"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different results." Albert Einstein
Chapter 1: The Problematic Pipes
The sky was a brilliant blend of reds and oranges on the cool summer morning, and even though the town sitting in front of a great castle was slowly coming to life, the small cottage sitting on a faraway hill was the only building with any form of activity. The quaint little house belonged to none other than the Mario brothers, and anyone with a brain knows about the pipe fixing, koopa stomping, princess saving duo.
Inside, a green clad, half asleep, Luigi sat at the kitchen table waiting for a telephone call. Despite being the only plumbers in the land, they still didn't get that much work, but they still had to be ready for it. Luigi's eyes were half closed, and the tea he was drinking didn't help too much in waking him up. He had a green nightgown on, and a sleeping cap with matching colors. His bunny slippers silently tapped the ground to the beat of a grandfather clock. The House was silent, and uneventful, with the only disturbance coming from the occasional sip of green tea from a mug with a L on the front of it.
The ring of the old school telephone took the lanky green plumber by surprise, and as high-pitched metal pierced the air, Luigi slowly picked up the phone at a pace only a snail could match.
"Mario brother's plumbing, *yawn* you clog em', we fix em'. Luigi Speaking" He simply recited their slogan with little effort to hide his drowsiness.
"Luigi! We have an emergency at the Castle." An old but wise voice responded, in a slightly panicked manor.
"What-a seems to be the problem Toadsworth." Luigi spoke unfazed by the old man's terrified voice.
"We have a plumbing problem at the castle! The entire pipe room is destroyed, and if the problem isn't fixed soon, the Castle will become a water works!"
"That-a sounds bad," Luigi commented, "So I'm-a guessing you want us to help?"
"Yes! And I expect you and Master Mario to be here no later than six o'clock." And just like that, the call was over.
"Mama Mia," Luigi muttered, as he placed the phone back onto its pedestal, "I'm-a not ready for work just yet, the sun isn't even up yet" His head slowly crept towards the direction of the clock, taking a sip of his drink in the process, and he froze by what he said. It took a couple seconds for the panic to take hold of Luigi, but once it did, he spit out his drink and took off like a mad man back towards the only other room the cabin, the bedroom.
"Mario! Wake up! We got-a work to do!" His yelling had no effect on Mario, the older, shorter, and slightly chubbier brother, who was still sound asleep in an attire is similar to his brothers, minus the bunny slippers. He then took to shaking the bunk bed, still resulting in nothing. In one last attempt to wake up his brother, he hit the bottom of the bed with his fist, knocking Mario off the bed, and once he fell from the top bunk and hit the floor, he was jerked wide awake.
"Luigi!" He yelled with a slightly deeper Italian accent, "What was-a that for!" Mario began to rub his head from where it hit the floor as he began to rise up to his feet.
"We just-a got a call on the telephone, we have-a job to do!" his voice frantic and shaky.
"I don't-a think that warranted you to wake me up like-a that." He casually walked over to the small kitchen and started to prepare a cup of coffee in a cup with a red M emblazoned on it. "It can't-a be that important."
"But the call came from-a Toadsworth, there is pipe trouble at the castle!" Mario, becoming more intrigued, seemed to spike up with a happy glow. Still, he was putting most of his focus to his morning beverage, which he had now begun to drink.
"Well I see why it's so important, but Luigi, why are you so worried." Mario's voice showing concern, as Luigi was visibly sweating from his forehead, and his actions were all clumsily done. "This isn't the first time we have a worked at Peach's castle you know."
Luigi was already in the middle of getting dressed, his shirt and striped socks were already on, with his blue overalls being buttoned up. He simply said, "We have to be there by six!" before continuing getting dressed. Mario turned towards the clock to check the time and was shocked by the fact that is was turning on five forty. His cup dropped from his hands and hit the floor, spilling the rest of his coffee onto the dry wood.
"Mama Mia!" he shouted as he dashed back towards the bedroom to join his brother in getting dressed. It only took half of the time it took for Luigi to get his pants on for Mario to become fully clothed in his iconic outfit, that was very similar to his brothers, besides the color of course. They had their shoes on, tools at the ready, and were out of the door faster than you could say 'fettuccini with alfredo sauce'. They were about to break out into a mad dash for the castle if it weren't for one thing.
"Mario, missing something" Luigi said while pointing towards his head, where his green hat sat on his head. Mario reached up to his own and only found a forest of hair.
"Your right! I almost forgot-a my hat" and he ran back into the house for less than a second before emerging out with a red cap in hands. When he reached Luigi, Mario placed and straightened his hat on his head before he said, "Let's-a go!" in iconic fashion as the brothers took off towards Peaches Castle.
