Wow. An update. Unreal, right? I guess when life gets ya down...ya write fanfiction. Sure, it took a year but. Better late than never...? Gimme a break, I'm an artist now, not a writer.
Don't worry. Partially exciting stuff actually HAPPENS in this chapter. Whoa.

3 weeks later.

"Please don't go."

Mario sighed and held Peach in a gentle hug, one which she didn't return

"I have to," he said softly. "You know it."

Peach shook her head childishly. "Don't."

"We talked about this."

Luigi glanced over at them, somewhat sympathetic, shouldering his coat on. "We'll be back before you know it, Peach. Oliver and Adeline will take good care of you."

Peach's hands clasped loosely behind Mario's back, and Luigi glanced away at their silence, lowering the ladder they had built down into the pipe room. Peach finally nodded, and her arms untangled from him, his hand sliding down her arm until he grasped her fingertips, then he let go.

She felt a small mushroom hand take hold of hers, and as she was led back to her room she heard their footsteps receding down the ladder.

"We'll be back before you know it…"

The pipe trip wasn't as rough as the last one for Mario, but his bones still joggled painfully. He groaned and pulled himself out of a horizontal pipe. "…getting too old for this."

Luigi crawled out and stood up next to Mario, looking around with apathy. "I see some things haven't changed."

"What do you mean?"

"We're back in the desert. Sure looks the same."

"We didn't take the Desert Land pipe, Weege."

"Giant Land?"

Mario surveyed the land with narrowed eyes, and shook his head. "No. This was Water Land. See the dry riverbed?"

Luigi looked down at his feet and saw enormous cracks in the parched soil. By his left foot he saw a smaller pipe, lying on the ground. His eyes followed it until it connected to another pipe, and that one connected to the next and he stared at it until the long line of green reached a larger warp pipe buried in the earth, different from the one they had used. He looked back at his feet, and cursed, his confusion changed into bitter understanding.

"…he actually did it."

"What?"

"The machine. It worked, Mario."

It was Bowser's contraption Luigi stared at. His menacing device in which he took all the water from each land and used it, selfishly, for himself.

He saw Mario's face turn dark, pulling a wrench out of his belt, walking towards the pipes.

"Whoa whoa, bro, hold it."

Mario was cursing, muttering to himself.

"Mario, stop. This isn't what we came to do!"

Mario felt a restraining hand on his shoulder, now two of them, but he didn't stop until the hands turned to arms, pulling him away from the enemy, gently tugging.

"Come on, Mario."

No answer.

"Mario, come on. Let's go."

Mario answered him with a growl, and suddenly he felt so animalistic that he grew ashamed and calmed down, sighing heavily.

"What if every world is like this, Weege?"

"Come on," Luigi said softly for the final time.

Together they clambered back into the pipe they had come from, returning to the castle for but a moment. To their dismay, they found Mario's prediction true. Dry and parched and brown. Luigi kicked his anger at a massive red Troopa shell, sending it far off into the horizon of Giant Land.

"There's no one here, Luigi." Mario's tone was dismal.

"Well. We haven't tried Pipe Land, or-"

"Wait, Pipeland? Are you nuts? Thank the stars it's actually labeled! If anyone's even there, that's a death wish for us. We'll be lost forever."

"We can't stop trying, Mario." Luigi squinted and hollered into the landscape. "Hey! Anybody?" Only his echo returned.

"And stop that shouting. What if a Troopa hears you?"

"Why would a Troopa be here, stupid?" Luigi kept squinting, taking a breath and opening his mouth for another round of hopeless shouting, then his eyes went wide. He cursed under his breath and backed up, pushing Mario frantically.

"Ow! What are you-"

"Get in the pipe!"

Mario dared a glance over Luigi's shoulder and caught sight of the same red turtle shell his brother had kicked, hurtling back toward them at an alarming speed. Mario cursed too, louder, and booked it back as fast as he can.

"Why did you have to kick it in the first place?"

"It was either the shell or your fat a-"

"Where's the pipe?"

"Th-there!" Luigi pointed and shoved Mario into the green opening, diving in himself just as the shell barreled into the pipe, denting the metal and shattering itself into dry bits.

Zooming through the pipe, Mario felt the air around him grow cold.

