Mario and Bowser: Frenemies Forever (Redux)
Cause and Effect (Chapter 21)
Disclaimer: Mario and co. belong to Nintendo.
Dr. Toadley's assistant deflated when she scanned in vain for a stereo system in the utilitarian vehicle. At least she found he interior clean, sterile and well.. vacuumed. She waited incessantly in the car of a kooky scientist, a different one rather, and her bottom was numb, wishing then that Dr. Toadley had room for her to accompany him hour ago. Nothing personal against Prof. E. Gadd, but she found his studies as interesting as terrifying. That extended even to his coffee making.
"Apologizes for the delay." The professor scampered out the clinic. "-Let's dismount this monitor and we're ready. Toadley texted at the last minute that he wants it packed."
"T-the sixty inch one that he promised me to leave in the building because it was way too large and we'd have no room for it in our new smaller office? That one?"
The old professor's smile waned. "Will that be a problem?"
Mary resisted making a face. "I would be happy to oblige.."
While they were hauling it out something loudly clunked down on the clinic's roof. The puff cloud above dissipated by the time Gadd climbed up the ladder up to check it out.
A person hacked a cough. "Professor! Is it the nineteenth of May 2019?"
Gadd nodded agape. After giving his glasses a swipe across his white lab coat, the wreckage from a spacecraft looking pod and the four people that had survived were still present and not a trick of the eye.
Some explanation later, the professor leaned back on his car pensively. "Criminy, another time machine after that 'thing' with the Mushroom decree?" He remembered vividly his patented contribution to the temporal 'space race' against Dark Land, culminating in everyone, even Bowser willingly decide to scrap it all. Such a thing never occurred again until the recent ban on mach speed personal travel, also known as teleportation. The four he spoke to, Luigi, Peach, and two koopalings he got names mixed up of could only partially follow, like a remiss student only studying the outline but not the chapter in question. Had the Mushroom Flu broken out? What happened to Ludwig? Why was the banner in memory of Mario, 1981- 2019 displayed on an office building across the street showing a date two weeks earlier that it should have been for his death? Was Peach's Castle still around? Bowser Castle? Was a pizza place nearby open?
"Easy everyone," Gadd chided mildly. "There has been no Mushroom Flu in decades. Ludwig's a vagabond according to radio. It's been busy times. Mario passed two weeks ago, condolences if- oh that happened in your timeline too.. The rest of your questions are too political for me to elaborate. It's all been since the teleportation accident-"
After their reaction the professor tone took on less impersonal nature. "-Ludwig claimed his teleporter was inspired by dream or reverie of visitors 'appearing' in his home one night. Know that while the effect looks like what Dr. Professor Koopa did for Bowser in the 90's with his arcane and never replicated teleporting potion- If I wasn't banned from the Special World doctor's association I'd hinted to them that he obviously used ecto- oh never mind. Ludwig used hyper speed movement to make a subject 'teleport'. He had his sights on a Mega Villain award but then- two very famous people pushed it to the limit and competition got fierce. That's the tragically of Mario and Bowser.."
Iggy listened but his eyes were glazed over. "-What about the pizza place?"
"Seriously?" Lemmy frowned at his brother when he noticed wacky watch glowing green, like an eerie night vision feature in the day. The moon phase was set to a 'new moon' and the hands magnetically snapped to a certain direction. The rainbow haired koopaling and everyone else briefly followed the direction down the street with their eyes.
"Club Gamecube's open," Gadd continued as if the odd thing hadn't occurred.
Unanimously Luigi and crew agreed to squeeze in Gadd's SUV. The pure white forest trekking machine fitted over sized tires, constructed of anti-boo fiberglass, and equipped with extra bright headlamps dart to the diner for Luigi's crew to grab a snack they didn't realize they were craving. Then the professor agreed to help them. Going several directions, sometimes backing on itself again he tracked wherever the Wacky Watch (truly earning its title) lead around town like a hound.
"It's Boo-Tracker model I'm working on sonny," Gadd touched on after Luigi had stared at the rainbow colored radar looking contraption mounted to the windshield enough. He screeched before a huge wall of mist where Toad Town and Area 64 met. It stretched as high as the sky and the watch pointed into the directly into it, prodding further investigation.
"Oh my God I want to get out of here! I'll do anything! I'll walk!" Dr. Toadley's assistant squealed, sandwiched between the koopalings in the backseat. She'd took off the headphones that kept her obscure of everything only just then.
Luigi's eyes dilated as a puffy cloud dropped to the ground street away from them, erupting into the splash they could see over the roofs of buildings. "Aww heck! The sky is falling!"
