TSM: Yep, the right word would be "alternate". This story is about what the Mushroom World would have been like if Mario and Luigi hadn't stumbled upon it when they did, and as the title implies, it lampoons the movie and magazine Heavy Metal. I'm glad you enjoy it and have kept your mind open. By the way, I can't wait till you update your fics. ^^^
The next morning, when the sun stood up over the arid, unforgiving land, Luigi and Daisy were already up, getting ready to work in Queen Koopa's charm bracelet factory. To protect themselves from the sun, they wore baggy overalls with hoods that, in Luigi's opinion, made them look like something out of Star Wars. Daisy had never heard of Star Wars.
"It's hard for me to understand how you can stay so calm considering you used to rule this land." Luigi said as they took the slaves' route to the factories.
"I'd be lying if I said that my biggest wish was not to storm Wendy's castle, take back my crown and throw the spoiled bitch into a Sandmaargh's hungry chops. " She stopped talking as the Paratroopas by the entrance to the vast, scary-looking factory frisked them and equipped them with jewelry making tools.
Inside, the factory was loud, hot and noisy, and full of slaves sorted by species and category. Sea Side Koopas, who had in peaceful times been loyal to Princess Peach, refused to obey Bowser and the Koopalings when they took over, and those who weren't sentenced to death or prison were forced to work by an assembly line sorting coal in one of Wendy's factories. Incidentally, Luigi was now infiltrating said factory and saw the Koopas, their children, and the guards ready to correct them at any time.
"Humans are made to make jewelry and embroidery," Daisy explained, "As they have slimmer fingers than Koopas and Birdos. Actually, it used to be Toad women and girls who had the slimmest fingers, but they have been assigned… somewhere much worse."
"Where?" Luigi didn't think it could be worse than the coal line.
Daisy's eyes sparkled with tears. "I'd rather kill myself than "comforting" the Koopa Troop."
"Jesus," Luigi mumbled, appalled. He had the hardest time imagining the Mushroom World as the paradise it according to Daisy, had once been.
The bracelet hall was divided into two parts; one for making of bracelets and one for sorting, packing and shipping. Apparently, the bracelets were wildly popular in the Real World. Both sides had walls decorated with several pictures of Wendy O. Koopa; who made Luigi sick.
"It's all my fault, you know." Daisy took a place by a working bench that wasn't too crowded. "Suddenly, Bowser succeeded. No one ever did see that one coming, but here we are."
Luigi pretended to go through a box of bracelet materials. "Listen, if you need to blame yourself for everything, keep in mind that it's not too late to fight this. I promised to help you, and you have a plan, remember?"
She nodded. "Exactly."
And when the lunch bell rang, she introduced Luigi to the other people who were trying to make her plan a reality; Birdo the Birdo, who wanted to be a female Birdo, but in reality was not, and two tiny Koopa twins; Fern and Felix. But the latter still needed some persuasion.
"Actually, we're Medikoopas," Fern, or Felix (she and her brother were difficult to tell apart) said as they ate soup in unison. But we can't do anything anymore. Our wands were confiscated."
"You say this as if it's nothing." Luigi poured them water from his canteen.
"We can take it. And besides, any day now, Princess Peach will return and set us all free."
"Hah!" Birdo retorted. "You still believe that? Princess Peach is dead. Bowser murdered her; he said so himself. She's not coming back."
"She's not dead!" Felix hissed. "Bowser's a lying sack of sh…"
"It's in our common interest that you keep quiet," Daisy hushed. She knew that some of the slaves eating in the courtyard fenced in by the factories were spies and professional eavesdroppers.
"We know that Wendy O. is digging for our Eudicot's wand somewhere near Muda Ocean. She told us so while trying to torture us into giving her its location. But we don't know where it is! No one ever told us. The only reason why my sister and I are still alive is because Wendy O. thinks they did!"
"You don't?" Luigi's jaw dropped.
"No," Fern replied. "The staff will only reveal its location to the next owner, in their sleep. A righteous owner, that will use its magic to do good. It can be anyone, not just a Koopa or Medikoopa."
"How are we going to get to Wendy's excavation site? They'll notice we're gone; especially Daisy." Birdo and the others started thinking carefully. Luigi then became aware of a situation across the courtyard.
"Poor thing," a Koopa Troopa said blankly and poked the deceased slave with a stick. "Must have been the heat."
