Mario and Luigi made it to their next world which was greeted was what appeared to be a sunken base. A blue sky was seen above that had an orange tint around it. They area that surrounded them in the world was covered by a large chain link fence. With the way that the best was setup, the brothers expected to have at least a good fight with the Koopa troops that occupied the base beforehand. However, as the Mario Brothers looked down below, most of the Koopa drowned with a surprised expression on their face. In the meantime, there was a chest that Mario spotted that contained the Power Stars. With nothing else to accomplish, the Mario Brothers headed out for the chest on the other side of the base, hoping to grab the Power Stars that they came for.
Luigi was confused with the way things turned out in this world, while Mario looked sure of himself. To Mario, he knew that this would happen exactly with the previous actions that they had taken previously.
Flashback a few minutes ago
"Ok, on to the next world." Mario then motioned for Luigi to follow as they went to a painting of a weird looking spider. "Hmm." Mario thought as he remembered the special ability that this painting had that would be advantageous for the Mario Brothers. "Luigi, aim for the top of the painting ok."
"Why?" Luigi asked.
"Trust me; it's going to help us." Mario then jumped to the top of the painting, with Luigi following suit as they readied themselves for their next world to liberate from the Koopa Empire.
End of Flashback
"Mario, do you know what happened here?" Luigi asked curiously as they were close to the chest, while also staring down at the sunken base below them. Mario eyed the base too; happy that his little plan had worked to make things in this world easier than they would have if their previous actions were not taken.
"There was a reason I told you jump as high as you could Luigi." Mario replied in a serious tone as they made they got to the chest and collected the Power Stars. "The water levels here are indicative of where exactly you jump into the painting. When we jumped to the top of the painting, we raised the water level up to as high as we could. If we had jumped to the bottom of the level, we would have had a heavy fight on our hands. And trust me, we need as many breaks as we can get if we are going to defeat Bowser."
"I guess…" Luigi replied as they collected the Power Stars and left the world as it seemed they were here a little too short to his liking, expecting a big climatic battle to ensue like in every world. "Oh the irony…" Luigi thought as they exited the world and entered back into Toadstool Castle. "Well that was a little too anticlimactic for my taste." Mario just rolled his eyes at Luigi's remark as they made their way to the next painting.
"Well, I'm sure you'll get what you want with this next world we're going to enter." Mario replied as he looked a painting with a tall mountain with huge mushrooms coming out of the ground. Mario then jumped into the painting expecting Luigi to follow him behind.
"Well, I didn't say I didn't appreciate." Luigi mumbled to himself as he entered the world, as they prepared for their next task.
Meanwhile, back at the dark setting of the sky arena that Bowser setup, Princess Peach and Princess Daisy were stirring in yet another much needed sleep trying to put thoughts of being in this situation far away in their minds. However, as much as they had tried they have been getting nightmares throughout this whole ordeal, and they didn't seem to go away any time soon. In Peach's nightmare, he saw Mario being burned alive by Bowser, who was chuckling as his flesh being burnt to ashes with Peach in tears the whole time being locked in the cage. She would eventually be forced to annex her kingdom with Bowser and marry him in a forced marriage in order to prevent a hostile takeover with the Koopa Empire. Similar events would occur in Daisy's dreams. The differences being that Luigi was the one being burned alive and the Koopa Empire would annex Sarasaland in a forced marriage instead of the Mushroom Kingdom. However, their dreams ended the same as they both lived in unhappy life, dying in a cage somewhere as prisoners and only bring released if Bowser needed to make good public relations with the subjects of the three kingdoms they ruled.
"GAHHH!" Yelled out the princesses as they finally awoke from their horrible nightmares, cold sweats and heavy breathing being the results of waking up so suddenly.
"You had a nightmare Daisy?" Peach asked as she was able to calm down, relieved that the events she had imagined a few seconds ago was only the product of a nightmare.
"I sure did Peach." Daisy replied as she calmed down too. "Let me guess what the nightmare was about…Bowser won in the end."
"Yup." Peach replied. "But it was only a dream. Hopefully it remains that way."
"For both of our sakes, I hope you're right." Daisy then looked down at the ground taking something out of one of the pockets of her dress, which she intended to give to Luigi. A personal item that she couldn't make the details out because of the surrounding details but was very special to her growing up. She was going to give it to Luigi in a way to reveal her feelings to him. Tears came out of her eyes as she was about to speak up again. "Especially since I think there's something special between him and I."
"You're talking about Luigi right?" Peach asked.
"Yup." Daisy replied. Peach then tried to grab something out of the pockets of her dress, revealing the personal item she was going to give to Mario in order to reveal her feelings for him.
"I know how you feel Daisy. Because it's the way I feel about Mario too." Peach said as both princesses hugged their items to their bodies as Peach cleared her throat to speak up again. "But that's exactly why we can't give up hope right now. Because we want to see something happen that both of us can reap the benefits from: a relationship that we both care about." Daisy was surprised by that statement, she would be the one who usually gave the confident booster speeches and not Peach. However, she embraced Peach's newfound courage as she found herself feeling a bit more confident that the heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom could finish off their dangerous quest. "Besides, when have they failed us anyway?"
"Never…" Daisy replied.
"Exactly! So that's why we have to give them a chance. Because they deserve it!" The princesses then put their personal items back into their pockets, waiting to give them to their heroes as soon as they got there to save them.
