Note: The bold is for Effect and to enhance the yelling, and the italics means flashbacks and phone calls. Heads up there is swearing in this, so if you don't want to see it, go back.
Mario leaned against the safety bars as the odyssey drew closer to the castle. One week of non-stop searching, and he still couldn't find his little brother. He could feel his eyes welling up with tears and his face swelling from rubbing away the saline.
When Peach and the rest of the search teams reported nothing, Mario felt his heart being torn out piece by piece. There was no way Bowser could have hidden Luigi so well; the Koopa king may have been crafty, but he was prone to mistakes. Bowser would have left a trail behind for Mario to find him or at least send some minions after him, just to torture him. Bowser would have at least sent him a message by now so he could gloat at the hero. Not this time. No clues, not mocking notes, no enemies sent after him. For once, Bowser was silent, and that made Mario more anxious. To make matters worse, Peach started recalling members of the search parties back to the castle for a new strategy, including Mario himself.
The new king, of course, refused – Luigi was still in trouble. He needed him. Who knows what type of Torture his green twin suffered through because of that Terrapin monster! His baby brother could be dead by now! Mario argued with his wife – he couldn't leave the search team in Delphino Isle without finding some sort of a clue to Luigi's location.
"Mario,"
"He needs me Peach," Mario exclaimed, "I have to keep going!"
"Darling, please listen-"
"Bowser left a trace here; I know it! But I won't find it if I leave! Just give me more time!"
"Mario enough!" Peach shouted, silencing her husband, "I understand you want to find Luigi. Trust me, we all do, but we need a new strategy! Look at yourself! You're running yourself ragged, you've barely eaten, and I doubt you've gotten any sleep." At this point, Peach practically begged her husband, "Please sweetheart, you can't help Luigi if you don't get any proper rest."
From there, Mario knew he lost. There's no way he would be any use to Luigi if he confronts Bowser exhausted. Still, it hurt – it hurt knowing he had no choice but to retreat so he could get some rest while his twin continued to suffer at Bowser's claws. Mario buried his face into his arms.
"I'm-a sorry Luigi." He silently wept, "I tried bro. I did."
*boom*
"Hm?" Mario's head shot up in surprise. He looked straight towards the castle, seeing smoke emerging from a hole in the roof. Mario's eyes widen in shock. Could it be . . .
Peach stood there, shocked. There in the doorway stood none other than Bowser Jr. and the rest of the Koopalings. Polter continued to growl at the intruders as Gadd helped the injured guards. Daisy, having gotten over the shock, glared hatefully at the spawn of her nemesis. The Koopalings, of course, ignored the flower princess and focused heavily on the Mushroom Queen.
Having grown weary of the silence, Peach broke it with five simple words,
"What are you doing here?"
"Is that all you have to say to us?" Wendy O scoffed.
"No, hello children or how was your day?" Ludwig added. "Better yet, sorry you guys couldn't come to the wedding!"
Peach flinched at that. She should have known the koopalings heard about the wedding; after all, if Bowser knew, so would they. She could see the anger in their eyes, especially Jr.'s, so the queen knew she had to tread cautiously.
"I'll ask again," Peach repeated, "What are you doing here?"
"Isn't it obvious? We're taking back what's ours!" Jr. exclaimed, "The castle, the kingdom, you, and everything else in it!"
Polter's growls increased, as did Daisy's immense stare of hate, but Peach wasn't going to let her cousin utter another word. She had to play this carefully. Otherwise, more trouble would follow.
"Junior, this kingdom doesn't belong to you or your father," Peach said gently, "Nothing here does, not even me."
"Yes, it does!" Junior shouted, "Papa even said it does! It always had and always will be!"
"Junior, that's not how it works," Peach continued, "Please, you all need to leave."
"Not until we reclaimed our kingdom, Mama!" Junior argued.
"Junior," Peach said, staying as calm as she could, "I'm not your-"
"YES, YOU ARE!"
Peach nearly fell back in surprise, and everyone else almost jumped out of their skins. Junior continued to lock eyes on Peach.
"You may not be our real mama, but you are! Papa promised that once we had the kingdom, we would be a family! Then Mario had to ruin all of it!" The koopaling sobbed, looking up at Peach with tears in his eyes.
"Junior," Peach felt herself being interrupted when Daisy pushed past her, looking at the koopalings with fire in her eyes.
"Where is your father, by the way?" She hissed.
"How should we know where Uncle Bowser is?" Roy spat, "We haven't seen him in a week or so."
"You're lying!" Daisy snapped.
"We're not, and it wouldn't matter if we knew where he was or not," Junior said with a scowl, "Papa left us. And it's all Mario's fault!" The Koopa Prince clutched his hand into a fist; tears dribbled down his face. "If he kept his big, fat, ugly nose out of everyone's business, then it wouldn't end up this way!"