"It's in the Timulator's original service manual," Iggy explained sheepishly. "Deterioration of the atmosphere are a side effect of changes to the time line. It's totally temporary I promise! Just stay indoors!"
With a gasp Dr. Toadley's assistant clicked her seat belt back on. "Keep me in this car!"
"Onward we go!" the professor sang. The headlamps switched to high beams inside the mysterious subsection of the Mushroom Kingdom where the landscape transformed into rural farmland. Gadd knew there was something decidedly ethereal going on, the real reason he so eagerly pushed back his plans for the day. He'd taken a peek at the Wacky Watch which was currently in Peach's palms at the moment due to bumps in the road knocking everyone around and was captivated by that 'dark' moon phase...
Less than a mile away.. A camera captured first hand the carnage of a mob chasing their target and cornering him where a high fence partitioned a plot of fire flowers from ice flowers. Before anyone could clobber him a Channel 64 news van teleported on the scene with a heavy plonk as it flattened dozens of flowers.
"Everyone back up!" Yoshi jumped out. Captain Toad, panting heavily in the spot he was cornered in, had two black eyes.
"GYAH!.. I mean- Mr. Yoshisaur, thank you for the backup! (Finally..)" Gathered around him Roy was ready sling fists, Booigi leering, Kylie who was not part of the vigilante crowd as she would insist, just documenting, Toad, Morton and other bystanders.
"Stop standin' round and pound em!" Roy lounged forward.
Yoshi tossed an egg at Roy. It cracked on his skull which stopped the nineteen year old in his tracks. "I said, back up! What's going on?"
Kylie put away her camera a little too late to escape Yoshi's attention. "Hold on brother, before you pull out your handcuffs know that Luigi's back!"
Yoshi's gaze bounced around. "From.. where?"
"Luigi accompanied, was whisked away with my brothers, siblings, collages, Lemmy and Iggy and the princess, the ruler of this land, and together went back to the-" Morton lectured, eyes closed and sporting that pompous look as always before he went silent unnaturally, just before he could warn that as he'd studied in travel guides by conspiracy theorists, the 'curse of Area 64' had set in.
Kylie was ready to continue the story when her own brain scrambled. An empty head on her on shoulders, she was a subject of Mario Maker and Mr. Eraser did her dirty. What did she know about that game? Nothing at all as she fainted.
"Someone check on her!" Yoshi said quickly.
"Got it!" Koopa Scouts kicking in, Junior dove after Kylie straight from the car. "I've been trained for this!" Whatever that phrase meant he thought. When he was old enough to drive he wanted to drive a tank with laser guns, not a 'train'.
"Yoshi, The Captain was swingin' that pickaxe around like the Mushroom Slasher and- and- teleporting! Uh.. I think?" Toad's face scrunched up like he was solving a 'difficult' third grade level math problem.
"What? Can anyone make sense right now?"
"I guess I gotta be da smart one, huh," Roy growled. "All dat happened was Luddy and em, Iggy built da thing and uhhh did something else I can't remember." The buff koopaling shrugged as no one could explain what happened only a few hours ago. Yoshi was about to give it up, noticing then that he was missing Captain Toad- and Booigi.
"GRRR GET BACK HERE GAAHH!" Booigi barked as they chased the toad deeper into agricultural territory. Booigi could get close enough to smell him, to almost taste him, to imagine squeezing the life out of him before the toad squeezed through the barrier of Old McKoopa's farm and into Lil Oink Nepoleon plot of land, a field known for its grassy bowl shape.
Whack! Booigi became dazed then, smacking their face against a white marble pillar with micro blocks of words inscribed. It sprouted out of nowhere and when they craned their neck, it seemed to stretch infinitely upwards.
"Congratulations, you have reached the pillar of understanding.." it said softly. "Perceive my sayings."
Boo might have done it, a frequent reader books delivered to their home because public libraries caused social anxiety, but Boo? Who needed Boo? Booigi the Second disregarded it. Ahead in the field Captain Toad's back was towards Booigi, crouching and observing a dented piece of machinery planted in a little crater from impact. Appearing to be a vintage hard disk there was a slit on the side where the 'stuff' creating the foggy landscape was seeping out.
Captain Toad's face was just short of ghastly lowering his head towards his open palms crusted with dried blood. "It only takes a moment. One moment and know I have no idea what I've become, what's happened, or where this came from!" Turning towards Booigi, The Captain ripped the teleportation module off of this chest where it was strapped.