"Weegie?" He shouted back as if his brother could hear him. He yelped as the pipe spat him out, straight down into a snow bank. The ice stung his bare hand, and he looked up…scrambling out of the way before Luigi could land on him. Mario chuckled wryly as Luigi pulled himself out of the snow, blinking flakes off his eyelashes.

"You're right, Luigi. Some things never change."

"…Ice Land?"

"Noooo. We're in Dark Land."

"D-don't get snappy with me." Luigi frowned and buttoned up his coat, shivering.

Mario shivered too and zipped his own windbreaker, observing the vicious blizzard swirling around them. "Looks like we came at a bad time."

"How did we g-get here?"

"That's what I'd like to know, genius!"

Luigi shivered harshly, looking up at the pipe above them, and tried running and jumping for it. He was mildly surprised when he couldn't reach it, after the first, second….fifth time. He sighed heavily, out of breath. "…must have-coulda s-sworn we had the right pipe…"

"Wrong pipe. And all because you had to play soccer with a l-lethal weapon!"

"I w-was angry, I'm sorry!"

"I hope you're sorry!" Mario hollered harshly over the wind. "It's c-cause of you we're gonna freeze to death! Got anymore b-bright ideas?"

"What a-are you, seven? S-stop blaming me, and l-let's just find a way o-out of here, okay?" Luigi huffed and hugged his arms closer to himself.

Mario sighed, his breath a thick rush of mist, and looks across the tundra. "Fine."

"F-fine…"

They walked in silence til Luigi broke through it.

"…you got a s-scarf or something?"

"Sh-shutup, Luigi."

She couldn't sleep. They had been gone too long. Luigi said they'd be back in no time. It felt like an age. With careful steps and out stretched hands, Peach's bare feet led her down the stairs and into the main hall. Fumbling with confusion, she found herself unable to remember where the pipe room was located. I'm a stranger in my own castle.

With her hands resting on the walls to guide her, she took careful steps to where she believed the room to be. It wasn't long before she tripped over a bit of rubble, falling with a frightened gasp. Adrenaline filled her, but she remained on the floor on all fours, catching her breath and calming herself in the darkness that she never seemed to get used to.

They'll be back soon. They'll be back, and they'll be alright, and they'll have found help…

She repeated this mantra over and over with barely moving lips until sleep overtook her once more, and she moved away from the rubble and laid on the marble floor to doze.

Minutes felt like hours. Luigi hardly knew he was walking. He saw the ground move beneath his frozen feet but hardly felt himself take each staggering step. He stopped for a moment and blinked hard to try and stay awake. He stared at the ground beneath his feet and saw a thin gray line growing larger. He watched it with interest as it branched into more lines, like watching a tree grow. At a sound like distant thunder, his eyes grew wide.

"…oh, sh-"

Mario turned to hear a splash of water and his brother sputtering his name. Luigi was a ways behind, his head struggling to stay above the freezing fathom he had fallen into. He choked on icy water; his hands clawed the ice and snow around him desperately, fingernails scraping ice that would not give him purchase. "Mari-…M-mar…!"

Racing back to help, Mario lost control of his speed and kept sliding straight for the hole in the ice. He pin-wheeled his arms, leaning backwards, but when he realized he could not stop in time he bent his knees and lunged forward, clearing the icy water and falling heavily on his side.

He slid into a snow bank, but the cold only clenched his heart when he couldn't see his brother anymore.

"Luigi!" he screamed above the howling wind. He crawled to the hole and reached in his hand, blindly searching for his brother. He felt nothing but the frigid water.

"No!" He reached in deeper, but quickly withdrew his hand when the ice beneath his knees cracked ominously. He stood up and backed away, looking around himself in a panic, as if Luigi would suddenly pop up through the snow and then everything would be okay.

A minute passed. He saw nothing but white, he heard nothing but the wind. He shut his eyes and covered his face with one icy hand. "No…"

Luigi's joints were as stiff as the ice that caged him beneath the surface, and he couldn't hold his breath much longer. The current carried him far, and he lost hope that his brother would find him. He began to sink lower, his frozen fingers still reaching for the surface that was walled with ice. Unconsciousness began to take him, but not before he saw a dull glint of green. A pipe. Reaching out a hand as it passed, he grasped it tightly. Then everything got dark.