"The two shades of green."

Chapter 3

"Cloaked figure and his MetaYoshi."

"LUIGI!" Mario shot to a sitting position, sweat covering his sweat, breath deep and labored and his heart beating like crazy.

Ignoring the fact that he probably woke up Yoshi, he bottled towards the door, nearly knocking it out of his frames. The older plumber ran towards his little brother's room.

He needed to confirm that this was all just a stupid dream.

That Luigi is sleeping calmly in his bed.

Safe and sound.

Not lying in the catacomb, cold and lifeless.

Dead.

Mario shook his head as he ran.

This had to be a nightmare! He yelled mentally. It just HAS to!

He chuckled silently. Luigi will probably be furious when he's going to wake him up in the middle of the night just because of a stupid nightmare.

Mario could almost hear what his brother is going to say once he explains everything to him.

"Relax Mario." The Luigi in his mind rolls his beautiful, baby blue eyes at him. "It was only a bad dream. I'm fine and I'm not going anywhere. Now go back to sleep. I promise I'll make you pasta for breakfast now let me sleep. "

That little vision made the hero run even faster.

But all hope flew out of the window when he finally reached the door.

Something was wrong.

What was wrong you ask?

He didn't sense Luigi's presence in the room.

With a shaky hand he twisted the doorknob and gently pushed the door open.

He was greeted by a large light green painted room and an empty, neatly done bed.

An empty feeling filled Mario's heart.

So it wasn't a dream. He thought sadly and was about to leave when something in the back of his head made him stop.

There was something wrong with his baby brother's room.

He turned on the light and walked in looking it over with a critical eye.

As always Luigi's room was extremely neat:

His lemon green lamp had a new light blob, his carpet was nicely vacuumed, his dark brown desk was not covered in papers like Mario's was, his floor was so perfectly cleaned he could practically see his reflection in it and his curtains were freshly taken out of the dryer a day ago. Mario figured the last one because they were still smelly with the flower washing liquid they used.

It seemed normal but the elder brother saw the imperfections Luigi would never leave unnoticed.

For example the wardrobe where the green plumber had his clothes in was slightly opened with one of the many overalls sticking out of it.

Not to mention the wide open window.

Did Luigi opened it before they left to save princess Peach? Mario took of his trade mark white glove and held the now naked hand in the air. No the air would be colder if he did. The red clad hero thought frowning.

There was only one logical explanation.

Somebody broke into his baby brother's room and stole something.

Growling at the already long gone impostor Mario walked up to the wardrobe hoping to find out what was taken. With one swift movement he swung it open.

Nothing seemed to be missing. Frowning the red plumber counted the overalls again.

18.

They both had 19 pairs of those clothes. One pair Luigi took to his grave so everything was fine right?

Wrong.

Mario pushed the visible overalls aside where he knew the younger kept the "Mr.L costume" from their adventure against Count Bleck and the Void.

The problem is the black version of Luigi's clothes was nowhere in sight.

Okay so the theft broke in through the window and took Mr.L's costume. Mario analyzed closing his eyes in concentration. But what would someone want with those clothes? He thought deeply. They're not valuable and there's clearly more expensive things in this room they could have taken. Mario shivered when a blow of cold air blew from outside.

Hurriedly he rushed over to the window to close it.

Once he completed the action he looked at the woods it gazed at.

Luigi always liked the sight of trees and plants. He said it inspired him to draw his pictures of nature.

He gave the woods one last glance before turning to finally leave the room when once again something stopped him.

Slowly turning his head to look at the woods he saw what stopped him.

There was a dark hooded figure standing on one of the branches.

Staring back at him for beneath the hood.

They stared at each other for a minute before the figure nodded its head and ran into the forest.

Mario didn't waist a second. Like a rocket he ran downstairs in hopes to catch the cloaked figure he was sure was the theft.

But once he reached the entrance the figure was long gone.

"DAMN IT!" Mario yelled throwing his red cap to the ground and stomping on it in utter frustration.

Somewhere in the woods

He didn't know what made him stay and look at the red clad hero close the window.

It just felt…necessary somehow.

He could tell the room the mysterious voice in his head told him to rob didn't belong to the infamous Mario.

Not only because the colors didn't match but because the overalls in the wardrobe were much too big for him.

From the look in the man's eyes he could see something bad happened to the owner of the green room who, for reasons unknown to him, had his overalls in the far back of the dark brown wardrobe.

When he was certain he locked the man's gaze with his own he nodded his head as condolences.

Death was written all over Mario's face.

Then he rushed back to where he came from.

To the forest.

You can imagine his shock when he woke up in a catacomb, a place meant for the dead, with his muscles sore and head pounding like a wild animal in a cage.

It wasn't easy for him to escape a place opened only from the outside, but somehow he managed to trick the two toads that came to, apparently, collect his body by knocking them out cold once they stepped out of the building and with new found magic powers erase their memory.

That's when he realized that if they locked him in a burial place he must be considered dead.

That and the fact that he had completely different clothes on.

Growling quietly in frustration he wondered who could possibly possess his clothing.

He didn't have to wait long for an answer.

A voice deep within informed him that his overalls, mask, gloves, sweater, belt, hat, shoes and bandana were in the house of the infamous hero Mario. Precisely in the room with the view on the Always Green Forest.

So with nothing else to do he headed towards the house, keeping a low profile even though it was the middle of the night.

And now here he was. Already comfortable with his clothes on in the middle of the forest.

He knew what he had to do but for this mission he's going to need a transport.

Grinning he pressed some buttons on a hidden remote that he hid in his shoe in case he got separated from his other invention and needed to get to his crew fast.

It wasn't the remote for Brobot.

No.

That machine was just a prototype. What he's summoning now is his greatest invention so far.

After a minute he heard the sound of rocket engines somewhere above his head. Soon the machine landed before him.

It was a metal Yoshi.

"Hello MetaYoshi." He said his voice sounding darker and deeper even to him. The metallic dinosaur barked happily and started to lick his creators face as a greeting. Mr.L allowed a small smile to appear on his stone cold face.

It wasn't a normal metal lizard you see.

Mr.L made sure the robot could change to whatever he wanted it to. He accomplished it by using over a billion microscopic robots that could take any shape in a matter of seconds as well as copy the subject's strengths and abilities.

MetaYoshi was all silver, its skin gleaming with the moonlight. His eyes glowing with the color of the sun and large wings folded neatly on its back.

"Alright my loyal friend." He said putting his hooded cape back on covering his face as he petted the robot on its large slick to the touch nose. "We need to get to Darkland fast. You think you can manage partner?"

MetaYoshi grinned and made a bunch of happy sounds along with wiggling its large metal tail, glad it could be some help to its master.

Mr.L couldn't help but smile at his friend's enthusiasm as he walked up to the larger than average lizard and climbed up to its back.

Once he was comfortable he gave the robot a gentle press with his legs to let him know he can take off.

MetaYoshi grinned again then spread his ginormous wings and with their help leaped to the air.

"To King Bowser's kingdom MetaYoshi." Mr.L whispered gripping the handle on the Yoshi's saddle. "We need his help in completing our task."

The metallic dinosaur nodded and flew towards the dark kingdom with all the speed its engines could master.