"By the power of Eldstar you're freaking dead!" Booigi punched him in the stomach so hard he coughed up blood. They glared deep into the toad's beady eyes and was about to crush his neck. Squeezing him extremely hard, fueled by all of the buried disappointment and bitterness Boo ever felt, they were so engulfed in those emotions they felt hot enough to melt. Now they got a vision of tall decaying and abandoned building, the one where boo community meetings were held and Boo was brutally laughed out of the club by their own cousins. Now Boo appeared at the roof shivering, sticking to the middle until another darker boo poofed behind Boo and flung them off with a wicked laugh. Booigi watched their original self plummet to their death-
"Be careful with that!"
Booigi gasped for air, drenched from sweat that allowed Captain Toad to escape their grasp. Ludwig sprinted down after them. He had a worn light jacket and scarf flowing in the wind, more scraggly and gaunt than remembered. "I assume you're still allies, correct? Good!" the commander continued without response. "My prospects more dim than an goomba squadron, that is right, the battalion zapped our resources in half and we lost fifty lives. In addition, I've tried everything to escape this zone! Soldier?" Ludwig reached out in futility as Booigi vanished on the spot. He sighed. "Well Captain, I fear reality has folded on itself and I attribute it to that 'Timulator memory deck' at your feet."
Captain Toad glanced down and then back to the koopaling. Overwhelmed, he wished he hadn't ripped that teleporter off. "Mr. Ludwig, you sound- and look like when Hint Toad caught a fever in Sherbet Land. It makes no sense!"
"And it makes no sense that you look like you look like you played with a team of Chargin' Chuck," Ludwig retort. "-As the football. What happened to you?"
"An angry mob! Something about time travel?.. And 'dark star'?"
Ludwig's vexing look grew feeble. "No such occurred in my timeline so- Ugh! My theory IS correct. We are in two realities at once, meaning an alternate universe Ludwig not only fixed but utilized a time machine." He waved an arm agitating the mist for demonstration. "Why didn't it click before? This is not fog, notice that my hair is not frizzy." The blue strands were limp over the koopaling's shoulders. "It is space dust, which would not be surprising if we were under the attack of this 'Dark Star' you mention."
"Were?"
"Yes. Dust often indicates were a star being WAS. It is the reason shooting stars leave a trail across the cosmos for humanity to marvel."
"I did not know!"
"Most do not. In fact," Ludwig said airily, "most amazing things- might I say 'miracles' are often quite mundane if the veil of esotericism is removed. I would send you study material, but my belongings were burned a week ago." Ludwig surprised The Captain by stomping the teleporter and crushed it under his feet.
"Why did you do that?"
"Ah, you're unaware of what kindled the civil war we are in now! Vater, and of course Mario, perished over a week ago due to this and worse yet, as we speak fifteen patients of mine are be illegally copied to create duplicates. Yes, the ones that go too fast and kill if something is in the way!" Behind Ludwig as he spoke was an increasingly bright light source. The glow of high beams blinded so that they couldn't even see the truck until it was on top of them nearly.
Ludwig's eyes lit up. "Gesundheit! Is this rescue team yours, Captain?" They saw next the silhouettes of five people getting out and he was decidedly less ecstatic, more so because the Captain was getting away.
Luigi sprung forward to tackle both professor and princess down inches away from the machine.
"Luigi! It's not that dear," Peach contested. The tickle of energy in the air was unmistakable. "I wasn't in a trance, this watch thing lead here!"
Ludwig smugly stepped up the professor whose his face was full of dirt. "Now you find yourself in my position. Does it please you now that in Sarasaland right now in some sweat shop underage workers are are handling tedious little screws that look like Philips but are actually 'JIS B 1012' for their replicas of my teleporter prototype for coins a day all because you allowed the first leak of my blueprints?"
"..I apologize," Gadd said in a muffled voice. "I came to my senses!"
"Luddy we're glad to see you alive but why are you so hard up man?" Iggy asked, again leaning against the car for support of his ankle.
Ludwig's palm hit his face. "Just great! None of you are from my timeline either! I'll catch you up: I'm on the run as the moment there was a bounty on me my very own turned against me, society is breaking down, hundreds are dying daily from political confusion, and I did not brush my teeth this morning! That's why I'm 'hard up'! Regardless, the walls of friend and enemy have long crumbled so let's take the drive get out of here."
Lemmy looked like he was about to faint or barf. "We went to the past and then to the past of the past and- what will it take?"
Ludwig approached the younger brother gently. "Perhaps alternate universe me, as grieved as I am now, sought to mend the past, but let this version of me will advise to instead take action and alter the present and future. If we can get out of here and carefully destroy this artifact of your reality, I can escape this town until tension dies down. Koopa history will teach that not everything can be stopped as if it had a switch, sometimes it must be allowed to fizzle, the instigators of such allowed to expend themselves and incur their own downfall-"
Mary screamed from inside the car as two koopas were giving war cries in the distance, attracted by the light and charging at them.
