I don't want to reveal too much, but Toadette will show up in the last chapters, alongside many of the other allies of Mario and/or Bowser. The story is divided into chapters to make the story more "tidy", and the different character groups each tell their side of the story in a non-chronological order. I have the opinion that it makes the story develop better, believe it or not.
You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars
My energy's spent at last
And my armor is destroyed
I have used up all my weapons and I'm helpless and bereaved
Wounds are all I'm made of
Did I hear you say that this is victory?
The Medikoopa twins had found an abandoned fishing boat by the Muda Marina. At least, they had told Luigi it was abandoned. He doubted it. It must have been the obvious hot-wiring seen under the steering wheel. Daisy listened to the radio while Luigi came back up with their dinner; a crab and three mackerels.
"Sorry," he sighed. "It's not the time of day to go fishing."
"It'll do," Daisy said and put some coal on the hibachi. "As long as we don't need to ro sham bo for cleansing them?"
"We'll do it," Fern and Felix chirped.
Daisy had made dinner, and when the twins had helped themselves, there were still three fish and a crab left, yet the two were chewing with relish.
"What, you don't eat the entrails?" Felix asked. Daisy was actually too hungry to feel nauseated.
Luigi concealed a burp with his knuckles. "Alright, people. According to this map, we take the boat south for about eighty miles, then turn east, and we'll be at the Sea Side Marina. We'll have to lay low for the night though – it's dark and I don't trust the current."
Fern sighed and waved the staff of Eudicot despondently. "If I only knew how to work this thing."
"Why don't you?" Daisy said.
"Nah; I don't wanna risk setting the boat on fire. But maybe…" She twirled the wand; "This is helpful."
She made some circles in the air, and a Starman appeared. It ascended and surrounded the boat in a large dome of light.
"It's beautiful," Felix said and smiled. "And I think we can sail all the way there now."
Sea Side City, formerly a paradise in the Mushroom World, was increasingly becoming a wasteland. Since its ruler, Ludwig von Koopa, was only up during the night, and rarely slept; he had enchanted the sky and left the realm in a perpetual dusk. The atmosphere, when not clouded over, looked like different colored oils, mixing together in a dreamlike dance.
For the third time in 24 hours, Luigi and Daisy had to dress up; this time in ankle-length robes and aprons. They were infiltrating Ludwig's garden; a gift from his brother Iggy, who believed in Eastern Medicine and botany, while Ludwig was more into slicing and dicing.
The only thing they needed to do was to weed and trim flower bushes all day. That's what the other workers were doing. There was a wild hedge of yellow climbing roses growing over an old gazebo. While Daisy and Luigi pruned it, the Medikoopa twins carried the compost and looked around the garden to find an entrance to the kitchen, or basement.
"Hey, you there!" a Hammer Bro barked.
Luigi sighed inside. "Well, we're busted."
The Hammer Bro pointed to a mountain of potatoes across the backyard. "Carry those spud crates into the cellar pantry! Lord Koopa has strictly forbidden us to touch the roses!"
Toiling in Ludwig's garden took longer than Luigi had counted on, both because the mountain of potatoes was kind of big, and the twins could only share the load of one crate between themselves at a time.
When they were finally done, the overseeing Hammer Bro was busy elsewhere, and the gang could pretend they were taking potatoes up to the kitchen to make French fries; one of Ludwig's favorite treats.
"We'll go and find somewhere to plant the, um, football," Felix mouthed as they peeled potatoes. Luigi nodded and turned to the Koopa Troopa beside him.
"You're never gonna believe what we heard on the uh, slave ship," he said, taking on a shocked tone.
"What?" The other kitchen workers listened up.
"It's pretty radical news. I have it on good authority that Lud… I mean, Lord Koopa stole the Oog Tar from his sister."
An hour later, everybody in the Mushroom World knew that the Oog Tar had been stolen. Wendy already knew, but when she found out who the perpetrator was…
Fern and Felix had been looking for a hiding place all over Koopville Manor. They were about to hide it in an oven when Felix stumbled upon Ludwig's chamber. He showed it to his sister.