"Junior, that's not true!" Peach exclaimed, trying to reason with the koopaling, but he wasn't having it.
"It is! Do you think any of us wanted it to turn out this way? NO! But he couldn't let it go!" Jr. cried, "He manipulated you, mama! He was jealous of papa, so he took you away! Now Papa's gone and it's all his fault!"
"Junior," Peach bit her lip. At this point, trying to explain to him was futile. The koopaling was practically a miniature version of his father. Both are short-sighted, stubborn, selfish, and unreasonable. Still, she couldn't' blame him or his cousins for being upset. It wasn't enough that Bowser kidnapped Luigi, but to abandon his family, all for revenge? She looked torn between being brutally honest with the child to sympathetic. Lucky for her, Daisy felt the opposite.
"Oh for the love of Giambi! Wake up, kid!" The yellow-clad princess shrieked in rage, "You're dad's nothing but a delusional stalker!
Peach anxiously glanced at her enraged cousin, silently begging her not to say anything else, but Daisy ignored her, "You think he's this amazing all-powerful king, who's going to make the world better? Guess again! He's a fraud!" She shouted. The koopalings flinch and look at her angrily. The flower princess kept going, "Bowser's nothing more than a selfish punk; whenever something doesn't go his way, he throws a massive tantrum to get his way!"
Junior glared at Daisy, looking offend, "You-You don't know Papa, you sorry excuse for a princess!"
"Oh, I know him," Daisy sneered, "I know he can't stand that Mario managed to do what he could never do, get my cousin to love him! I know he can't get through his thick head that Peach could never love someone as pathetic and cruel as him! I also know that if he cared enough about you or your cousins, he wouldn't have taken off all because he couldn't handle the truth! Shows where you land on his priority list!"
The koopalings gasped in horror at that statement; none more than Junior whose eyes practically bugged out of his head as he stared at the princess in horror. Peach and the others nearly gasped themselves at Daisy's outburst, but not as much as the Sarasaland leader herself. She could the tension crawled up behind her as all eyes laid on her – staring at her as if she was some sort of monster. Soon, Junior's shock melted away into anger. He was beyond livid.
"HOW. DARE YOU!" Junior roared. He pulled at a remote and smashed the big red button square in the center, shattering it. The sound of a propeller echoed in the hallway – Junior's clown copter emerged into the conference room, and the koopaling prince jumped right in it. He glared daggers at Daisy, ignoring his cousins' frighten stares. Junior pressed another button in the copter, producing a giant cannon from the back of the copter, aiming it straight at Daisy.
"PAPA LOVES US!" Junior screamed, "HE LOVES US ALL YOU WASTE OF SPACE BITCH!"
Click
Junior flicked the switch, firing the cannon. The cannonball fired directly at Daisy. She could hear Peach's scream as the cannonball made its way towards her. Daisy felt frozen in time, unable to move away from the projectile flying towards her. Her life flashed before her eyes, with most of them being of a certain someone she longed to see.
"Luigi . . . " Daisy closed her eyes, waiting for the impact.
…
. . . .
…
It never came. She opened her eyes, and to her shock, standing in front of her, holding the cannonball in the palm of his hands was none of then-
"MARIO!"
The crowd stared at the plumber king in surprise. One minute, they were about to see Daisy's fate sealed, the next the superstar sprints in at the last second catching the iron ball like it was a dodge ball. Junior's eyes laid hatefully on his father's nemesis.
"You-You HOME WRECKER!" Junior screeched, "You got a lot of nerve to show you-"
WOOSH
SMASHED
Nobody spoke for a second. Junior, in particular, was surprised. Flown over his head, into the cannon, which broke and crashed into the wall, was the cannonball. The koopalings slowly turned their heads over to where the weapon laid embedded in the wall. Junior was the first who dared to look back at Mario; how he wished he hadn't. If looks could kill, Junior wouldn't be breathing. His hateful glare was nothing compared to the unbridle inferno laced into Mario's eyes.
Daisy, Peach, Gadd, Polter, and the guards looked equally stunned at the king, who merely glanced at them.
"Go to safety." He said emotionlessly.
He didn't need to say it twice for the guards to pull the professor, the phantom dog, and the girls towards the emergency exit, leaving the king alone with the intruders. Morton, feeling uneasy, pulled out a walkie talkie.
"All units! We need back up!" He commanded, "Head to the conference room! I repeat! Do you read!?" No response. "Come in! Mayday! Do you copy!?" Morton repeated. Still nothing.
Ludwig took the communicator from his brother, "HELLO! Is anyone there! Answer the damn device, you imbeciles!" Seconds passed when a horrifying thought came to the poofy blue-haired koopaling. He nervously turned towards Mario, who cracked his neck. His siblings and cousin must have reached the same conclusion.
