Mario just wanted to collapse and feel the soft earth cradle him to sleep.  His heart and his body had never ached so much at the same time before.  The soldiers were gaining speed, and they were no longer a very safe distance away from him.

"Oh Daisy" he said, feeling as if somebody had dropped the heaviest weight in the world on his shoulders. "I have just about lost it! Why were you even going to walk that close to the mushroom kingdom with me… you knew you'd be caught! You should have left while you had the chance!"

"You can't run forever, Traitor!" The soldiers shouted, their voices shaking with rage.

Mario just thanked God he had cut through the forest instead of running past the deceased body of Peach, he would have been assumed her killer, which wouldn't exactly charm his fellow combatants, and a Toadstool charged with anger can do just about anything they set their mind to.

"Why is all of this happening? WHY?" He cried, which made it all the more easier for the toadstool fighters to track him down.

He didn't expect that his fragment of a temper tantrum would draw him to someone ELSE'S attention.

"pssssst!" he heard someone whisper.

"Who is that?" he asked, coming to a halt.

"Over here!"

Mario craned his neck to look in the direction the voice seemed to be projecting from, but all he saw was the brush.

"Don't be a fool, they are chasing you you know!"

"Maybe if you'd let me see you!" Mario replied, feeling a bit annoyed.

"I'm standing right in front of you!" the voice cried.

"WHERE?"

"Look down!"

Mario muttered an obscenity under his breath, then looked down at his shoes…

"FROG? What the hell are you doing out here?" he cried, almost dropping Daisy.

"People were worried having not seen you since the battle, I went out to look for you, and that's when I saw Peach, I tried to find you and warn you that soldiers were on the look out but-"

"Frog, this all seems pretty shady to me, I for one don't buy the fact that you're out here waiting for me to fall out of the sky!"

"Don't be so foolhardy and arrogant, are you going to get yourself exiled, or hung and let that girl die, or are you going to let me help you?"

Mario looked off into the horizon, he hadn't realized that he had neglected to sleep at all after the battle, and it had already been morning for quite some time.

And for God's sake Daisy was getting heavy!

"Alright frog, but what can you do about a bullet wound?"

Frog grinned slightly and motioned for Mario to follow him.  Mario DID feel pretty foolish following someone even shorter than himself through the woods, while carrying the other Army's wounded princess in his arms… the whole scenario was too wacky to be real… maybe that was a sign that this all was a horribly vivid nightmare and he'd wake up drenched in sweat any moment now.

Not a chance.

"Frog, can you please move faster, these are skilled masters of offensive and defensive arts!" Mario whined.

"You think I got job of retainer just because I'm Toad's sibling?" frog asked haughtily.

"in a nutshell, yes." Mario replied.

Frog frowned at him.  "I do have SOME skills, they don't just pick anybody to be a retainer!" he cried waving his stubby arms in the air.

"Sorry Frog, but I never thought handing someone a drink and fluffing their pillow occasionally took much skill."

"That's not ALL I do Mario!"

"Oh yeah, I forgot opening the door and acting incredibly perky."

"Do you want help or not?"

Mario nodded his head wearily.

"Good, now as I was saying, retainers do have to know some things, such as using castle power wisely, observe!"  With that, frog took a small, silver coin out of his pocket and held it up to the sky. A ray of blinding light that gave Mario an even more intense headache emerged.

"Alright, besides causing me even more pain, what did that really do?" Mario asked.

"You see Mario, though Peach is the only one trusted with the power that guards the castle, retainers are given special coins with powers to defend themselves and the kingdom.  The ray of light I shot from my coin kind of, knocks out anybody tracking me, or someone of my party. It IS temporary though so we certainly have no time to dilly dally!"

The threesome (or the two using their feet that is) scurried through the forest until they made it to a quaint cabin, very well hidden.

"How did you find this?" Mario asked.

"I built it, all by myself!"

Mario grimaced.  "Frog, nobody can build a cabin in the middle of the woods within a few minutes of looking for somebody!