"Perfect!" She exclaimed. She took the Oog Tar out of her shell and placed it on a stool next to Ludwig's stone canopy bed.
Someone behind them cleared their throat. It was Ludwig von Koopa; retreating to his chamber for a couple of hours with violent video games and a bag of bonbons.
"Guards!" He said in a booming voice. "Arrest them."
The twins screamed as they were grabbed.
"We came here alone," Fern groaned. She was bleeding from the head and breathing heavily.
"You're a liar," Ludwig said condescendingly. "A lying little runt. This is what my Vater told me would straighten up lying runts."
The Koopaling reached for a glowing red fire poker in an iron pot full of burning coal. His spiked shell covered up what he did to her, but Felix could hear a sizzling sound and his sister screaming in unimaginable pain. Her claws twitched in their restraint cuffs.
"Tell me who brought you here!" Ludwig snarled.
"Never!" she screamed.
"Fine," Ludwig von Koopa hissed and once more presented the branding iron.
"No!" She begged. "Not again, please!"
"Then tell me where your friends are! Or I will dip your face in battery acid!"
"Get your slimy claws off my sister, you crazy freak!" As a Medikoopa, Felix felt the natural urge to heal wounds as he saw them. To him, a paper cut on a stranger was a gaping wound, so what he felt when seeing his sister being tortured was just as agonizing as if he was the one being cut, branded and having his bones broken. Ludwig knew this, and it made him feel as if he was twelve again.
Luigi and Daisy, who had become worried when the twins didn't return to the kitchen, were observing the scene from behind a statue of Ludwig. Daisy couldn't watch Ludwig torturing Fern anymore; she leapt out from behind the statue. Luigi grabbed her and dragged her out of sight again.
"Are you insane?" he whispered. "We can't do anything until we're sure Wendy knows the Oog Tar is in his castle. That was your plan, remember?"
Unfortunately, Ludwig had seen them in the corner of his eye. "Oh, guards…!"
"You'll never get away with this, you kooky Koopaling!" Luigi hissed as they were presented before Ludwig as he sat on his throne.
"I think I will. These Dummköpfe by your side were caught in my bedroom." He arched an eyebrow. "With this."
The Oog Tar glowed as he touched it, proving his insanity and rule over its powers.
"So excuse me for not feeling threatened by you. You're indeed pathetic." He snapped his fingers. "Guards! I want them beheaded and thrown down the stairs of my podium."
The Koopa Troopas placed three stone blocks (Fern and Felix had to share one) and brought the prisoners to their knees.
"Any last words?" Ludwig asked as the executioner polished the blade of his axe.
"Suck my greasy taint, Koopa!" Luigi hissed; giving the appearance of self-confidence. Inside he was regretting a lot of things. Not calling his mom back, not visiting his estranged brother Mario, and not having been with Daisy one last time…
All of them lay still on the bloodstained blocks awaiting the cold, heavy metal when the doors to the throne room were flung open.
"Ludwig! You sneaky little bastard!"
Ludwig's eyes widened in dread. He turned around. "Schwester? Schwester, how lovely to see you."
"Cram it, beaver boy!" Wendy O. snarled. "You stole the Oog Tar! I know it!"
"I did no such thing." Her brother tucked the Oog Tar into his shell.
"Shut up! And give me the Oog Tar back, or I'm telling King Dad!"
The Koopa Troopa's attention had gone from killing innocent people to watching the siblings fight over a glass trinket that couldn't break. Daisy ripped the axe out of the executioner's claws and chopped his head off.
"Oh my Lord!" Felix whimpered and covered his face with his sleeve as the head landed by his tiny feet. "What did you do?"
"No time," Daisy retorted. "We have to go!"
Wendy had drawn the Medikoopa twins' wand. "Give me the Oog Tar, Snaggletooth!" she yelled and shot her magic candy rings at him. As Ludwig avoided the blasts, his eyes fell on his headless executioner, then the four friends, who were escaping.
"Oh, no, you won't!"
