Chapter 9-Checking In
"AHG!!! Wario Mario! Flarch! Now cut it out!" The fat man in yellow was tied up by his arms in shackles next to his younger brother. His ankles were tightly bound to the floor. It didn't take much to get him to say his name and location. The troopa moved to the next victim, and stood behind him. Waluigi, who was also tied by his hands and feet, thought that he would be able to tough it out unlike his brother, but he was utterly wrong.
"Name and town." he said very impersonally.
"Cram it." Waluigi shot back, without so much as lifting his devilish eyes from the cracked tile floor. Without thinking, he swayed his midsection to the left. The whip missed him by a few inches. The troopa flogged immediately again. This time, Waluigi used the momentum to move his sticklike figure to the right. The troopa solved this by whipping horizontally while repeating,
"Name and town." The leather rope cracked against his back. He let out a long yelp.
"YAAAGH! Waluigi Mario! Same house as him! Flacrh!" The troopa scribbled down information on a little notepad, then left the room, locking the door tight. Wario and Waluigi kept their initial looks of careessness and apathy.
"That's it, no more." Wario decided. "Our last job is to get out of here and have a beer."
"Hrmm..." Waluigi hardly felt like talking.
Across the hall, two other Italian men were being squeezed for information. They were also being fed horrible information.
"OW! OW! 437, Mushroom Way, Toadtown, Mushroom Kingdom! Both of us!" Mario shouted, trying to quench the punishment.
"I've got one more question for you lunatics. I understand that part about breaking into Goomba's casino, trying to get into the flower factory, and having a wooden guy in a blue dress kill two of our men, but why were you carrying around an autistic mushroom with you?"
"The hell you talking about?" Mario asked through clenched teeth. The pain in his back was still shooting.
"Toad." Luigi offered with exhaustion. "He means Toad. No, man, Toad's not--" The troopa with the whip closed his eyes and waved his hands with impatience. 's toward the edge,
"I... I don't care. Reatrd, stoner, whatever. Deformed in some way, that's all we need. Had a lot of THC in his system, but a hell of a lot of good that did for him, huh?" he chuckled negatingly. "He's over in the building next to this one."
Mario remembered his current condition, and pleaded. "Oh... you... you guys need to get him some medical attention. He could die!" This was a rather dumb request for Mario to make of his own enemies.
"Forget it. By the time the experiment's done, he'll be dead. At least he will be if the guys we send in do everything right." The troopa shrugged.
"Experiment? Dead!? What's going on?" Luigi screamed, "Tell me now, asshole!"
"Dream technology. That's all you need to know. Byebye for now, kids." The guard walked out and closed the door, leaving the room pitch black. The two pairs of Marios had no idea that the others were across the hall in the same type of prison. After what felt like forever, and Mario and Luigi had been stewing in infinite trauma, the metal door squeaked open again. Two Boo soldiers undid their shackles, and pulled them out of the cell. They led them to a room with two crude chairs with straps on them.
A few hours later, a van sped down a street that sounded awkwardly familiar. Wario and Waluigi were blindfolded, gagged, and tied. It rolled to a stop and the engine turned off. The door open letting piercing white light in. Two men yanked the blindfolds off of Wario and Waluigi. They looked across the back of the van to see two women. Their hair was scraggled, their eyes were tired and scratched, and their skirts were torn. Peach and Daisy had been kidnapped and crammed in the same van as Wario and Waluigi. The two brothers sighed in annoyance. One of the two men in the front seats started to explain the situation like a bus driver.
"Alright guys, we can't make a huge scene keeping you on the island, so we've placed the block under martial law. And don't worry, the boss practically owns this half of the city, so this won't draw much attention." Waluigi just rolled his eyes.
