Welcome To Mario Kart, Part 4
And The Winner Is.....
Mario Kart 64 Has Arrived!
Features 20 courses comprised of sixteen race tracks and four closed battle arenas!
People received programs at the entrance.
There would be the Mushroom Cup, including Luigi Raceway, Moo Moo Farm, Koopa Troopa Beach(Noku Noku), and the Kalamari Desert. The Flower Cup would consist of Toad's(Konopio)Turnpike, Frappe Snowland, Choco Mountain, and the very famous kingdom landmark, Mario Raceway. Next was the Star Cup, including the newly built motorcross tracks of Wario Stadium, Sherbet Land, the Princess' own Royal Raceway, and a frightful journey (at least for the drivers) through Bowser's Castle. Last on the schedule was Special Cup, which was indeed special, including the tourists isle D.K.'s Jungle Parkway, the grand Yoshi Valley, the mystical Banshee Boardwalk, and last of all but not least, the long....long....long...neon-lit Rainbow Road.
People flew in on Koopa Air from all over the kingdom to see this spectacular show. The ones who drove their cars purchased extra quarts of Super Mario motor oil and checked their engines thoroughly.
Mario Kart 64 had been rated a "must see" by the Mushroom Kingdom Daily, touting that it would have the "best effects ever seen in this genre of racing games," and it would be "Fast! Fast! Fast!"
"Look! It's that big ape, D.K.!" Someone in the crowd pointed out.
Rumor had it that Mario couldn't get a guest star--the Mushroom Kingdom's own Wynne Hewton--so the ape had to fill the spot. Mr. Hewton was on his Sensational Kingdom world tour, however he fulfilled Mario's request to open the race via satellite, which consequently fell in the hands of none other than Wario, an experienced technical advisor who coordinated all the special effects including views of the tracks on wide screens for the fans and real-time stats for the drivers on the dashboards of each kart.
Mushroom people, Yoshis, Koopas, and all the average folks of Mushroom World came to the event that was also being recorded for the "outer world" video game maker, Nintendo.
"You ready Princess?" asked Mario as they stood at the fence outside of the first course, and he cornered her with his usual suave routine. "You know, I'll be taking you out after this....to...celebrate victory, of course."
"Oh.." Peach's eyelashes fluttered sweetly and she dreamingly gazed into his eyes. "That's so nice of you, Mario."
"...And you can come to my place afterwards to do more celebrating there, then you can help me pick a spot for my trophy."
"Really?"
"Yes." He playfully pinched her little nose and tickled her chin. "I'm sure you would like that....eh Peachy?.."
"I would..." said Peach with a smile that quickly sobered. "...But I think we should plan to celebrate my victory instead,"
"Uh..excuse me?" Mario moved back.
"Don't be so sure that you'll win this time, my dear Mario. I'm ready for everyone this time....that includes you."
"Oh, so you think you're gonna beat me, eh?"
"Yes!"
"I think not!" Mario retorted.
"I think so!" Peach declared.
"Come on Mario, Princess," said Luigi as he passed them on his way to the track. "No time for your petty little nonsense quarrels now...the race starts in five minutes."
An excited crowd cheered as Lakitu came down with his signal and the racers lined up, but instead of doing so according to their time trial finishes—as Peach had referred to earlier—Bowser came in and made changes because he thought Mario was cheating again by putting himself and Peach in front, so the order of players changed to Luigi, Toad, Wario, and Mario in last position on the left, with Bowser, D.K., Yoshi, and Peach on the right.
Lakitu counted down from three.. Red.. Yellow... Blue...
He waved the flag and got out of the way as the whole bunch started off—Peach made a quick dash to the middle and thrust forward with a turbo mushroom, Toad jumped over Luigi and Mario thought he'd made a good start from behind but Wario took off, bumping karts aside and spinning them out of control. "AAAAAH!" Toad yelled. "Mama Mia!" yelled Mario. "YoYoYoshi!" Of course, that was Yoshi's cry.
"You think you beat me?" Wario hollered out to Peach soon as he caught up to her on the first turn and picked up an item box. "...FIRE!" he shouted as a banana peel lobbed ahead of them on the tracks and slipped up Peach before she could avoid it. Other karts sped by her as she spun out and Wario laughed as he passed her, "EHhehehehe..." but just a few seconds up the track he was smacked with a speeding red shell and intimidated by the voice that came up from behind him—
"Yeah! HAHAHA!" Mario laughed as he went zooming by.
Wario flipped up in the air, crying, "WAAAAA!"
D.K. did a power slide and Yoshi struck lightning.
The fans roared with laughter and cheers.
Luigi disappeared with a ghost and Bowser went right through him with a star.
Ooohs and Ahhhs came from the crowd.
The three laps were perhaps as fierce as anything ever seen before in the Mushroom Kingdom's history, and the competitors slammed each other with more shells, smooshed karts, and lobbed more bananas, but at the end it was Luigi who finished first.
Luigi did rather well on every track after that as well by managing to pick up the right items at the right time, like bombing Yoshi with three red shells just before the finish line on Moo Moo Farm, smashing D.K. by shooting back a green shell, slipping up Peach and Mario and Toad and Wario with a string of bananas on Koopa Troopa Beach, flipping Bowser high in the air with a blue spiny shell, spinning out everyone ahead of him with a bolt of lightning then running over them as he got first place on the Kalimari Desert, and finally a huge crowd of fans from the Mushroom Kingdom cheered for him... ("Mario's brother" "that other guy" "the one in green" "the second player".....you get my drift) Anyhow, Luigi soaked up all the glory as dozens of balloons rose into the air and shimmering stars showered him throughout the award ceremony, and finally, when Lakitu gave him a microphone, he boasted, "I'm-a Luigi! Number One!"
