It gets more exciting here. You thought it all started like a crazy SMB episode, didn't you? You all didn't expect this sudden turn of events to get all....strange, did you? DID YOU?!?! Yeah, you all will hate me for this. Now get on with the story.
He changed into his nightclothes. He pulled back the sheets. He snapped off the light and--
Creak. What was that? Under the crack below his door he saw twin shadows blocking the light from the hall. Mario snapped the dim light back on and opened his door. Luigi stood outside, staring at him blankly.
"Oh," began Mario, mustering up his apology. "Hey I uh, wanna say I'm sorry, for--"
"Kill Mario," Luigi interrupted, muttering incoherently.
"What?" sighed Mario impatiently, not liking to be interrupted.
"Kill Mario," his brother whispered, his unseeing eyes gazing at Mario eerily. The elder frowned a little, hearing the words but not yet understanding.
"What did you say?" he asked softly, disbelieving. Luigi's eyes dropped to the floor for a moment or two. When he looked up, they were a reptilian yellow, his pupils reduced to vertical slits.
"Kill Mario," he sneered, voice growing louder and more intense as he stepped nearer. "Kill Mario, kill Mario…"
"W-weegy!" begged Mario as he backed up quickly. "Stop it, you're creeping me out!"
"Kill Mario." One step forward.
"Luigi!" Two steps backwards.
"Kill Mario." Two steps.
"Stop it!" One step. Mario was cornered, and his brother took the chance to lash out with his hand, his fingers bent into claws, trying to swipe his brother's face. Mario dodged the attack, grabbing Luigi's arm firmly in an iron grip and demanding him. "Stop!"
His younger brother's face was curled into a sneer, which slowly melted with the command of "Look at me!" Luigi kept staring, then blinked once or twice, rubbing an eye with his free hand. He glanced around the room, confused.
"What am I doing here?" he asked, breathless.
Mario was befuddled, to say the least. Luigi turning evil and wanting to kill him, then suddenly forgetting anything had ever happened. It was as if he had no control over his mind, his thoughts…
"You don't remember anything?" snapped Mario hurriedly.
"No. Don't be so short with me."
Mario was struck with an idea. (Ouch! That must hurt.) "Give me your arm."
"No," countered Luigi defensively.
"Weegy…"
"I said no!" The young Mario turned on his heel to leave the room, but he stopped himself just on the threshold, a sweaty palm grasping the doorway. Tense silence subdued the room.
"What are you hiding?" his brother pleaded gently. Without further prodding, Luigi slowly and shamefully turned around and approached Mario. With a trembling hand, he rolled up his sleeve.
"This," he answered hoarsely, pulling back the bandage. Mario gasped in surprise. Around the diminishing teeth marks on Luigi's arm, his skin was pale green, scaly, and so…
Koopa-like.
"This can't be real," Mario breathed, holding his brothers arm and lightly running his fingers along his skin.
"It is." A long pause. "You still didn't say what happened."
"What happened when?"
"Just now."
Mario held his breath. "You were….trying to kill me."
"What?!"
"Yeah. You just kept saying that over and over: kill Mario."
"No, no, no." Luigi shook his head, incredulous. "No way I would do that."
"You did."
Silence again. Luigi swallowed hard. "I did hear something like a voice…it said that a lot."
Mario didn't respond. He was thinking. If Luigi got a bite from a wild Koopa, it must be almost like…turning him into a Koopa. Turning him against his brother, the Princess and the Mushroom Kingdom.
"We've got to stop this," said Mario determinedly. "Before it happens again."
"It won't," Luigi quickly reassured. "It won't happen again. I promise."
"But--"
"I won't listen to that voice anymore. I'll plug my ears or something. I swear." Eyes searching eyes, finding the trust that each other wanted. Mario finally nodded, only half convinced.
"All right."
"Maybe it will wear off on its own."
"…Maybe." Luigi sounded so confident, so sure that everything would be fine; Mario hated to be the voice of doom. The truth was, Luigi wasn't so sure himself. He hoped his voice didn't crack when he told his brother, "Let's just get some sleep."
Same as the night after. He changed into his nightclothes. He pulled back the sheets--
Kill Mario.
…What?
Kill Mario.
No, no, no…
Kill M--
"Stop it," Luihi hissed, looking around his room as if the voice was coming from somewhere nearby. To his surprise, it did. Grinning victoriously out of one side of his mouth, he shut off the light and climbed into bed.
……Kill Peach.
What?!
Kill Peach.
"No, no. I won't listen." Luigi sat up in bed and covered his ears, holding his breath.
Kill Peach.
"Stop," he whispered, pleading. "Stop it." He closed his eyes and squeezed them shut as if to keep whatever was talking to him from prying them open again.
Kill Peach. Kill Peach. The voice echoed in his mind, unrelenting, unmerciful. Luigi finally exhaled, slowly and tiredly as his head drooped low. His hands dropped to his sides. His eyes snapped open, and they held that same monstrous desire for evil, that same devilish yellow hue.
Peach herself was already asleep until her door creaked open. She rubbed her eyes sleepily and looked around.
"Hum…Mario?" she muttered before falling back down on the pillow. Yet now she heard something like a voice.
"Wha--?" She sat straight up, looking around the room. She could have sworn her saw the figure of a man leaning against a wall. She shook her head; he disappeared. Or maybe he just slunk into the shadows…
She lay back down, and for a moment heard nothing. Then a voice, so horrible and frightening it chilled her blood.
"Kill Peach," it whispered into the darkness. The Princess was convinced she was hearing thing, but her body froze just the same. She looked around with her eyes, not daring to move. "Kill Peach." The voice was closer now, hanging right in her ear. It sounded terribly familiar……She rolled over, whirling around, and faced Luigi squarely, his impassive face close to hers, but his yellow eyes filled with murder.