"Now we needed somewhere really small, inconspicuous, and crappy, so we just picked a house that got abandoned yesterday. It's toward the edge of the city, so no one's gonna come look here. Go upstairs, walk in the front door, sit on the couch, and don't even think ahout leaving for at least a week. When we're everything's said and done, you're coming back to headquarters. The boss has got special plans for you. You're being watched, so don't pull anything. And when you get out of this vehicle, you'll have eyes on you at all times. So stay quiet." He and the other man ungagged and untied the four, and snapped his fingers. As calmly and silently as they could, Wario, Peach, Daisy, and Waluigi stepped out onto the sidewalk. As they crossed the street, Daisy thought about the situation. Guns were pointed at them from essentially every direction. The last time she and Peach saw these two was when they were yelling at eachother on a tiny boat hundreds of miles away. Now, they were back in Flarch City, forced to cross the street together, without saying a word. They were right next to eachother and couldn't communicate. They all had to protect eachother by doing absolutely nothing. The scared victims took a look at the residence they had been dropped off at. It was a tiny place above a bar. It had black metal stairs, with a few missing. By sheer concidence, Wario and Waluigi were going to be hostages is their own home. Wario knew it was going to take a while to get the princesses to believe this. The group walked the rickety metal stairs to the apartment. Waluigi thought to himself that two guys walking in with two ratty-lookng girls was going to look like a double hooker deal. Wario gingerly pushed the door open, and the other three proceeded to quietly follow him inside.
The two brothers hung their hats on the rack near the door, and flopped down into two armchairs. Peach and Daisy sank to the couch, physically and mentally beat.
"So..." Waluigi whispered, with his hands folded and his body still, "how was your day?" That did it. A tear fell from Peach's eye, and she buried her face into her hands. She silently cried, wishing her hero was there with her. Her shoulders moved up and down with the rhythm of her hypervenalating lungs. Daisy kept herself strong, and made an attempt to confort Peach with her hand. Wario pulled out a wallet. It was one he had found somewhere while trying to escape from the complex he was taken to, before he and his brother were caught again. He opened it, and flipped through the cards. Blockbuster, Texaco, photo ID. There was a picture of Toad on the ID. Daisy spotted this, and Wario cauht a look of surprise and anger from her. The look Wario returned said to Daisy asked her "So, what's your point?" She got up and snatched it from Wario's hand, stuffing it into her dress. She sat back down, slouched, and folded her arms. There was nothing left to do. They all felt like they in first grade were sitting outside the principal's office, waiting for their first tougne lashing. Wario and Waluigi were the two apathetic boys, Daisy was the disappointed tomboy, and Peach was the girl who broke down in tears. It was all so perfectly morbid.
A few more moments of dead silence passed.
"This is stupid." Waluigi said in a refreshingly audible tone. "I know they bugged our house, but I don't care."
"Your house? This is... your house?" Peach regained herself.
"Alright. I'll get them." Wario stood up and walked to the back of the kitchen. He opened the oven and pulled out a metal box. "We were supposed to rob the bank with these. Guess that plan's out." He pulled out two tiny Bob-ombs. They were light, plastic, and seemingly innocent.
"Those look like Burger King toys." Daisy stared at them.
"Yeah. Toys. Check this out." He placed one at the foot of the door and flipped a tiny switch. He patted the top of his television, and planted a kiss on the top of it. Waluigi kicked the wall.
"Dammit! We'll never see this stuff again."
"Better believe it, man." Wario put the second Bob-omb on top of a cieling fan blade and armed that one as well. "Goodbye crap apartment, hello fat insurance check." The brothers grabbed their hats off of the rack and ran to the tiny bathroom. Peach and Daisy hesitantly followed. Waluigi moved a wastebasket from beside the toilet and lifted a piece of the floor. Peach was shocked to see that the hole led to the stall of yet another bathrooom. Luckily, that stall was empty. Waluigi hopped down the narrow chute, and landed with his feet on the rim of the open toilet. Wario did the same, but with a lot less agility. Peach and Daisy made their way down slowly and safely, illiciting gripes and groans from Wario and Waluigi. Nervous, Wario went to the sink and threw water onto his face.