The fans went wild.
More cheers came as Toad took the silver and Peach took the bronze.
"Well, congratulations, brother." said Mario afterwards, even tipping his famed red cap to Luigi. "You did very well on the easy courses. Now we'll see how you do as things get a bit more challenging."
Luigi turned up the bravado. "I can handle it."
"We'll see, won't we?" Mario taunted. "You know the last time you went driving on Toad's Turnpike you got ticket for going too slow..."
"Oh really? Well you could not even beat Peach back there!"
Mario snapped to attention. "I let her go ahead of me!"
"And you just happened to let everyone else ahead of you, too, eh? Can't go any lower than eighth, big brother."
Mario glared from underneath his cap.
"Ah, I hope you both get splattered by big truck! Neither one of you is that good!" said Wario as he came between them. "Next is Flower Cup, and I'm gonna beat the pants off both of you!"
The Princess Power Slide
(just another day in the Mushroom Kingdom)
"Your crown, Princess," said Toad as he entered the bedroom and placed the freshly polished and shined gold crown on the vanity where Peach was sitting. "Will there be anything else?"
"No. Thank you, Toad." Peach smiled and continued brushing her hair and looking in the mirror.
Toad nodded and left the room.
"....ninety-eight...ninety-nine...one-hundred." Peach finished with the brush and put it down, then she got up and went around the corner to the closet and opened the door. "...okay...you can come out now..." she whispered.
The clothes in her closet rustled and from behind them came none other than Mario who Peach had pushed in there soon as Toad knocked on her door.
Mario took a look around. "He's gone?"
"Yes, Mario. Now come out right this instant."
"But Peach, it smells so good in there. That perfume you use on everything is so....very nice,"
"Stop it, Mario! Are you forgetting why you came here?"
"...Uh....to see you?"
"Mario!"
"Shh!" he went. "Keep your voice down. Your little Toad might hear us, you know."
Peach frowned. "I asked you here because I wanted you to see something."
"And what might that be, Princess?" asked Mario brazenly.
She quietly went to her nightstand and opened the drawer then returned to him with a small book about the size of matchbox. "This, I got it for you."
"What is it?"
"Open it up, Mario. You'll see."
Mario opened up what he thought was just a book, then he realized the pages were folded and when he let them out, he was holding a map of all the courses in the race. "Is this all? This no big deal to me...I've already studied all the courses very thoroughly and—"
"Have you studied all the shortcuts?"
"What?"
"And I suppose you already know all the tricks and cheats."
"Tricks?" went Mario. "Cheats? My darling, Peach. I'm very shocked at you... This is supposed to be an honest race."
"Right, Mario." She turned from him. "And so I guess you really don't have the desire to win after all, do you?"
"Sure I have desire to win but I win fair and square! ...Hmm, look at this..." Mario suddenly noticed something of interest. "...Wario Stadium... Wow...right at the beginning is big shortcut...and there is another..." He studied carefully, buried so deeply into the map that Peach could see no more of him than the M on his cap. "...Although it might be difficult, it is possible..." and was silence while his eyes roved the pages looking for more shortcuts and hints and tricks, not even realizing how it had captured his interest until he lowered the map and saw Peach staring at him. "Uhhem..." cleared his throat. "This is all well and good but I won't be needing it."
He had folded the pages then closed up the secret book and tried giving it to Peach but she wouldn't accept it.
"I went through a lot of trouble getting that for you, Mario!" she snapped.
"Trouble? What kind of trouble?"
Peach was going to say something else but quickly refrained.
"Tell me." Mario demanded after putting the book on the vanity.
…never… She thought to herself. "It doesn't make any difference to you that I'm trying to help you, does it? You're so stubborn, Mario. Anything I try doing for you doesn't matter....you don't even care that I'd let you have this castle if you wanted it! You're so busy going out saving the kingdom and trying so hard to please everyone else that you never take the time to see what's right in front of you!"
"Oh," said Mario. "So that's what this is all about. Me and you. You want me to pay more attention to you, is that it? Perhaps you want me to shower you with flowers and whisk you away to exotic places and take you everywhere I go on my arm.... You want me to be like my brother? You want to go see Daisy so both of you girls can make plans to marry him? Okay, well I am not my brother, Peach. He wears green, I wear red. I am not one of these.....Revolvo Iglesias, Jr./Ricky Martin types!"
"That's Enrique Iglesias—"
"Whatever. I do things my way because that is the only way I know. If it feels like I am not paying attention to you I am sorry, Peach.....very sorry. But I don't see how you can come up with something like that when I spend most of my free time saving you from Bowser..."
Peach crossed her arms angrily. "You sound as though I've made you waste most of your free time—"
She stopped when Mario reached for her hands and grasped them gently.
"Stop it. I will never let Bowser hurt you as long as I am here to rescue you. We are a couple, you know? There is no me without you and there is no you without me, and I think everyone in Mushroom World and beyond knows that by now. If they don't, I don't know where they've been for so many years. Anyway, I don't have to win that silly race. You are my prize."
She couldn't help but give him a smile that became a giggle when he pulled her into his arms and snuggled her.
"And so beautiful." he said quietly, stroking her lovely sunlit locks. "I only meant to stay for a little while, but it looks like I can't leave after all… Now, go over there and lock the door."