"Yeah, yeah," the Troopa's partner snapped. "Let's just get'im outta here."
Luigi got an idea from the macabre scene. "Daisy. Where do they put those who croak?"
Birdo ate her lunch unmoved. "They wrap them in cotton shrouds and throw them to the Sandmaarghs. They don't realize that Sandmaarghs don't touch carrion and oh my God, you want us to fake our own deaths, don't you?"
"It's pretty waterproof. If we're confirmed dead, we can't be escaped."
Daisy agreed with Luigi. "Over a hundred people die here every day. I don't think they'll be suspicious if we go the way of the dodo."
And that's why nobody mourned either, when Daisy suffered a fit by the loading ramps. None of the Troopas felt anything when Felix passed out in the sun, or when his sister was crushed by a Thwomp. She even bit her own lip to make it look as if she had internal bleedings. Luigi was the last one to go, and hoped they had been milder on the others while bundling them up.
"Good night, sweet prince," the Troopas cackled as they hurled him down the dune.
He waited in the sand until he was sure they had gone away. Not that anyone would want to stay out there very long; the sand was indeed burning hot and this area smelled like corpse.
He got rid of the covering and took deep breaths of fetid air before starting to look for his friends. In order to do so, he had to push away several shrouded dead people. "Princess! Twins?"
"Here," Daisy's voice sounded faint. "Please get us out."
He cut Daisy loose. Birdo tore up her own sheet with her claws, and the Medikoopa twins, who shared one, gnawed their way out.
"Let's get outta here," Birdo said and covered her trumpet-shaped snout.
They started walking away from the ad-hoc necropolis. "It's only a mile back to town," Daisy pointed in the direction of Chai City.
"What's that sound?" Luigi asked. The sand under them was rumbling, and he looked down to see two massive, dark shadows form underneath the ground."
"Sandmaarghs," Felix said casually. "But like Daisy said, they don't chase carrion."
"But we're not carrion, are we?" Luigi asked.
Everybody stood still and stared at each other.
"Run!" Birdo screamed. They all sprinted towards the city, but it was really far away. One of the Sandmaarghs showed up from the sand and roared. It's pausing gave the others a little advance, but Daisy had tripped over a little cactus and was fighting the second one.
"Help me!" she screamed. Luigi turned around, but was blocked by the first Maargh, who made a big deal out of baring its teeth.
They were about to get chowed down when the twins showed up out of thin air and lifted them out.
"Hey, you can fly!" Daisy exclaimed.
"Not for long!" They grunted in exhaustion. "You're… so… heavy…!"
They lost altitude and hit water.
"An oasis!" Daisy splashed the water. "Maarghs are afraid of water."
"Poor Birdo," Fern said, heartbroken. Birdo hadn't managed to escape the Sandmaarghs.
"Don't cry," Felix hugged his sister. "She's with Peach now."
Wendy. O; Queen of Sarasa Land beat her servant over the head with the snack tray, and cockroach wings flew all over the place.
"You call this chocolate covered? I want it swimming in chocolate!"
"Yes, Your Detestableness," the Koopa muttered as he covered the mushrooming lump on his forehead.
"Karmak!" Wendy screamed, and the young Magikoopa showed up. "What is it, Your Highness?"
"How's the excavation of Eudicot's grave going? Finding anything?"
Karmak looked at the pictures he had taken from the tomb of the Empress of Medikoopas. "The hieroglyphs show many, many references to the staff of Eudicot, but you need to remember that the tomb itself is several hundred square feet. If the key is hidden there, it could be anywhere. As soon as we can open her sarcophagus, we might find better clues."
"Prepare my Koopa Clown Car," she demanded. "I want to oversee the exhumation."
Karmak bit his lip together. Before Bowser's grandfather took over the old realm of the Magi – and Medikoopas, the Magikoopas had also revered the sacred queen Eudicot and humbly adhered to her codes of charity and industry. Although he now adhered to Bowser's codes of brutality and greed, more out of fear for his life than reverence, he couldn't help objecting.
"Are you sure you want to do this? There are several other objects that can give you the power you want – "
"But none as powerful as that old witch's staff!" Wendy spat at him, and Daisy's crown almost fell off her inflated head. "And my stupid brother Ludwig threatens to take the Oog Tar. He also knows that if it's put together with the witch's staff, I'll be all powerful. The Oog Tar is its missing gem."