"Caught ya, sucka!" Larry flung himself over a fence with war paint under his eyes and tattered red bandanna tied around his head. The usual mohawk was back into a pony tail and he brandished a koopatrol grade spear with lava hardened iron. It was thrown and everyone ducked to the ground where it planted deep and barely missed Ludwig.
Wendy trailed her little brother. She was very plain with no make up, only a spray painted pink army helmet and had an embroidered zapper hostler. Lemmy noticed right away (because he'd fired it some time on the Dark Land range) that it was the one Kammy gifted her one year as a horrible misunderstanding of what the kids were into.
"Under 'Kingly Law XXVYXCWYZ section 20' you are decommissioned as Dark Land general and guilty for blowing up the castle and what happened to daddy." The ocean princess aimed the weapon. Everyone's arms rose.
Larry marched up to everyone like he owned the place. He snatched the watch from Peach and made it rattle around. "What's this worth?"
"Don't!" the princess protested.
"Shuddup, yo!" Larry pulled out another spear and spun it around stylishly, savoring every moment. "What's gonna save y'all now? The po-po?"
"Exactly, young man. Freeze!" Ranger Yoshi strode on the scene with a strict professional and impassive demeanor, wearing a deputy hat and a gold badge on his chest. "First renegade teleporting then most wanted Ludwig Von Koopa and his-" the constable briefly observed. "Weather machine!"
Prof. Gadd quietly scolded himself for not shutting down his car's lights. A beacon, more bodies were coming into focus out of curiosity. Area 64's scale at first seemed impossibly vast but now those still alive were stumbling upon each other easily on accident.
Daringly, Luigi picked up the tape drive and whisked himself away in a blink of the eye. Roy was approaching, the 'New Roy' as he made no resistance to the switch, and he wanted pounce everyone without knowing why. "Get em!"
Wendy climbed on his back and fired shots into the giant cloud obscuring Luigi and crew. "Dang it!
Morton was keeping up with his large heavy steps. "Do not harm Luigi!" he started as new and old memories clashed in his skull. Another 'Morton' fought to take over, one that wanted to seize Ludwig but also knew a dire secret stringing the entire operation along. -If only he could reveal it! The surviving eclectic group of the Mario Fan Club realized who was in their midst and sought to chase Ludwig. The Koopa Troop were as anti-teleportation as their family and while they had no memory suddenly of why they were in the Mushroom Kingdom in the first place, they yearned to kill the father of teleportation (unaware of its real origins) and any of his allies.
"Quick thinking, boy. The best thing to do sometimes is make like a boo and vanish!"
Luigi faintly made out Prof. Gadd giving an impressive hustle for his age. They'd left Napoleon's farm to the dirt roads again and then out into a paved road with a blue sky above. They'd escaped Area 64's fog wall, great he thought, the key being the tape drive cradled in his arms. As mist began to dissipate it mixed with the falling clouds and soon the entire city began to resemble a wispier Area 64. Not so great. Gathered at the street walk with him was Peach, Lemmy, and Ludwig only.
"We lost some!" Luigi gasped.
"Check again, plumber!" Ludwig veered back as those head beams sliced through the mist and Gadd's van pulled up. The window rolled down and Iggy was driving with one leg propped up and Dr. Toadley's intern in the back hyperventilating.
"Have you guys played Grand Theft Auto?"
"Uh, not a fan." Luigi answered hesitantly, fearing the worst.
"Me neither. I'm more of an MMO player," Iggy concluded, bringing that thought nowhere.
"-We can put that machine the car?" Peach said bringing it back to Earth. "If we drop it off Star Hill just north of my castle here's no way the poor thing will survive."
"Miss Petunia hitched a ride back there once. Yes, there is room," Gadd reassured.
"I approve of this course of action." Ludwig helped himself inside, swinging into a bucket seat with the coat rack. "Just hold your breaths. Space dust causes asthma and hives."
A u-turn was necessitated and performed too quickly with pursuers leaving Area 64. (Un)fortunately for them Iggy was a maniac on the road. They busted through the gate out of the South and back into Toad Town. Luigi watched out of the window. Someone was holding the gate shut with unusual strength. The gate was only three feet tall but toads, the majority of Mario Fan club, could not clamber over and another toad was the one keeping them there. Luigi saw not Captain Toad but 'Stan', the guy who left Toad Town for adventure one day without a brigade or even his headlamp, and returned alive to become an inspiration for heroic toads everywhere. A lot had went wrong in the past few days but as Ludwig stated, the future was variable, not the past.
