The entire mountain range rumbled as the powerful energy from Ethros surged into it's dying, breaking body. Chunks of the peak broke away, disintegrating into tiny particles of sand dust as they floated upward into the air, forming a cloud of dark debris that loomed overhead. A bright white light, with flashes of the rainbow shining through it, basked over Mario and Luigi as the duo stood boldly before Ethros' charging cosmic beam. Neither brother moved from their spot, neither flinching or even blinking as they faced imminent death.
"This is..." Ethros' beam had fully charged to a power beyond any that neither Mario or Luigi had ever faced before. "the end!"
Mario gritted his teeth as he glared at Ethros, refusing to back down from the attack. Lighting the most powerful fireball he could muster he aimed directly at Ethros and prepared to launch it as soon as Ethros let loose it's beam.
As the cosmic beam was unleashed for the final time an egregiously gorgeous light cast a blinding glow over the mountains. A warmth that was akin to the very boiling core of the planet incinerated all the remaining vegetation and broken trees that covered the peak behind the heroes.
Fire met beam, only to be completely consumed by the light and vanish from sight.
"No!" Mario's eyes widened with a sense of fear for the first time since entering the Mushroom Kingdom. "Not like this..."
Peach and Toadsworth, now standing at her side, watched through the opening the wall of the secret chamber as the light of the cosmic attack lit up the ever dark night sky. Despite being shielded by the thick walls of the Castle the duo felt the intense heat from the beam as it warmed unnaturally against their skin.
"No..." Peach felt a dread enter her heart and tighten like a vice. "Mario... Luigi..."
Toadsworth took her hand in his and squeezed tight. "Be patient. Don't lose hope. Not now."
Peach returned the squeeze as she pressed her opposite hand over her heart. She could sense that great danger was looming in the mountains.
Mario tried to keep his eyes open as the beam rushed toward him and Luigi with unfathomable speed, but the prospect of death was too much even for the bravest hero to ever set foot in the Mushroom Kingdom to bear. With bated breath Mario awaited the intense heat to sear the flesh from his bones, for the powerful energy to surge through his body stopping his heart, for the pain of a failed battle to wrack ever nervous fiber of his being. But no such sensation ever came.
Opening one eye Mario looked back to Ethros not knowing what to expect. "What?! Luigi!"
Luigi had cast a bolt of lightning just as Mario launched his fireball. While Mario's flames had been extinguished by the beam, Luigi's lightning managed to repel the beam and hold it at bay.
"I... I got it!" Luigi struggled to speak as his mind and body were completely focused on keeping a steady current of lightning flowing into the beam. "Just... Just go!"
"No way!" Mario formed another fireball in a futile attempt to help his brother stop the attack. "I'm staying right by your side!"
"I... I can't hold it... much longer!" Luigi reluctantly confessed, his arm began to shake from the physical exertion. "Run!"
"Sorry Weege," Mario stopped forming fireballs and put his hand on Luigi's shoulder to help support his brother. "you lead and I follow!"
Ethros had let out an angry roar of defiance as it continued to put all of it's power into the final attack. "Death... approaches..."
Luigi fought to keep the beam at bay, fought to keep his strength from giving out, fought to keep his brother and the world he loved from being destroyed by the malevolent star. "I... I need help!"
"You got it!" Mario spoke confidently as he tried to find some way to assist Luigi. "I'm not going anywhere!"
"Light..." Ethros muttered in low tone. "Darkness... This world of Light cannot exists without Darkness."
Mario and Luigi didn't respond to the morbid taunts.
"This world has lived in Light for too long, now it must live in Darkness!" Ethros gave one last burst of energy that pushed Luigi backward, his boots digging into the ashen terrain. "It has been written! It shall come to pass!"
As Ethros' words echoed over the mountain, wavering through the energy beam that would change the world forever, Luigi had one last idea that could possibly turn the tides of battle. Closing his eyes Luigi attempted to channel the same power that Ethros had tapped when he pitted the two brother's against one another. The dark power had faded, lost when Luigi had been struck down by Mario's light. But that same light had left it's mark in an unexpected way.