During the second it took him to conjure a cage around them, Wendy O. snatched the Oog Tar, who glowed much brighter in her hands than her brother's.
"It's mine! It will always be mine! I alone master the Oog Tar! I will be the Queen of the Mushroom Galaxy!" She held it up and let its powerful magic flow through her body and spirit, then looked down on the prisoners. "And Daddykins will be so proud of me."
The twins squeezed themselves out between the bars. "We only have one shot at this," Felix warned his sister. She nodded, and inconspicuously flicked a bobby pin over to Luigi, who immediately started picking the padlock.
Wendy basked in her own pride as Fern grabbed the Oog Tar.
"Hey! That's my Oog Tar!" she tried to hex the Medikoopa girl, but Felix seized the wand.
"Look, Fern!" He chirped happily. "We have our wand back!"
"Yay!" she clapped her little hands. "Now we can fly high and heal people and carry heavy things again!"
Wendy did have her own wand in backup, although it was no way near as powerful as the twins'. "I'm gonna cut you up and make Chain Chomp chow outta you!"
She pointed her magic at Fern first, and she dropped the Oog Tar. Felix, enraged by the thought of another Koopaling harming his sister, summoned a sand pit and a Sandmaargh under Wendy O.'s feet. She screamed and cursed as the monster devoured her in three mouthfuls.
Ludwig turned pale. Yes, he and his sister were bitter rivals, but he had never wanted this.
"Wendy!" He leant over the pit, and the Maargh burped. A bone hit the Koopaling's face.
"You'll live to regret this!" Ludwig snarled.
"Not in this life, you little freak!" Luigi yelled and tipped over a burning cauldron. The fire spread through the wood and tapestries, and soon trapped Bowser's crazed oldest son in a scarlet inferno. The quartet was almost out the door, when Daisy turned around.
"We lost the Oog Tar –"
"No time!" Luigi lifted her up. "We need to get outta here!"
They left the artifact behind. Daisy caught a glimpse of it as burning rafters fell over it with a crash… Luigi lead them away from Koopville Manor as it was rapidly devoured by ravenous fire, and when the house's windows exploded, Fern and Felix lifted their friends without a problem and flew away.
Luigi and Daisy had been together all night and all morning when they finally decided to get up from the fisher boat bed. They gathered wood to make a fire on the beach, and made eggs, toast and bacon. Soon, Fern and Felix came back from their flight across the ocean. They had delivered the Staff of Eudicot to Rosalina the Star Princess, who had promised them to hide it on a safe place, until the last Tanookian showed up.
"That was fun," Felix said and wiped his glasses.
"Yeah. It's been so long since we went to Rosalina for tea."
The siblings gave Luigi and Daisy an air show.
"Medikoopas are like Prozac to the eye," Daisy said. "They're like pixies. I guess you're gonna miss this when you're heading back home."
Luigi felt surprised; he hadn't actually thought of Brooklyn at all while in the Mushroom Kingdom.
"Actually, if it's alright, I wanna stay here with you."
Daisy tried to smile. "Are you sure? You know, thanks to Fern and Felix, we may have won the battle, but the war's still going on, dear. There's no end that I know. The Oog Tar is lost."
"It'll be found," Fern interrupted. "And not all is lost. My brother and I saved something else from Koopville Manor."
She pulled Daisy's gold crown out of her shell. "This is yours. You're again the ruler of Sarasa Land."
Daisy put her crown on her head, and had never looked more regal, even if she was wearing a Magikoopa's grey garb and a seared apron. "And I will assume that role. With Luigi by my side, if he wants me."
Luigi embraced her, and they kissed. "Of course I will."
Fern and Felix giggled. It sounded like two sparrows singing. "We'll be at your wedding! But we're going home for a while first!"
The twins set course for the lovely, blue sky, and the human couple could hear them laughing and talking until they flew behind a cloud.
"Thank you!" Daisy called after them, and they must have heard her, as a sparkling red Medikoopa -heart appeared glittering on the cloudless heaven.
Daisy rested her head on Luigi's shoulder. "Thanks."