"Two minutes, thirty seconds." he notified the group.
"Oh my... two and thirty till what?" Peach sounded terrified. She was less terrified than she should have been. Wario wiped water from his mouth.
"Get to the back of the kitchen." Daisy and Peach looked at him in confusion and fear. "DO IT!" he ordered. The two ran out of the grimy bathroom, and followed the command. The cheating liars ran out into the bar area. Wario unplugged the running jukebox, and Waluigi got up onto a table.
"BOMB! THERE'S A BOMB IN HERE! EVERYONE OUT!" Waluigi did his duty to evacuate people from the building he was blowing up. After that, he hopped down, ran to the back of the kitchen, and he, along with Wario, grabbed the girls and ran. They ran straight back from the building, not turning. This way, they stayed out of sight of their captors. On the opposite side, people fled into the streets and sped away in their cars. The four stood on a street corner and watched the bar and their home explode in what would have been a fiery ball of fire and death.
"Heh, we just saved about a hundred lives." Wario folded his arms in triumph.
"But you blew that place up!" Daisy yelled for the first time in a while, rather annoyed.
"Hey, shut up!" Waluigi argued. "Okay, now that those guys think we're dead, I guess that's that. See ya around."
"Wait, wait!" Peach chased after Waluigi like a little girl. "What about us? You're just leaving us? What about the black flowers, the Marios, the... the..."
"Forget it. We're out of this mission. We're goin' to our dad's house. We need a place to stay, and we promised we'd fix his toilet last week. And we need to get away from where these stuis Musheads aren't gonna try to send us on these stupid death rides anymore."
"Oh, well now. How heroic of you. Guess we'll just have to walk!" Daisy said with her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed. The group stood on the edge of the city they knew they couldn't go back to. The highway was one way, and a fresh-looking field free of pollution lay the other.
"It's almost six, and I'm starving! All I had to eat was that crappy leftover pie at the hotel this morning. We're gonna hit the McDonald's a few miles down the road. Don't follow us." Wario spat his last words at the girls.
"This is it for us! We're done!" Waluigi declared. They turned and started to hitchhike, and the two princesses stood, pouting. They did all that they could do. They started to make their way across the wide field and small forest in order to get to the next town before dark.
Two strong Troopas lifted their axes. The dim lightbulbs flickered. The captured Marios were tied loosely to wooden chairs. The Boos were poised to finish the job after Mario and Luigi were dead. All they needed was a few seconds to break the rope, and they could have made their escape. But they didn't have even that. They had nothing left. Their lived had about four seconds remaining on them.
As the Troopas were getting ready to swing, everything went black. A computerized female voice sounded. "EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN ACTIVATED!" The reflexes kicked in, and Mario and Luigi kicked the men in front of them. Their axes fell, and the brothers snapped the ropes that were holding them. They bolted for the open door, and turned left down a hallway. It was lit with infrared lights, but they were barely enough to guide them. At last, they found an exit, and kicked open the door. Before them lay a sunset beach, and a green dinosaur. Yoshi had a soldier on his back trying to choke him. He gave him an elbow in the nose and brushed him off. Over at the building a few yards away, a door busted open, and a chemically altered Toad stumbled out.
"I did it, I won! I DID IT, MAN! I let Yoshi out too!" he fell down face first on the ground. Luigi picked him up.
"Ya sure did, buddy! You shut the power off?" he brushed sand off Toad's face and Toad just grumbled. Yoshi grabbed the attention of the three and motioned for them to hop on. They boarded his sattle, and Yoshi ran to a small dock. He jumped into a speedboat, and grabbed the cord to the motor in back. Troopas bursted out of the factory and charged the boat, firing their weapons. Yoshi pulled once. They got closer. He yanked a second time. A bullet wizzed past Mario's head. Yoshi let out the third charm and the motor roared to life. Luigi put it on full throttle, and took off.
After setting a quick course and getting away from the island, the group was headed back to Mushroom Kingdom. Toad held a large envelope in his hands.