Luigi and Daisy were hiding behind a statue of Wendy dangerously close to her fearsome throne. Everything in her castle was either pink or peach and polka – dotted; the lighting was ambient, and there were paintings of her everywhere on the stone walls. He could also see a glass object glowing and hovering over a small stone table. It was probably the famed Oog Tar.
"I have a plan," Daisy whispered as the two Koopas disappeared. "It's no secret that Wendy and her brother Ludwig are on less than friendly terms." She took the Oog Tar from its table. "I think we should plant this thing in Ludwig von Koopa's castle."
Luigi smiled warmly. "Are you a lunatic?"
She held out the object, and Luigi backed away from it. "The Oog Tar's not glowing, is it? As long as the staff of Eudicot is safe, Ludwig can't do squat with it. All we need to do is to make sure Wendy finds out he stole it before he even knows it's in his house."
"So where does Ludwig live?" Luigi snuck out of sight from Wendy's troopers.
"In his stepmother's chateau at Sea Side, but we're not going there yet. I have a sickening feeling that Eudicot's staff is hidden in her grave, and we need to find it before Wendy does…
One of the paintings on the wall stood out among the others. It depicted six of the seven Koopalings as very small children, Bowser young and almost handsome, and a large piece of missing canvas, the disembodied hand with the diamond ring…
"What?" Luigi asked. "It's just an old painting. Look; it's broken too."
"I know," Daisy replied. It's just so familiar, I… hm."
The burial sire of Eudicot looked now more like a construction site or a quarry than a landmark. Koopas, humans and Toads were roaming all over the place.
Fern took four less torn sand suits from her bag. "Put these on. We need to disguise ourselves."
Luigi scoffed as he put his costume on. "Going from slave laborers to grave robbers in one day. Our mothers would be so proud."
"Well, they don't know you're the only one who's faking it," Daisy replied as she tucked her long hair into her hood. The two humans grabbed their spike picks and got ready to leave for the tomb, as they saw the Medikoopa twins sitting on their knees in respect for Eudicot. The scene was conspicuous and it was only a matter of time before it drew attention to itself.
"Stop that!" Luigi straightened them out.
"I'm sorry; but we're about to raid the tomb of our most beloved ancestor. If our mom could have seen us…"
"She'd think you're both very brave and noble. After all, you seek to protect Eudicot's honor, not your own." Daisy hugged them. "She'd be so proud of you."
The burial chamber was more incredible than any museum Luigi had ever been to. The walls were decorated with paintings recording the history Eudicot was a part of, and had influenced and changed. The seal of the Medikoopas, the Mushroom Kingdom, Sarasa Land and Rosalina were found, but the two twins were not amazed by the beauty of the paintings and scrollwork.
"Look," Fern pointed at the wall, "All the traffic is wearing down the paint."
"Take it easy," Luigi exclaimed; fern was dangerously close to knocking a vase off a pillar.
"No; this is terrible! You think it's easy to paint all this? Consarnit!" she floated up to the ceiling and punched it in anger.
The tile she had hit turned out to be a JumpBlock. It broke and released a brass key.
"Hey!" Luigi exclaimed. "Look at this." He picked it up. "You think this is…"
"Ssshh!" Daisy whispered. "Let's just find the sarcophagus."
The twins took their hands. "In here." But they themselves were too afraid to enter.
Eudicot's final resting place was carved out of bare mountain, with a lid a tiny key probably couldn't budge. And it didn't.
"It's not working," Luigi said as he tried to unlock the casket.
"It does," Daisy replied. "But only a Medikoopa can do it." She turned to the twins. "Do you remember what I said about honor? Eudicot is right here. And she knows of your courage and good will."
Felix and his sister held hands as they always did when they were afraid. "OK, then. But we'll do it together."
They put their hands on each side of the key and turned it around. The lid opened soundlessly, and an aura of light surrounded them, and the shrouded body of Eudicot. She was holding a wrapped object, which Fern lifted up in shivering hands.
"There was no clue. The staff was here all along," Daisy said in awe.
The staff itself was made of gold, with an oval of gold on top, with four jewels in each direction, like marks on a compass.
"Who's there?" a booming voice resonated through the mausoleum, which was about to be closed up for the night.
"Take it!" Luigi hissed. "We need to get outta here."
"Dimitte nobis," Felix said as he closed Eudicot's tomb. Somehow they managed to sneak out unseen with the staff safely in Fern's shell.