Peach started a piercing, high pitched scream, and the plumber cut her off, covering her nose and mouth with one hand. She twisted and writhed, unable to breath, but he was much more powerful that she remembered. She tried to pull his hand off, but it was clamped down too hard. She stared at Luigi with terrified eyes, begging him to stop. He returned her gaze blankly.
"Shhhh…." he whispered slowly, softly, holding a finger up to his lips. Peach couldn't last much longer, her lungs began to burn. She eventually stopped moving, stopped struggling. She blinked sleepily, her eyes starting to roll.
"Luigi!" Mario shouted from the bedroom door. "Stop!"
The blank response made him shiver. "Kill Peach…"
Mario charged his own brother, made a mighty leap over Peach and her bed and tackled Luigi on the floor. Rolling on top of him, he tried to talk to his brother who pushed against him, thrashing as if he were possessed.
"Weege…Luigi, look at me!" With more strength than the lean plumber ever possessed, he easily threw Mario off of him, standing up and growling like an animal.
Mario held his head in his hand after it struck the hard marble floor. He was relieved to hear Peach gasping for air, then panicked when Luigi pounced on top of him, pinning him down.
"Kill Mario," he sneered, baring his teeth which had strangely changed shape. To Mario's chagrin, they were sharp, pointy….ready to bite anything that got in their way. He tried sitting up but his efforts were in vain. His brother's frigid scaly fingers dug into his upper arms, forcing him into the cold white marble.
"L-Luigi! Look at me! Remember me?"
Luigi growled deep in this throat unnaturally, not responding.
"Remember, uh…remember when we lived in New York? Huh? All those good times we had?" Mario struggled for words. "Um…remember the time I took you fishing?....*To the pet shop?"
Luigi showed no sign of recognition. Instead he hissed at his brother, a nasty, snake-like tongue flipping out of his mouth.
Mario would have screamed if Peach hadn't smacked Luigi unconscious, swinging her scepter like a baseball bat. He fell to the floor, not moving, and the Princess gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. Her repentant, confused eyes met Mario's.
"I'm…I'm sorry," she whispered lamely, saline gathering in her eyes. He stood up, holding her arms gently.
"It's all right, Princess. Shh…"
"I didn't know what to do…I'm sorry."
"Peach, it's all right."
She drew a trembling breath. "What happened to him?"
Mario did not know where to begin. Yet the story was told, and Peach's face blanched. "Oh Mario. I'm so sorry." All the plumber could do was hold her.
Mario watched and waited by his brother's bed, waited until his eyelids fluttered open. Luigi groaned and tried rubbing his face, but his hands wouldn't move. On further investigation, he found his arms tied above his head with rope. Deflating, he cursed under his breath, and noticed Mario. He turned his head away, feeling the color rise to his face.
"Happened again, didn't it?"
Mario nodded, then cleared his throat after remembering his brother could not see him. "Yeah."
"Peach knows?"
"I uh, think she got the hint."
Luigi's head snapped towards his brother. "I didn't hurt her did I?"
Mario shook his head briskly. "No, no. She's okay. I told her everything."
The conversation was slow and delayed. "What's with the ropes?"
"You were…out of control."
Luigi pursed his lips grimy. "Times like these I wish I knew the words to 'Oops, I did it again'."
"That's not funny," Mario snapped.
"You're right! It's not!" Luigi retorted loudly. He glared at his brother for a moment or two, then shut his eyes, looking away.
"What are we going to do?"
A frightening pause. "I'm not sure. The doctors….they don't know what to think."
"Screw the doctors," Luigi whispered, blinking back tears. "I'm…I'm just kind of scared, you know?"
Mario gently placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Yeah, I know." Luigi tilted his head so that his cheek rested on the hand. More silence. Luigi was thinking.
"What's going to happen to me, Mario?"
Mario could only wish he had the answer. All he could come up with was "I don't know" and a shrug. He held his tongue, however, staying silent. He let his brother rest upon his hand, and he drifted off to sleep beside him.
It was still dark when Mario awoke later that night, hardly knowing he had fallen asleep. He wanted to rest longer, but his position for the chair was hardly comfortable. He rubbed his eyes, yawning.
"Hey, Weege," he croaked, not fully alert yet. "How ya doing?" No answer. Mario looked at the bed, then jumped out of his chair, heart beating fast. The bed was empty; the scrap of rope was chewed through, and the imprint of his brother on the sheets was all that remained.
"Luigi?" Mario searched the room high and low, the lamps brightening every corner. His brother was no where to be found. With a sickening realization, he leapt from the room and slid into the hall. "Oh, please, no."
Peach's bedroom. He snapped on the night, running to the bundle of covers that clumped on the bed. "Peach?" He threw back the sheets…
The Princess was gone.
A light breeze distracted Mario before he could think. He ran to the open window, slapping the wispy white curtains out of his face. His sweaty hands gripped the window sill as he peered into the shadows of the night. He looked down…and saw only bushes and grass.
"Luigi!" he shouted, his lone voice echoing through-out the dark hills. No answer. No stirring. Nothing.
Hopelessly gazing upward, the stars watched him, some twinkling from their celestial perch as if laughing at him, taunting "Mario's lost his brother! Mario's lost his brother…"
Pushing himself off the window Mario raced back to his room, snatching up something green and going to the one place he thought Luigi could be…
Bowser's Keep.
*Yeah, that whole pet shop thing is not my gig...I got it from John Leguizamo's stand up routine, and I find it hilariuos. So he owns that. Yeah.