As the Italian pair ran down the streets of toad town, they received many greetings in the form of 'Good Morning!' and, 'Hello Mario, heading to work are you.' Most called out Mario by name, but on the rare occasion, some would greet Luigi's specifically. It didn't bother him too much, as Mario was the one who came into town more often, as Luigi didn't like all the attention. Plus, Mario was the more popular brother of the two.
When they reached the from gate of the castle, they took a minute to catch their breath. After a minute or so, they knocked on the door with a rhythm one could hum to. Mario looked at his wrist watch that read five to six, which was decent time given how far they had to run. As the door opened, the two brothers began to speak in tune with each other.
"Mario brother's plumbing! you clog em', we fix em!" In front of them stood an elder toad wore a brown mushroom shaped hat, and had a small mustache covering his mouth.
"Oh good!" the mushroom man spoke in a relieved voice. "I was beginning to worry that you two wouldn't show up. Come quickly, I'll show you the way to the..." he didn't get to finish his sentence when the brothers piped in.
"No need Toadsworth." Luigi said first.
"We know-a the way to the pipe room, this isn't the first-a time we've been in-a the castle." Mario finished.
"Oh, of course, well while you two start working I have some things I need to take care of myself. I'll check in on you two in an hour or so." And with that, the mushroom started walking off towards the castle.
"Mario and Luigi nodded to each other and went towards a tower in the back of the castle with a stair case to an underground room where they would be working for the majority of the day.
Once they finally entered the room, they were treated to an unpleasant surprise. The underground pipe room was filled with a knee-deep layer of water covering the floor. The cause was water pouring out of the connection points of several rainbow-colored pipes that darted randomly around the room. The brothers simply stood in awe at the mess they had to clean up.
"Whelp, we've got-a lot of work to do" Mario said as he straightened up his cap, "Let's -a go!" and he dashed towards the leaky pipes with an enthusiastic run. Luigi stood for a second longer, until he adjusted his tool belt and sped off to join his brother with a wrench in hand from his toolbelt.
The twin brothers went to work immediately, and although Mario did most of the work, Luigi did help with some of the harder to reach pipes. They jumped to each Leakey pipe with a springy leap and used a wrench, screw driver, and a variety of other tools to tighten, loosen, or completely replace broken pipes. The floor water was pumped into a hose to be dumped into a storage unit, and the broken pipes were put in corner to be sent off to be turned into scrap.
The hours flew by, and they had almost completed their job by the time lunch came around. Luigi took a lunch break, while His older brother continued with the last little bit of work.
"Alrighty, that about-a does it." Mario spoke with a hint of exhaustion in his voice, as he wiped sweat from his forehead. "Luigi, turn on the water."
Luigi, who was eating a turkey sandwich, was sitting right next to the handle that activated the water. He simply gave a thumb up and flipped the switch with his hand to let the water flow. The sounds of flowing liquid came from a pipe next to the switch and began to travel along the maze of pipes that filled the room. The brother's heads followed where the water went along the path until it came to a stop by a pipe that stood only a few feet from where Mario was standing. Luigi, unprompted, turned off the water and let Mario investigate
Mario placed his hand on the spot where the issue was. "There is-a probably something inside of-a this pipe." He then took a wrench from his belt and began detaching the bolts holding the metal piece in its place. Once the pipe fell of, a bit of water poured out onto the floor and Mario's overalls, but by that point the two were already soaking wet, so he didn't really care. He then shook the pipe piece a few times until a small mushroom fell out of the tube, and into Mario's hands.
"Eh? What's-a this?" Mario had dropped the pipe onto the floor and began to examine the mushroom more thoroughly. The overall style of it was the same as a magic mushroom, but it was a little smaller, and lighter. The base was a light beige, with eyes that had a mixture of dark purple and black. Its top colors were an ocean blue and pale white similar to that of somebody who is ill. Despite its coloration, the mushroom didn't harm him, so it's effects would most likely be positive.
"Whatcha got-a there Mario?" Luigi said while looking over his brothers shoulder to see what he was holding, unaware of the crumbs on his face from his lunch.
"I don't-a know, it seems to be a power-up of some kind." He then gave the mushroom to Luigi to hold onto, so he could put the pipe back into its proper spot.
"I have-a never seen a mushroom like this before." His voice held a large amount of caution, "Mario I think you should have this, you found it after all." When he finished up with the pipe, and their work with it, Mario turned around to see his brother holding the mushroom in the palm of his extended left hand.