"Dear God," Roy gasped,
"Yo-you-…did you-?" Larry stuttered.
"There were so many-" Lemmy cried and hugged Iggy.
Iggy felt like he was going to pass out "H-how could…"
"What did you-" Wendy O began, feeling the urge to vomit.
Mario didn't say anything. He gave his foes a piercing glare that almost made some of them wet themselves. He slowly made his way towards them, ignoring the frightened looks on their faces. Junior, being the ring leader of the operation, felt the most petrified. Perhaps he didn't think this through.
Bowser could feel himself panting as he looked at his captive. He had strung Luigi back on the wall so he could continue to torture him. The Koopa king brutally beat the captive plumber, again. Drinking up each of his screams emitted through each injury inflicted. Said prisoner looked like a broken, bloody mess. Luigi's clothes were tattered, he was covered in blood, sweat, claw marks, and bruises from head to toe, his left arm was dislocated and he was sure his right foot was broken, if not sprained. The young hero's heavy breathing was the only sign he was alive.
At this point, this became an addiction for the vile dictator: Seeing the twin of his nemesis in pain, fantasizing it was the hero in red suffering instead of the green one, taking please of unleashing all the pain he bottled up onto his suffering victim. It felt good. Still, Bowser couldn't be completely satisfied with himself until he saw Mario's broken expression, heard him beg for Luigi's freedom, or feel his lifeforce drip down his claws and spill all over the floor. So, why not up the ante a bit?
"Well, green stache," The devil dragon sneered, "I'm impressed you've survived this long. I'm pretty sure I went overboard to a point where I could have killed you. Then again, you Mario brothers aren't like normal humans?"
Luigi weakly looked up a bit to glare at his kidnapper.
"You know, it's not fair that you're here instead of Mario. After all, he's the reason for your suffering," The king baited. Luigi slightly flinched at that, and Bowser gleefully continued, "Come to think of it, your big brother is the main reason for all your little problems?" Bowser lightly tipped up Luigi's chin, "The Subcon adventure, the Beanbean Kingdom, the power stars, the mansions, even the first time we crossed paths? Who was the one leading you into trouble? Who ignored you when you specifically said something wasn't a good idea? Who gets all the credit while you get nothing!? Your brother that's who!" Bowser's smile grew when he saw a few tears form in Luigi's eyes, "But that can change! You can get the respect you deserve. Why not work for me? If you do, not only will you get revenge on that waste of space Mario, but everything you could ever want will come true? What do you say?"
Luigi looked at Bowser for a minute. His Bluish-green eyes widen a bit when at the last part. He could feel his breath quickening, his hands shaking, and his stomach feeling nauseous. Was Bowser serious? After everything he put him through, he has the gall to make such an offer? Somewhere deep down inside, Luigi snapped.
"Are you, FUCKING KIDDING ME!" He cursed. Bowser nearly jumped out of his scales "You kidnapped me, you tortured me, you allowed your minions pummel me, you took me away from my loved ones all because you're a jealous stalker who couldn't get a clue!? Now you have the gall to make such an offer, are you freaking crazy!?" The plumber spat, "You may as well kill me right here and there. I WILL NEVER HELP YOU! Even if my brother never comes, I WOULD SOONER DIE THEN BE YOUR FUCKING PUPPET, YOU DISGUSTING SLEAZE!"
"Um, Boss."
A minion's interruption is what saved Luigi from feeling Bowser's wrath for his outburst. Bowser glared at the Koopa.
"What is it!?" He roared.
"Um, we-well…"
"Out with it!"
"Sire! It's your son!" The minion squeaked.
That got Bowser's attention. Bowser spared Luigi one last glance before exiting the room with the Koopa. What could Junior want? Come to think of it, when was the last time Bowser had spoken to him, let alone his niece and nephews? Then again, he did take off abruptly, without letting them know what was going on. Now he gets something regarding them? What's going on?
"What's this about my son? Is something wrong with him or my niece and nephews?" Bowser asked.
"I think it's better if you see for yourself," The Koopa said handing his phone over to his king.
Bowser looked at the phone for a moment, then raised it to his ear, "Junior, what is it son?"
"Guess again!"
Bowser's eyes widen: the voice on the other end of the line was not his little boy's. The tone was filled with hate, with an accent. It belonged to someone Bowser despised more than anything. Hoping he was wrong, Bowser switched the phone to the facetime app; his heart raced, hoping it was just one of Junior or Roy's pranks. How wrong he was when the caller's face appeared on the screen.
"Hello, Bowser. IT'S. A. ME!"
Mario. IS. PISSED! All hell breaks Loose as the ending draw near.