"It is... over!" Ethros declared arrogantly as it forced the beam to finally break through the green lightning.
"No!" Luigi defied as the green bolt of lightning surging from his fingertips transitioned from emerald to gold.
"Luigi?" Mario watched as the same aura of light that had given himself an unimaginable power was now flowing through Luigi's body.
"If you can be a Hero of Light and still channel Darkness," Luigi explained calmly as the aura began enveloping the cosmic beam within the gilded lightning. "then I can be the Guardian of Darkness and channel the Light!"
Mario nodded with approval as the strengthened lightning snaked into the cosmic beam and ensnared Ethros itself in a web of sparks and impenetrable electrical energy.
"NO." Ethros lost control over the cosmic beam as it was rendered helpless in the golden lightning. "Impossible!"
"Now, Mario!" Luigi used the light aura to energize his Thunder Hand to it's maximum potential.
Mario jumped up into the air with his fist cloaked in fire. Aiming one solid punch at the center of Ethros' body, the power of the Fire Brand punch with the flowing gilded lightning split Ethros' body in half. The fire splitting the star into two pieces while the lightning pulled the two halves apart. Mario landed on the opposite side of Ethros and shielded his eyes with his arm as the intense energy was almost blinding.
A single orb of impossibly bright, white light burst from betwixt Ethros' two halves, shooting up into the night sky out of sight with thunderous crash.
What remained of Ethros disintegrated into star dust that gently wafted down the peak at Mario and Luigi's feet.
Luigi fell to the ground on his knees, his energy was spent and he could barely keep his eyes open. Mario walked through the star dust and kneeled down in front of his brother and smiled.
"Luigi, you did it."
"No," Luigi partially opened his eyes. "we did it."
"I'm proud of you, little bro!"
"Same to you, big bro."
"C'mon," Mario reached for Luigi's arm and pulled it around his shoulders. "let's go home."
As Luigi was pulled to his feet, his legs shaking violently from his dwindling strength, he looked over the edge of the mountain to the heavily damaged town below. "Home to where?"
Mario looked down at the town and felt his heart ache. "I... I guess we have to rebuild home. Brick by brick."
"Exactly the way it was." Luigi agreed, his knees starting buckle.
"Here, sit down. Rest for a minute."
As the brother's sat side by side on the mountain peak, a sense of much needed quiet and peace fell as a gentle hush over the Mushroom Kingdom. The dusty clouds above had parted allowing the bright stars to shine down through the dark sky once more. The ground was stable and the wind was still.
"Mario," Luigi broke the silence with a whisper. "I'm so sorry for attacking you."
"Luigi," Mario had been dreading the inevitable conversation, but he wasn't going to push it aside. "you didn't attack me. Ethros tricked us. You said so yourself."
"Yeah, I guess." He folded his hands together remorsefully. "But I remember everything about the fight. Every bolt of lightning I threw at you and every word I said-"
"No, Weege." Mario refused to let Luigi feel guilty for the crime another person committed. "Don't blame yourself. We both saw some ugly truths tonight, but as ugly as they were we're not both better people for looking them in the face. I'd rather be scarred by an ugly truth than be graced with a beautiful lie."
"Good point."
The ground beneath them began to quake as a new force began rising from the crater of the fallen comet. Mario pressed his hand onto the surface of the ground as the quake intensified.
"Uh-oh." They bother turned to look at the crater a few yards behind them. "Now what?"
From inside the crater the downed comet itself had begun cracking like an egg. A stream of white light emerged from the comet as the cracks widened and the surface layers of the comet fell away.
Mario and Luigi stood up slowly and stared in awe at the light that was emanating from the crater. Just as Ethros had risen from the crater before a new form emerged and hovered in the night sky. A form very much like a star.
"What... What is it?" Luigi asked bewildered.
"I wish I knew..."
The form took shape in the form of a star. A six pointed star. "Greetings, heroes." A gentle almost feminine voice called out to them. "Do not be afraid."
"Wh-who are you?" Luigi asked cautiously, not wanting another fight to take place.