"AHG!!! Wario Mario! Flarch! Now cut it out!" The fat man in yellow was tied up by his arms in shackles next to his younger brother. His ankles were tightly bound to the floor. It didn't take much to get him to say his name and location. The troopa moved to the next victim, and stood behind him. Waluigi, who was also tied by his hands and feet, thought that he would be able to tough it out unlike his brother, but he was utterly wrong.
"Name and town." he said very impersonally.
"Cram it." Waluigi shot back, without so much as lifting his devilish eyes from the cracked tile floor. Without thinking, he swayed his midsection to the left. The whip missed him by a few inches. The troopa flogged immediately again. This time, Waluigi used the momentum to move his sticklike figure to the right. The troopa solved this by whipping horizontally while repeating,
"Name and town." The leather rope cracked against his back. He let out a long yelp.
"YAAAGH! Waluigi Mario! Same house as him! Flacrh!" The troopa scribbled down information on a little notepad, then left the room, locking the door tight. Wario and Waluigi kept their initial looks of careessness and apathy.
"That's it, no more." Wario decided. "Our last job is to get out of here and have a beer."
"Hrmm..." Waluigi hardly felt like talking.
Across the hall, two other Italian men were being squeezed for information. They were also being fed horrible information.
"OW! OW! 437, Mushroom Way, Toadtown, Mushroom Kingdom! Both of us!" Mario shouted, trying to quench the punishment.
"I've got one more question for you lunatics. I understand that part about breaking into Goomba's casino, trying to get into the flower factory, and having a wooden guy in a blue dress kill two of our men, but why were you carrying around an autistic mushroom with you?"
"The hell you talking about?" Mario asked through clenched teeth. The pain in his back was still shooting.
"Toad." Luigi offered with exhaustion. "He means Toad. No, man, Toad's not--" The troopa with the whip closed his eyes and waved his hands with impatience. 's toward the edge,
"I... I don't care. Reatrd, stoner, whatever. Deformed in some way, that's all we need. Had a lot of THC in his system, but a hell of a lot of good that did for him, huh?" he chuckled negatingly. "He's over in the building next to this one."
Mario remembered his current condition, and pleaded. "Oh... you... you guys need to get him some medical attention. He could die!" This was a rather dumb request for Mario to make of his own enemies.
"Forget it. By the time the experiment's done, he'll be dead. At least he will be if the guys we send in do everything right." The troopa shrugged.
"Experiment? Dead!? What's going on?" Luigi screamed, "Tell me now, asshole!"
"Dream technology. That's all you need to know. Byebye for now, kids." The guard walked out and closed the door, leaving the room pitch black. The two pairs of Marios had no idea that the others were across the hall in the same type of prison. After what felt like forever, and Mario and Luigi had been stewing in infinite trauma, the metal door squeaked open again. Two Boo soldiers undid their shackles, and pulled them out of the cell. They led them to a room with two crude chairs with straps on them.
A few hours later, a van sped down a street that sounded awkwardly familiar. Wario and Waluigi were blindfolded, gagged, and tied. It rolled to a stop and the engine turned off. The door open letting piercing white light in. Two men yanked the blindfolds off of Wario and Waluigi. They looked across the back of the van to see two women. Their hair was scraggled, their eyes were tired and scratched, and their skirts were torn. Peach and Daisy had been kidnapped and crammed in the same van as Wario and Waluigi. The two brothers sighed in annoyance. One of the two men in the front seats started to explain the situation like a bus driver.
"Alright guys, we can't make a huge scene keeping you on the island, so we've placed the block under martial law. And don't worry, the boss practically owns this half of the city, so this won't draw much attention." Waluigi just rolled his eyes.