"Alright, I'll take it." Mario then took the mushroom, placed it into his pocket, and reattached his wrench to his took belt. "Well, that's everything. We should-a head up to see Toadsworth and the princess."
"That's-a right! We need to let-a them know that we are done." Luigi responded.
"Yes, plus nobody came-a down to see how our work was going." Mario's comment caused Luigi to look towards a watch of his own and saw that it had been mush longer than an hour since they started working and indeed nobody came down check on their work.
Luigi put his hand up to his chin, tilted his head, and began to ponder "I wonder why nobody came, it's-a not like Toadsworth to go against his word?"
"I know, and that's-a why we should-a go see them" said Mario after had flipped the switch to the water flow to the rest of the castle again. "Come on, let's-a go."
The two quickly retraced their steps back towards the front of the castle, and then began to navigate the halls towards the throne room, passing by guards and house workers doing tedious chores like cleaning or repainting the pink and yellow walls, all of whom said 'hello' to the two as they passed by. They were about halfway to their destination when a large boom echoed though the castle walls, shaking furniture and knocking down those who did have great footing. Luigi was one of those people, and he fell to the floor with soft thud.
"M-M-Mario," he said worriedly, "W-w-what was-s-a that-a noise" Although he had a hunch of what caused it, he couldn't help but ask.
"I think I know, but it sounds like it came from the throne room. Come on!" He then broke into a sprint with surprising speed for his body weight, Leaving Luigi to chase after him.
Mario dashed towards the throne room, turning around corners and brushing past house workers who were all running in the opposite direction. Once he got there, he pushed open the door to hear two distinct voices call out his name. One was melodic and hopeful, and the other rough and rage filled. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what was unfolding in front of his eyes, as this scenario had played out before to many times to count. Peach, who was inside of a metal cage with a large pink bow wrapped around it, was about to be kidnaped by Bowser, the King of the Koopa's… Again.
"Mario!" Bowser said with a deep yet playful voice. "What a surprise, I didn't think I would be seeing you just yet." His face was in a crooked smile and his eyes were cartoonishly angry.
"Well that's-a shame," Mario responded back with a similar attitude towards his arch nemesis. "I was just coming back from fixing some pipes."
"What?! You already fixed my distraction" in an instant, all of the cunning and seriousness drained out of his face and was replaced by confusion and frustration. "Minions! Explain yourselves!"
From behind the throne, three figures came out from the shadows, all of which seamed slightly worried. "What do you mean, we did what you said Lord Bowser." The first one who spoke was a red Paratroopa, who wore a bucket on his head and green shoes.
"Yeah!" the second was a green Shy Guy who was wearing backpack with a green pipe and a magic wand peeping out of the top. "We went into the big pipe room and went kapow! on everything we could find."
Bowser turn to the group and let his head fall into a facepalm. "Well clearly you didn't go kapow hard enough, otherwise Mario wouldn't be here!" The atmosphere of the room seamed to shift from danger to a goofy mess, Mario's fighting stance loosened a little, and a frightened Toadsworth slowly crept out from behind a potted plant.
The last of the three minions, a Goomba wearing clothes that could only compare to blue pajamas, spoke up "Well maybe we shouldn't have distracted Mario with a task that he could do in his sleep."
"Shut it" Bowsers roar blew the three backwards a bit and nearly took them off of their feet. "Why didn't you say anything when we were planning back at my castle Private Goomp"
"Because privates weren't invited sir." The Goomba responded.
"No excuses!" he roared again, this time completely knocking his minion backwards. "Paraplonk! Why didn't you bring this up."
"Because corporal's weren't invited either" and in almost the same fashion, the Paratroopa fell to his feet from a mighty roar.
"Sargent Guy! Explain yourself, I know you were at the meeting!" the daggers in Bowsers eyes aimed themselves his only standing minion.
"Well, t-the thing is." The Shy Guy began with a slight stutter, "I would have said something, but you just seemed so confident in your own plan, I didn't want to ruin your moment."
"Useless!" and like the previous minions, the Shy Guy fell to his feet from the shear force in Bowser's yell. "If you three were actually useful then we would have defeated Mario years ago!" It was only then when he actually noticed what was happening behind his back, as during his pity party, he completely forgot about Mario, who was now currently unlocking the cage that Peach was locked in with his green brother and a old brown toad. "Hey!" he said with a regained sense of composure. "What do you think you are doing!"
"Unlocking Peach's Cage." Luigi said, putting Bowser even more on edge.