"I am Constance. The true Eternal Star."
"The... 'true star'?" Mario questioned wisely. "Then who was Ethros?"
"My shadow." Constance admitted sadly. "The Darkness within me had grown too strong, to deep after millennia of traveling across the universe. I had lost control over my inner darkness and it consumed me."
"So... Ethros was your dark half?" Luigi asked politely with a quiet voice.
Constance nodded and spun around once. The six pointed star was pure white with silver eyes, a long scarf of both gold and silver wrapped around her body gracefully. An aura of red and an aura of green pulsed over her form as she revealed herself to the heroes.
"I failed to control my darkness and as a result your world was nearly destroyed. For that I am truly sorry."
Mario and Luigi didn't say a word. What could they say in that moment? They certainly couldn't blame her for losing control of herself as they too had done the same not moments ago.
"Since the beginning of time I've traveled through the stars, passing by many worlds and smiling down on all of those who lived there. As time crept on, as I wandered through the endless hours of time itself, I longed for a place to call my home."
Mario and Luigi relaxed a little as she spoke. She had a soothing presence and spoke with a palpable sincerity.
"I began flying closer and closer to each world as I passed, desperate to find a desirable world. But as time crept on the world's began to change. Those who lived on these beautiful worlds began to destroy the beauty in pursuit of power and control. It ached my heart so to see such beauty destroyed. With every world I passed the ache intensified into a relentless pain that I could no longer deny."
Mario began to understand her story. "And you felt like we weren't as appreciate of our worlds as we should've been."
Constance nodded once as a tear fell from her celestial eye. "But I am now responsible for the very atrocity I sought to end. My actions are unforgivable, I caused panic, fear, strife, conflict and death across this world."
Luigi shook his head. "No. You didn't do it, Ethros did."
"And I am the vessel that created Ethros." Constance admitted mournfully. "Though I cannot undo the actions of Ethros, I can heal the damage he has inflicted upon this world. I shall return to the cosmos and restore the world to how it once was, before Ethros arrived."
"Wait!" Luigi put his hand up to stop Constance from leaving, but quickly retracted his palm. "What about that prophecy?"
Smiling for the first time since she emerged from the comet, Constance answered the question. "Just as I have seen the beginning of time, I had seen it's end and all of those who passed through. You two, Mario and Luigi; Brothers of Harmony, are destined to protect the innocent from the wicked of this world."
"You... you knew that... Ethros..."
Constance nodded once more. "As the pain ate away at my spirit I knew that I would lose control over my darkness. In an attempt to free myself from Ethros' control I knew that you two were the only ones who could help me."
Mario and Luigi exchanged dumbfounded glances for only a moment as Constance began rising high into the night sky.
"Thank you, Mario and Luigi. I leave this world with but one request: Cherish all that you have."
Mario and Luigi watched as Constance flew up ever higher and became one with the rest of the stars in the sky. A streak of light that flashed between red and green began circling the world, releasing a fine aura that fell to the world and began restoring it to the state it had been before Ethros arrived and attempted to destroy it.
With great awe the brothers watched as the glowing aura filled the many fissures that destroyed the ground, filled the cracks of the broken walls and roads and watched as new flora sported from the healed ground beneath their feet.
From inside the Castle Peach and Toadsworth watched as the imperfections that marred Toad Town disappeared from sight under the glow of the ethereal aura. All fear and doubt melted away into a blissful sense of peace.
"It's a miracle!" Peach cheered as she rushed out of the chamber, up the stairs and through the Castle doors. "Mario! Luigi! You did it! I know you did!"
Toadsworth huffed after the Princess and joined her at the Castle doors. "Well done, boys! Very well done, indeed!"
A gleeful tear rolled down Peach's cheek. "Thank heavens!"
High above in the clear starry sky a magnificent meteor shower of infinite color rained across the heavens, as the world below healed and the people celebrated.
"Wow." Mario whispered as he watched the meteor shower. "You were right, Luigi."
"About what?" Luigi asked curiously as they stood side by side on the mountain peak.
"The stars. They really are beautiful!"
-The End