"Now we needed somewhere really small, inconspicuous, and crappy, so we just picked a house that got abandoned yesterday. It's toward the edge of the city, so no one's gonna come look here. Go upstairs, walk in the front door, sit on the couch, and don't even think ahout leaving for at least a week. When we're everything's said and done, you're coming back to headquarters. The boss has got special plans for you. You're being watched, so don't pull anything. And when you get out of this vehicle, you'll have eyes on you at all times. So stay quiet." He and the other man ungagged and untied the four, and snapped his fingers. As calmly and silently as they could, Wario, Peach, Daisy, and Waluigi stepped out onto the sidewalk. As they crossed the street, Daisy thought about the situation. Guns were pointed at them from essentially every direction. The last time she and Peach saw these two was when they were yelling at eachother on a tiny boat hundreds of miles away. Now, they were back in Flarch City, forced to cross the street together, without saying a word. They were right next to eachother and couldn't communicate. They all had to protect eachother by doing absolutely nothing. The scared victims took a look at the residence they had been dropped off at. It was a tiny place above a bar. It had black metal stairs, with a few missing. By sheer concidence, Wario and Waluigi were going to be hostages is their own home. Wario knew it was going to take a while to get the princesses to believe this. The group walked the rickety metal stairs to the apartment. Waluigi thought to himself that two guys walking in with two ratty-lookng girls was going to look like a double hooker deal. Wario gingerly pushed the door open, and the other three proceeded to quietly follow him inside.
The two brothers hung their hats on the rack near the door, and flopped down into two armchairs. Peach and Daisy sank to the couch, physically and mentally beat.
"So..." Waluigi whispered, with his hands folded and his body still, "how was your day?" That did it. A tear fell from Peach's eye, and she buried her face into her hands. She silently cried, wishing her hero was there with her. Her shoulders moved up and down with the rhythm of her hypervenalating lungs. Daisy kept herself strong, and made an attempt to confort Peach with her hand. Wario pulled out a wallet. It was one he had found somewhere while trying to escape from the complex he was taken to, before he and his brother were caught again. He opened it, and flipped through the cards. Blockbuster, Texaco, photo ID. There was a picture of Toad on the ID. Daisy spotted this, and Wario cauht a look of surprise and anger from her. The look Wario returned said to Daisy asked her "So, what's your point?" She got up and snatched it from Wario's hand, stuffing it into her dress. She sat back down, slouched, and folded her arms. There was nothing left to do. They all felt like they in first grade were sitting outside the principal's office, waiting for their first tougne lashing. Wario and Waluigi were the two apathetic boys, Daisy was the disappointed tomboy, and Peach was the girl who broke down in tears. It was all so perfectly morbid.
A few more moments of dead silence passed.
"This is stupid." Waluigi said in a refreshingly audible tone. "I know they bugged our house, but I don't care."
"Your house? This is... your house?" Peach regained herself.
"Alright. I'll get them." Wario stood up and walked to the back of the kitchen. He opened the oven and pulled out a metal box. "We were supposed to rob the bank with these. Guess that plan's out." He pulled out two tiny Bob-ombs. They were light, plastic, and seemingly innocent.
"Those look like Burger King toys." Daisy stared at them.
"Yeah. Toys. Check this out." He placed one at the foot of the door and flipped a tiny switch. He patted the top of his television, and planted a kiss on the top of it. Waluigi kicked the wall.
"Dammit! We'll never see this stuff again."
"Better believe it, man." Wario put the second Bob-omb on top of a cieling fan blade and armed that one as well. "Goodbye crap apartment, hello fat insurance check." The brothers grabbed their hats off of the rack and ran to the tiny bathroom. Peach and Daisy hesitantly followed. Waluigi moved a wastebasket from beside the toilet and lifted a piece of the floor. Peach was shocked to see that the hole led to the stall of yet another bathrooom. Luckily, that stall was empty. Waluigi hopped down the narrow chute, and landed with his feet on the rim of the open toilet. Wario did the same, but with a lot less agility. Peach and Daisy made their way down slowly and safely, illiciting gripes and groans from Wario and Waluigi. Nervous, Wario went to the sink and threw water onto his face.
"Two minutes, thirty seconds." he notified the group.