"Don't you have any respect, I was in the middle of disciplining my minions!" Suddenly, an invisible lightbulb light up in his head, and a smirk grew on Bowsers face. "You know, it has been a while sense I have used that inhale ability, I think it's about time I give it another whirl" the faces of everyone standing by the cage froze, as that ability only meant one thing.
Not so long ago, when the evil genius Fawful tried to take over the Mushroom Kingdom, he tricked Bowser into eating a special mushroom. The mushroom that gives the user the ability to inhale opponents into their body. Even though there were warp pipes inside his body that could transport anyone trapped inside back out, none of the pipes exited inside of Peach's Castle, which would allow Bowser to make his escape,
"Wait No!" Mario screamed, but it was too late, as Bowser already opened up his jaws, and a large, vacuum like tornado appeared and began to pull them towards his mouth.
Mario quickly grabbed onto the cage, which stopped him from falling deeper into the vortex due to the metals weight. Luigi did the same thing, but he seemed to wave around a little more than his brother did. Once Toadsworth began to be pulled towards his mouth Mario grabbed onto the end of a cane he was holding to save him from being pulled in. Slowly, the cage started to move inch by inch towards Bowser, and it was only a matter of time before they would have been pulled back into bowsers body, if it weren't for the mushroom that was in Mario's pocket.
"Luigi!" Mario yelled with anxiety in his voice, "Grab the mushroom out of-a my pocket!"
"What?" Luigi replied, unable to hear his brother over the fierce winds.
"The Mushroom in-a my pocket, Grab it!" He yelled at the top of his lungs, and this time, Luigi heard. He used his free hand to reach into his brothers pocket, and grabbed the strange mushroom, dropped it into the vortex, which carried it into Bowsers mouth and down into his stomach.
"Hurgh!" as predicted, the taste of mushrooms caused him to begin to choke and swell up inside. The vacuum dissipated, and everyone simply dropped to the floor as Bowser grabbed his neck and began to gag.
"Good thinking Mario!" Peach, who hadn't spoken a word since Mario first entered the room, exclaimed with joy in her voice.
"Indeed. That strange mushroom seemed to have stop Bowser in his tracks." Toadsworth added in, but it didn't take long for the Koopa to regain his senses.
"You think that will stop me." Mario and Luigi quickly struck into fighting stances in order to prepare for the battle looked very likely to unfold. "It won't take long at all for the rest of my troops to get here, and once they do. They will make you wish for mer…" He didn't finish his sentence, but instead simply froze with an unconformable look on his face.
"Lord Bowser?" the Paratroopa asked, who had finally recovered from his dazed state. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah, you just stopped talking before you finished your evil monologue." The Shy guy inquired.
"Did you get stage fright Lord Bowser?" the Goomba questioned.
Bowser placed his hand his stomach before asking, "What was that mushroom? It's making my belly feel funny." but before anyone could respond, Bowser simply proofed out of existence leaving nothing behind but a large puff of eerie purple and blue smoke that covered the floor.
"Lord Bowser!" all three of Bowser's minions exclaimed before rushing over to where their master was previously standing.
"M-M-Mario?, where did Bowser g-go?" Luigi spoke with a stutter.
"I don't-a know" He responded puzzled, "It might have-a been that mushroom." Mario himself began to look around the room for himself, confused as to what just happened.
"Mario?" Peach spoke up, "what did bowser say right before he disappeared?" the brothers heads spun around towards peach, who was still stuck in the cage.
"Something about his-a belly feeling funny, why do-a you ask?" Mario spoke calmly for the situation.
She then placed her hand onto her stomach, "Oh… Oh dear." And in a very similar fashion to Bowser, She disappeared into thin air. Leaving nothing behind except for a cloud of smoke and three terrified individuals.
"Peach!" Mario yelled with hysteria in his voice and reached into the cage grasping fiercely for any sign of her, but she had vanished. He looked around the room, until his eyes landed on Luigi, who was pointing at the floor
"Toadsworth, j-j-just d-d-disappeared" Luigi's leg then suddenly gave out as he came crumbling to the floor. Then three small poofs came from the minions, who were nowhere to be found. Leaving only Mario and Luigi in the room.
"Mario" Luigi spoke with a voice filled with fear. "Are we next?"
"I, I don't-a know," the older brother uttered worriedly "how-a does your stomach feel?"
Luigi placed his hand on his belly, and look up and said, "I just-a thought I had butterflies in-a my stomach." before he dissipated into thin air.
Mario sat alone in the empty room, left with the question of where everybody went. Until something started to stir in his belly, and the next thing you know, there wasn't anybody in the room at all.