On smoother roads the seven sped the crammed vehicle down urban streets of questionable visibility when they heard sirens. The flashing lights overtook them and they saw that it was a Channel 64 van.
Ranger Yoshi raced swerved along side them. "Stop the vehicle!"
Kylie rolled the back window down with an ice pack on her head. A green capped toad they didn't know (Mitch) was also back there. "My darn noggin's gone bad and I don't know why I'm saying this, but keep going, brother!"
Ranger Yoshi glared in the rear view. "I agreed to take you reporters to cover the story only!"
"Stop the car and let us get out then, dude," Mitch said.
"Not falling for that."
"Hello." Boo was seated, or floated in the seat next to the yoshi sheriff suddenly and did something they never thought they'd have the courage to do without the crutch of Booigi. Boo grabbed the wheel and veered the news van over and off into the curb and into Toad Town park. Fighting over control, they ran through plants and bushes and trees and eventually ended up nose first into the water fountain.
Gadds car passed cut through the square and started to head north of the city when they faced another a mixed bunch of Koopa Troop of all shapes and sizes lined across the four lane street in unison. There was a Dark Land desert storm tank in the rear forcing them divert at the intersection to a smaller back street. Because of their trail however it was no mystery where they were to the enemies.
"Oh wonderful. The Koopa Troop have actually learned to cooperate! Where the heck do they get that from?" Ludwig lamented as the tank became hot on their trail. Lemmy was about to mention it was actually him that gave the entire army tranquility training last year but that was neither here nor there. The tank fired and blew up a fire hydrant. The gushing water created a hint of quarter rainbow.
"Ohmygosh, that's totally cool!" someone said inside the tank. The hatch opened, revealing Emery who was chippy for just a moment before firing off waves of ammo at Gadd's car with murderous intent again. They swung around the corner and were back on Starman road.
"They're heading to the castle and I've never been there before! Wow, I want an autograph from Toadsworth and I want to see if the giant paintings are real!" Tanner, the loader, said from within.
"Shut up!" Bowser Junior screeched, the commander responsible for the dozens road signs they'd knocked down.
The suv made a split down an alley between Club 64 and an item shop while the tank blasted down both buildings. The structures peeled like a banana, revealing the ruffled folk who were in both. Some toads were in the item shop but a group consisting of a monty mole, a mega goomba, a parakoopa, a wiggler, and a snifit were in the diner and very unhappy.
"Blowing up places to eat is a health violation. Get dat tank boys!" James 'Jimmy' M of the Mushroom Kingdom Disease Control Unit declared. The MKDCU mercilessly chased the Koopa Troop tank down.
Emery recognized her classmate Sebastian and got cold feet, not warning the koopa prince that he was running the tank off of the ramp to Royal Raceway and into the lake. They splashed in the water and frighteningly for them, the MKDCU chased them to the seabed where the hunt continued on among cheep cheeps and bloopers.
As Gadd's car escaped up the ramp of Royal Raceway drive, Peach saw her castle over the hill and noticed with a mix of horror and intrigue it seemed exactly as it was in her timeline, even down to the crack down the moat and the same construction company that she'd selected at random from and dusty phone book working on it. They drove along Peach's Castle and found with a shudder someone had beat them there. Larry, Roy, Morton, Wendy, and were in the yard while the construction company continued to work as if they weren't there. Roy dauntlessly stepped before the car and forced them to screech.
"Ha! We knew you'd try to capture da castle again for old time's sake, Luddy!" Roy growled, propping his foot on the van's grill.
"That's absolutely not what I was doing but I am impressed you attempted to use your brain," Ludwig replied with a huff.
"Umm, I don't think we should be ticking these guys off," Luigi groaned, "Considering-"
Morton ripped the door off of on the passenger side. "We have ravished your watch now relinquish, give up, hand over, the smoke machine that is currently burning, irritating, my eyes!" Roy ripped off the other and then Wendy blasted one of their tires flat, sinking the car to the side.
"-That," Luigi sighed.
"Everyone out!" The furious female koopaling howled. Larry lifted the back door and got blasted with the space dust. He choked at first then relaxed, posture slumping. Being in the tight space with the dust and the resulting red eyes made Luigi and crew smell and look like galactic stoners from outer space.
"We surrender!" The intern looked to Prof. Gadd for support. "Right? (We have real careers you know.)"
The professor simply smiled back. "Can I get one thing from the car? It's important, can't live without it."