"Mario, Mario, Mario, how foolish.  I did arrive at the kingdom when war was declared, I'm no fool, desperate times call for desperate measures, so for the entire time I've been at the kingdom, aside from my servitude, I've been building myself a safe haven if worse comes to worse at the kingdom."

"Clever…" Mario said, still not totally convinced.

"Come on inside" Frog replied, running up to the door and opening it for Mario.

The cabin was a bit small, even Mario had to stoop over a bit to avoid hitting his head on the door way, but once in side the ceiling was much higher than it appeared…. And the interior was stocked with all the food, water, blankets, and medical supplies anybody in a war would need.

"Set Daisy down on this nice, comfy bed, and you can rest on this cot for a little while" Frog replied.

Mario didn't like the idea of napping on a cot, but he was so haggard and emotionally impaired that anything felt like an expensive, quality mattress.  Immediately he found himself losing consciousness… and falling into a deep, pleasurable sleep….

"Mario………Mama's not here…"

"Luigi, I told you before…. Mama can never come back…I'm looking out for you now!"

"I know that… but……she's not here……and, there's a monster under my bed!"

"Luigi, sometimes ya gotta learn to fight the monsters!"

"How?"

"Ya gotsta let them now they don't scare ya, that's how!"

"But… they do scare me!"

"than you gotsta take desperate measures, get a weapon and get rid of that pesky monster!"

(leaves and comes back with a  vaccum cleaner)

"What do I do?"

"Press that red button and this machine will suck all the ghosts away!"

(Luigi wearily presses the button and takes hold of the vaccum)

"WOW! I can feel the ghosties flyin through the machine!"

"And they can NEVER escape either!"

"cool!"

"Some day, Luigi, you'll be brave enough to tackle thousands of Ghosties with just one machine! I know it!"

Suddenly Mario awoke.  He had this awful pain in his neck, like he had slept in the complete wrong position…

That dream…. Ugh… he remembered that night…. And how great it was to give Luigi something to believe in.

And years later when he had to fight real ghosts by himself….. he was still brave enough, even if it was no longer make believe.

What was going to happen to he and Luigi after he and daisy left the cabin? His mind had been endlessly haunted with childhood visions ever since the war began and tore the two most inseparable people a part.

I guess it was just a rude awakening…. Anything really IS possible.

"Mario….." a weak, quavering voice said.

"Mario looked over to the adjacent bed and saw Daisy sitting up, neatly bandaged, and far from dead.

"How did Frog do it? You're alive! This is incredible! What a relief!" Mario cried, leaping off of the cot and forgetting the crick in his neck.

"Where are we?" Daisy asked.

"Oh, We're in Frog's cabin in the woods, he saved you!"

"who's frog?" Daisy asked.

Mario frowned, he had forgotten Daisy hadn't been in touch with Peach, and knew nothing about the replacement head retainer.

"Peach's new retainer."

Daisy just moaned and rubbed her eyes.  "What is that beating my head?" she asked airily.

"You must be in a lot of pain."

"That's just from the gunshot?" she asked, quite depressed.

"I'm afraid so."

"Make it stop…." She sobbed, lying back down on the bed.

"As soon as Frog gets back here, he'll probably give you some medicine or something."

"You mean this person I don't even know has been fixing me up and giving me medicine? Eeep!" Daisy squealed.

"Frog was just trying to help, how ungrateful can you be?"

"I'm sorry but I see nothing helpful about a complete stranger operating on me when I'm blissfully unaware."

"If it hadn't been for him you'd be ETERNALLY blissfully unaware!" Mario cried.

"Yea.. sure" Daisy muttered. "By the way, where is that Frog guy anyway?

I think this is one of my longest chapters. Anyway, kinda boring I guess, but the story goes up hill from here. I know with peach gone and all it may seem like the story is coming to an end, but there's only been one battle.  The rest of the story focuses way more on the war! R+R