward and grabbed Mario with their teeth, latching on with a bite that would crush a three-year-old-stale loaf of bread like jello. Mario fought and scratched, and actually gave his packmates a run for their money, or prey. Cuck got to his paws and turned around, trotting toward the exit of the rotunda. Three more wolves leisurely paced up to Mario and helped their companions drag him through the pack after Chuck. The whole pack flowed after them, slamming the door hard; and locking it behind them. Peach ran up to the door and slammed her fists on it, but it didn't budge.

"It's no use Peach," Luigi groaned.

"You're telling me," the princess groaned under her breath.

"I don't mean escaping, I mean life from now on," Luigi clarified. "We're toast. Even if Mario escapes, and I'm not sure that he could, the first thing the pack will do is come back here and rip us to shreds. I can barely move, and I can't even begin to recover until I'm out of the moonlight, in the shadows near the wall. I'm also pretty sure that I'm way too heavy for you to move me there."

"But this isn't checkmate. If I could find the strength to drag you over there, what next?"

"Then I would recover enough to move, but not enough for fight by the time that they return for us."

Peach skimmed her fingertips along the edge of the room, scanning for trap doors.

"There aren't any trap doors either" Luigi said, detecting the soft zipper-like sound of Peach's gloves on the wall.

"How do you know? Castles are always full of trap doors. I thought you would know that by now, with how many castles you've been traipsing though,"

"I know because rotundas like these where used in the old days for dogfights." Luigi replied. "Vampires from all over the forest would capture werewolves, throw them through the portals, and fight them to the death in rotundas like this one. There was no way for them to escape. The locked doors were shut too tight even for a werewolf to break, and the seats where the observers would observe were too high, and the walls to scale to get there were to shear, for the werewolves to climb up."

Peach stepped back to stand by where Luigi lay and looked up. Sure enough, a sort of balcony overlooked the floor of the rotunda, shrouded in shadow. The problem was getting the lifeless heap at her feet up into the towering shadows above her.

Peach had no idea where to start, so she decided to remember her classes in un-hostage-ing, at least that's what Toadsworth had called them. They were an incredible waste of time in Peach's opinion, but every time she got captured Toadsworth insisted they continue. None of his techniques helped her in the embrace of Bowser, but maybe this time it would finally pay off.

First, when trying to get something from one place to another, such as the key to your cage, think of your simple machines. Peach remembered. "What was that acronym?" She wondered out loud.

"What acronym?" Luigi replied.

"The simple machines acronym,"

"Pis Law," Luigi provided.

"Right," Peach said. "Pulley, inclined plane, screw, lever, axle and wheel, wedge." She listed.

"Too bad, we don't have any of those materials."

Never discard an item of any use you have, and never overlook an tool you many be provided. Toadsworth had also said.

Peach scanned the room.

There was nothing in the arena of use at all. The floor was all stone, the walls where all barren, and the ceiling was all blank. No carpets, or pictures or chandeliers were up for use. The doors where the only things that stood out, and the doors didn't have doorknobs on the inside.

Nothing. No mouse holes, No windows, not even a bobby pin was available, not that it would have been any use. The whole room was barren, except for herself, and Luigi.

And then something hit her: maybe Luigi was her biggest tool of all.


Thank you for your time in reading this, and once again I apologize for the wait