"Like what?" Wendy aimed the zapper at his chest.
"My leak protection underwear," he replied stoically.
"Ugh! Go on before you start pissing all over the place!" Wendy kept her nose scrunched and zapper aimed as Gadd sidestepped Larry. He went out of view and the other six waited anxiously while Peach watched a shadow in an upper window of her castle, the only one not shattered. It had a round head like a toad. She stopped herself from being too excited or conspicuous. Her blue eyes dart to the closest person next to her, Lemmy. They shared the briefest glance but the koopaling caught on. Lemmy whistled loudly, startling his siblings and forcing everyone to cover their ears. He got eye daggers shot at him from Wendy, Morton, Roy, and Larry.
"I do that when I'm nervous, you know that!" Lemmy sputtered.
"Since when?" Wendy, Roy, and Larry blared.
"Since- How did you beat us here?" Lemmy diverted cleverly. "Don't lie, your eyelid is doing the twitchy thing!"
Wendy let out a beat huff, a flash of the sister Lemmy remembered. She yanked something from her shell on a strap with a red button green button and dial for distance. A teleporter. The shock on Ludwig's face surpassed all. "Sister mine! How?"
Morton rose one finger. "Ah ha. I remember! The manhunt for Ludwig is not because of the bob-omb strike on our castle but because Wendy was going to take credit for teleporting in the name of Koopa female contributions in sciences and technology because she felt she really gave Luddy the idea and she felt he got too much credit for group efforts in the Koopa Troop and with the money she was going to buy Water Land, build a resort, build an army of vicious fashion warriors and occasionally appear on the Poshley Heights runway as the 'Mystique Queen Wendy O.' while the rest of us do whatever we want because under her rule everyone will be a world ruler!"
...
Luigi blinked. "What."
Wendy took a breath patting down the hairs sticking up on her head. "So remember when I was snooping around old potions in the castle? I found the teleportation one and Luddy, you laughed me off. Then one night weeks later I was nice to you. I made you some special tea for concentration. Well, maybe I had an AP brewery class to study for too, but point is I did something nice."
Ludwig nodded, his expression begging for more clarification.
"Kammy taught me how, it's actually a memory tonic. The same one she gave to Kamek decades ago. Behind every great man is a.. Yeah. So with the help of her tonic he created the indestructible wands standard issue to magikoopas today. You'll never see her part in that in the books and that's a problem with the Koopa Kingdom. Those that deserve credit never get it. It's like a political pyramid scheme." She fired in the sky. "And I hate pyramids! (And deserts, and dry weather- you get me.)"
"Okay, so some of the Koopa Kingdom's ways are outdated, but to rewrite the book in a day is short sighted," Ludwig said, not exactly reprimanding, but not entirely conversationally either. "Sister mine, you are only seventeen. We may be only six years apart but that is double in experience. 'Everyone' cannot rule the world!"
"We'll see then, Luddy. I've studied the same books as you," she hissed.
"Wendy Wendy Wendy," Iggy plead. "I'm tired to dragging assistants to the basement with me. Why don't you invent stuff with me sometime? You know, hehe since we're the only ones who can stand playing games with each other as the only Sony fan."
"No! Ahhhg!" she replied.
The tantrum infuriated Peach in a way that surprised even herself. "Miss Wendy, is this really about untapped creativity that patriarchal koopa customs stifle? -Or do you just want to power? There is nothing wrong with the latter dear, but do not doll it up as revolutionary, taking away from women actually accomplished. Take me for example, youngest Mushroom Kingdom ruler at fourteen."
"Okay!" Wendy screeched. Once again, the old her rose to the surface. "Like we could really keep the Koopa Troop going! The KT was daddy practically while Junior's a kid and we're just- I don't even know! Now daddy doesn't have to be miserable anymore while we suffer! Do we really know what to do with ourselves? Roy?"
"Duuuuh..." Roy droned.
"You Larry?"
The fifteen year old was too dizzy to reply.
She then pointed at her oldest brother. "And you were just gonna ride it out. What do you call a commander without a plan?"
"...Nothing," Ludwig lowered his head.
"No." Lemmy stepped forward. "No! We're not losers or cowards or failures or anything! Don't you know what we've been through? If Dark Land has no king at the moment then- I'm the King now!" He took a larger step closer and Wendy staggered back and fell on her butt.
"Hip is King?" she babbled. She pressed a button on the teleporter she'd ripped off and the sky flashed.
Morton continued to hold his tongue even though was the first to spot the sentry teleporting on the scene with something hanging on. "Not even a paradox would make me turn on you, princess!" Toad tussled in the sky with Sentry 11. Blasting bad words they swooped over everyone's heads, the construction workers, and into the open hole on the castle where Peach's mosaic was.