"Oh my... two and thirty till what?" Peach sounded terrified. She was less terrified than she should have been. Wario wiped water from his mouth.
"Get to the back of the kitchen." Daisy and Peach looked at him in confusion and fear. "DO IT!" he ordered. The two ran out of the grimy bathroom, and followed the command. The cheating liars ran out into the bar area. Wario unplugged the running jukebox, and Waluigi got up onto a table.
"BOMB! THERE'S A BOMB IN HERE! EVERYONE OUT!" Waluigi did his duty to evacuate people from the building he was blowing up. After that, he hopped down, ran to the back of the kitchen, and he, along with Wario, grabbed the girls and ran. They ran straight back from the building, not turning. This way, they stayed out of sight of their captors. On the opposite side, people fled into the streets and sped away in their cars. The four stood on a street corner and watched the bar and their home explode in what would have been a fiery ball of fire and death.
"Heh, we just saved about a hundred lives." Wario folded his arms in triumph.
"But you blew that place up!" Daisy yelled for the first time in a while, rather annoyed.
"Hey, shut up!" Waluigi argued. "Okay, now that those guys think we're dead, I guess that's that. See ya around."
"Wait, wait!" Peach chased after Waluigi like a little girl. "What about us? You're just leaving us? What about the black flowers, the Marios, the... the..."
"Forget it. We're out of this mission. We're goin' to our dad's house. We need a place to stay, and we promised we'd fix his toilet last week. And we need to get away from where these stuis Musheads aren't gonna try to send us on these stupid death rides anymore."
"Oh, well now. How heroic of you. Guess we'll just have to walk!" Daisy said with her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed. The group stood on the edge of the city they knew they couldn't go back to. The highway was one way, and a fresh-looking field free of pollution lay the other.
"It's almost six, and I'm starving! All I had to eat was that crappy leftover pie at the hotel this morning. We're gonna hit the McDonald's a few miles down the road. Don't follow us." Wario spat his last words at the girls.
"This is it for us! We're done!" Waluigi declared. They turned and started to hitchhike, and the two princesses stood, pouting. They did all that they could do. They started to make their way across the wide field and small forest in order to get to the next town before dark.
Two strong Troopas lifted their axes. The dim lightbulbs flickered. The captured Marios were tied loosely to wooden chairs. The Boos were poised to finish the job after Mario and Luigi were dead. All they needed was a few seconds to break the rope, and they could have made their escape. But they didn't have even that. They had nothing left. Their lived had about four seconds remaining on them.
As the Troopas were getting ready to swing, everything went black. A computerized female voice sounded. "EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN ACTIVATED!" The reflexes kicked in, and Mario and Luigi kicked the men in front of them. Their axes fell, and the brothers snapped the ropes that were holding them. They bolted for the open door, and turned left down a hallway. It was lit with infrared lights, but they were barely enough to guide them. At last, they found an exit, and kicked open the door. Before them lay a sunset beach, and a green dinosaur. Yoshi had a soldier on his back trying to choke him. He gave him an elbow in the nose and brushed him off. Over at the building a few yards away, a door busted open, and a chemically altered Toad stumbled out.
"I did it, I won! I DID IT, MAN! I let Yoshi out too!" he fell down face first on the ground. Luigi picked him up.
"Ya sure did, buddy! You shut the power off?" he brushed sand off Toad's face and Toad just grumbled. Yoshi grabbed the attention of the three and motioned for them to hop on. They boarded his sattle, and Yoshi ran to a small dock. He jumped into a speedboat, and grabbed the cord to the motor in back. Troopas bursted out of the factory and charged the boat, firing their weapons. Yoshi pulled once. They got closer. He yanked a second time. A bullet wizzed past Mario's head. Yoshi let out the third charm and the motor roared to life. Luigi put it on full throttle, and took off.
After setting a quick course and getting away from the island, the group was headed back to Mushroom Kingdom. Toad held a large envelope in his hands.