Wendy had another shock of her life as the ground shook. The doors of the castle opened wide and a gaggle of toads rushed out, hopping bravely over the broken moat and spreading out into the field. Buckenberry lead the way and everyone split into chaos. It was then that Gadd emerged from the van with what a cruder prototype looking F.L.U.D.D strapped to his back. He grabbed the Tape Drive and Dr. Toadley's intern and up he went in the sky with the jet stream, up and over the castle.
"Don't stand down! I said, Morton- No! Ahhg! You guys are DORKS! Come back here!" Wendy growled, the zapper getting stomped on dozens of times and unusable. Roy had five toads attacking him in unison and Morton got so mixed up his shell spun backwards.
"We're being trashed by talking mushrooms! Whoa maaaann!" Larry tripped out and scurried away.
The backyard of the castle had construction tools and pallets they weaved through. Luigi and Peach followed Gadd's trail in the sky over the hills where the sky darkened, the soil became purple and the twinkles of stars above tickled their ears. The location had a captivating feeling in the air, a vestige of star energy from a set of events so long ago. A third of the way up the winding path Luigi crossed Prof. Gadd and the intern just as they landed. The professor was bent to his knees, panting.
"I'll feel this one tomorrow!" Gadd tossed it over. "Take this boy. Make me proud!"
They went up to the cliffs edge where the sky was a deep purple and star bits sprinkled down like gentle rain. Luigi glanced over and the unfathomable drop, like the bottomless pits of legend where no light escaped and anything down there was doomed, prey of the dreaded Underchomp.
"Ready plumber?" Ludwig dropped down beside him, the first time he'd paid attention of who was on his heels aside from Peach. "Or shall we wait for the King?" he added with no sarcasm.
"Go!" Lemmy high pitched voice said from a distance back.
Together they slung the tape drive off so tenaciously they almost discarded themselves with it. Peach and Lemmy pulled them back as the black box vanished in the dark pit. Everyone waited for something so intensely they didn't hear the commotion and the clatter of others tearing up perfectly preserved landscape until Iggy rolled over to his back and slid up his glasses. "Whoa nelly!"
Everyone spun as Larry Koopa running for his life, tears flying in the wind. The petrified teenager cling to Ludwig. He had his rebel bandanna torn off and all weapons long tossed.
"Man I'm sorry! Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry! I don't feel good anymore!"
"Larry!" Ludwig sputtered.
"-Here take it back!" Larry retrieved from his shell the Wacky Watch and dropped like trash as the rest of the hoard arrived.
The toads who'd chased Larry chanted for his life and Buckenberry and Alagold was in the forefront with a flashlight. "For Mario!" he added to the chant.
Larry hid behind everyone's feet. "I'm just a kid!"
Luigi saw the fire, the spirit of Mario in the toads. "Stop! Everyone stop!"
Lemmy scooped up the watch. "Okay. Next Kingly move:" He flung the glowing object as hard as he could over the ledge. The Earth shook and a colossal beam of green light ascended up into the heavens with a tumultuous drone that knocked everyone down hill.
...
"Let us take a breather. No? Okay, carry on." Millennium Star's aside was enough distraction to halt the barrage of dark matter for a second. The dark star, Doomella as he knew because he knew everyone, was fierce, young and bored. He knew he ran out of time while Earth suffered from the leftovers of her influence so the war continued before a flash of green separated them.
"Why does this keep happeningggggg!" Doomella was launched across the atmosphere by the beam. People all around the planet observed a black shooting star make going round and round.
Glee short lived, Millennium Star circled the Earth to catch up. After all, if she got buried again from impact the entire ordeal would simply repeat in a hundred or so more years and he'd have to deal with it again. Those darn downsides of immortality.. During the seventh revolution the ancient star noticed observed perspicaciously the numbers '4444 Chai' on the smooth but dull metal husk of a flying missile as it performed acrobatic maneuvers over the skies of Chai, Muda, Birabuto, and the East ocean.
Daisy's fingers scraped against the bottom of her bowl of snacks while the other hand was on the joystick controlling the missile. There was a blotted out portion of her memory obscuring how it launched in the first place but there was no time for her special meditation technique involving standing on her head. There was no safe place to take it down, not even the ocean with spring season bringing tourists on boats. A new blip whipped across the screens.
"Phone!" Ming said over her shoulder to no response. "-It's Luigi!"
She snatched it and it sure sounded like the plumber even if something was off. "Hello, this is indeed Luigi! Have you observed the object in the sky because it is the dark star! Ho ho- ahem. -If you happened to have an object under your skillful control to attack it, why, that would be convenient my love."
"My love, did you just call me that dawg?" Daisy flushed, amused and flustered at once. Hearing that plumber made some of the edge in her melt away. Now it felt more like a game and Daisy never lost a game. She trailed the other object until it left Sarasaland territory to the East Sea. She mashed the controls harder making the chase super sonic to catch up, only focusing on the two dots on the radar. Then- the screen was an empty grid. Daisy zoomed out the view and nearly flipped in her seat. She'd chased that object and created an explosion all the way in the Mushroom Kingdom...
"Success!" boomed Millennium Star. His thunderous voice frightened many but he couldn't help it. Doomella aided by 500 tones of nuclear power was launched back into space thousands of miles before smacking against a dome shape. Her face slid down a window while children giggled from within the structure, then she fell to flat marble with circles engraved. There was a grassy area to the left, a velvet red carpet to the right, and shoes tapping in front of her, hidden behind a long teal gown.
"Well, what do we have here?" Rosalina waved a hand and summoned a dozen lumas to dance and gather around the dazed dark star. "(Heart music note)!?, how did you know the precise location to park the Observatory?" she asked intrigued.
Geno arrived from the opposite side. "I've been blasted from many planets before. I could calculate the trajectory in my sleep!"
"Wonderful!" The space queen cupped the star warrior's face while Doomella wailed in the background, unaware that Eldstar and the others would be arriving soon, behind schedule due to something that was barking over the phone, and then she'd really wish she remained buried in Sarasaland.
Luigi realized he had feeling again a minute after the blast. While his body sent the signal of agony, inwardly things spiraled. This was his reality now. He staggered to his feet as something rose from the heart of Toad Town, slightly centered east. Circular with a sheen of stainless steel a giant fan rose into the mist and let out a loud click. A dramatic orchestra piece played. Ludwig recognized it, a piece from the daring Finnish Shy Guy named Bise in his ballet called 'Brickfielder? I hardly know her! (Blow me away)' The motor roared, the three blades rotated clockwise, and the whirlwind swept shock upon faces of the entire city and anything not bolted down away. A colossal storm, the space dust and fallen clouds in the atmosphere were blown into the ocean where he sun could scorch it away. The fan then peeled away as a 2-D object.
"Oh no! My hard work!" whined a purple robed bandit, arms stretched out to catch some of the tattered pieces of the 'thing sticker' floating in the ether, the one he and Jelectro, Agent N, Spy Guy, Agent 999, Agent M, and Agent Toad spent the last nine hours unpeeling from remote Decalburg.
"Enough agent, return to base." The yoshi spy captain gave a quick peek of the secret warp pipe the agents were hiding in. "Yes, you too Trevor!" he added before the pink boo could slip away into the city. He watched each of them drag their feet in assuming they had feet, but stopped the short noki. He lowered his tone. "You still shook me out of bed at 4 AM and I want an explanation. Don't say it was for this. Fog is not an emergency."
"This fog was, mon ami." And that was all the noki would say on the matter. N then knew it was one of those 'things' and let it go.
Star bits once exclusive to the hill sailed across Toad Town and surrounding, sprinkling every unsettled villager with a gentle calming and sparkly shower. The toads returned to the castle to find that a hunk of a Sarasaland missile had crushed the structure down to rubble. Returning also, Peach cupped her face in horror. She could not fathom the catastrophe until Toadsworth and his prophecy of her castle's demise, the reason the toads had abandoned her in the other timeline, rung in the back of her mind. She dropped to the ground and laughed madly. Luigi was walking away aimlessly down the road away from the castle. The adventure over, the spark left him, leaving the wandering husk that he was just the other day. The one that missed Mario's memorial.
Luigi finally dropped to his knees faintly, unable to continue. "Mario. Just know. That I did it. For you." He lowered his head to the ground.
...
...
…
"I know, little bro. No one else could have done it better."
Luigi lifted his face as tears streamed down and looked upwards to the stars.
Author note: Epilogue time! Was this what you thought it'd be? Was it what I thought it'd be? No but I decided that this ambivalent conclusion as opposed to the saccharine one New Frenemy Adventure (and to a lesser extent the non-Redux Frenemies Forever) brought us is what really fit. Thanks for reading. If there's questions, it might be answered soon.
Created: 1/16/20, 1/19, 1/21, 1/22, 1/24, 1/25, 1/28, 1/31, 2/1, 2/2, 2/4, 2/5, 2/6, 2/8, 2/9